Evaluating mobile learning practice. Towards a framework for analysis of user-generated contexts with reference to the socio-cultural ecology of mobile learning

Abstract

Against the conceptual and theoretical background of a socio-culturally orientated approach to mobile learning (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010), this paper examines the evaluation of user-generated contexts by referring to an example from the use of mobile phones in schools. We discuss how mobile device-related, user- generated contexts around structures, agency and cultural practices might be brought into a fruitful relationship with institution-based learning. And, we provide categories for evaluating the use of mobile devices to generate meaning from and with fragmented and discontinuous media and modes at the interface of learning in formal, institutionalised and informal, self-directed settings. The evaluation criteria build on the framework of a socio-cultural ecology of mobile learning developed by the London Mobile Learning Group.