And speaking of mLearning, we think Mobile Learning’s recent post describing the Top 10 Learning Ideas to Try with Mobile Devices is a handy starting point for considering creative ways to incorporate mobile learning in the academy. Unfortunately, none of the top 10 refers specifically to math-based learning, which may be the reason for the discrepancy between the article’s title, which boasts 10 top ideas, and the actual post, which offers only 9… (frankly, we think it would have been more generous for the title to have under-reported and for the article to have gone to 11, but alas.) For such valuable information and for such a fine discussion, this is a small quibble, indeed.What are Mobile Learning’s top categories?

1. Situated/Proximal learning, which uses mLearning in a particular space, location or context, such as a nursery or art gallery, rather than the classroom;
2. Social/Collaborative learning, which emphasizes communication, interaction, and collaboration between learners;
3. Just-In-Time learning, which delivers small chunks of information to students as required by a particular situation;
4. Lifelong/Informal learning, which allows students to carry information with them outside of traditional learning contexts and share their own information with others;
5. Contextualised/Adaptive learning, which provides customized learning materials based on changing characteristics, such as language learning software that teaches “bon matin” in the morning and “bon soir” at night;
6. Convenient/Portable learning, which plays on the ubiquity and accessibility of mobile devices to allow learning whenever and wherever;
7. Personalised/Individual learning, which allows learners to customize their own learning environments and materials;
8. Connected learning, which enables learners to forge connections with other learners and to bring together materials from diverse sources;
9. Ubiquitous learning, which takes advantage of the fact that people carry their converged media devices with them most of the time, transforming all moments into possible learning opportunities.

Devices like the iPhone offer not merely a new technology, but a new way of conceiving of teaching and learning, and those of us who are educational professionals need to be quite busy indeed thinking about and trying out the new methods and applications that will grow to characterize learning in the 21st century. Articles like this and like the recent ECAR study offer us a great starting point.But don’t take our word for it… Click on over to Mobile Learning’s site and check it out.