Welcome to MoLeNET!

The Mobile Learning Network (MoLeNET) is a unique collaborative approach to encouraging, supporting, expanding and promoting mobile learning, primarily in the English Further Education sector, via supported shared cost mobile learning projects. Collaboration at national level involves colleges and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) sharing the cost of projects introducing or expanding mobile learning and the Learning and Skills Network (LSN) providing a support and evaluation programme. The MoLeNET support and evaluation programme includes technical and pedagogic advice and support, materials development, continuing professional development, mentoring, facilitation of peer-to-peer support, networking and resource sharing, research and evaluation.

Latest news –

Tony Burgess

The MoLeNET programme team are deeply shocked and saddened by the sudden death, on 5th January 2008, of Tony Burgess, LSC’s Senior e-Learning Policy Manager.

Tony made MoLeNET possible by recognising the potential of mobile learning and allocating £6million of LSC capital funding for the initiative. Tony has championed e-learning in the learning and skills sector for a number of years and his enthusiasm as well as his sense of humour made him a pleasure to work with. He will be greatly missed.

The MoLeNET Projects

32 projects have been selected to take part in MoLeNET in 2007/08

The project teams are now hard at work getting their projects started with the support of the MoLeNET support and evaluation programme team

Supporting the MoLeNET projects

The MoLeNET support and evaluation programme team are providing on-site, national, regional and on-line support to MoLeNET projects.

The programme team consists of LSN staff and LSN associate experts in mobile learning acting as mentors to the MoLeNET projects and consultants to the programme. We also have a MoLeNET Advisory Board including national and international experts in both mobile learning and mobile technologies. See Who’s Who for more information.

On-line support is facilitated via 3 moodle courses – one for the MoLeNET projects and other educational institutions interested in mobile learning, one for the MoLeNET mentors and one for the Advisory Board and LSN staff.

The projects will continue throughout the current academic year (2007/08) and, in addition to on-going dissemination of interim outcomes, there will be a dissemination conference in September 2008 plus presentations at the annual international MLEARN conference which in 2008 returns to the UK for the first time since LSDA hosted MLEARN 2003.

The International Association for Mobile Learning (IAMLearn)

At the MLEARN 2007 conference in Melbourne in October 2007, the International Association for Mobile Learning (IAMLearn) was inaugurated with the aim of providing a professional association for researchers and practitioners, to promote excellence in research, development and application of mobile learning.

The Association is registered as a not for profit company in South Africa and the founding committee comprises the Chairs of previous MLEARN conferences, which have been held in Birmingham, London, Rome, Cape Town, Banff and Melbourne, and the 2008 conference which will take place in Ironbridge in the UK (see http://www.mlearn2008.org/).

Jill Attewell, Manager of LSN’s Technology Enhanced Learning Research Centre has been elected as the founding Vice President of IAMLearn. The founding President is Professor Mike Sharples, Director, Learning Sciences Research Institute University of Nottingham. Committee positions will be open for re-election at MLEARN 2008. A draft constitution was presented at the founding meeting and this will be revised during the coming weeks.

Although the Association was born at the MLEARN conference, the intention is for it to be an inclusive organisation. One task for the coming year is to engage mobile learning researchers in a discussion on how to manage the rapid growth in the field and to bring some coordination to the growing number of conferences and journals in the area of mobile, handheld and pervasive learning.

A temporary website for the IAMLearn can be found at http://www.iamlearn.caryloliver.com/ and visitors can register their interest in joining the association. www.iamlearn.org will become the address of the association soon. Benefits of membership will include reduction in registration fees at the MLEARN and Online Educa conferences and deals will be negotiated with other conference organisers.