Mobile Learning--its benefits and challenges

I'm currently taking an online course entitled iPads in the Classroom through the Online School for Girls, and my first assignment was to assess the viability of mobile learning in my classroom and at my school.  I read some intriguing research about how learning is shifting to mobile, and I watched this video about "digital natives" --aka my students--and how they learn best.  Here's what I concluded about my own approach to mobile learning at this stage of my teaching career:

Mobile learning allows us to nurture a student’s natural curiosity about the world--after all, that's why I became a teacher--and enables immediate gratification of that need to know. And given how unbelievably busy my students are, they need to be able to access and do their work in the space between the many demands on their time. That said, in a school environment where externally-imposed standards need to be met, grades need to be calculated, and groups of students are often required to be in a room together, it’s a challenge to let go of the reins of the traditional delivery of curriculum, embrace a truly open system --which can be discomfiting at best, and let learning happen that quickly and organically.  

We have to be willing to liberate learning from the comforting structure of a traditional classroom and facilitate  discovery, connection, and engagement.  To that end, I’m a big fan of bringing one’s own device, because then the learning is truly personalized—students can use what they’re comfortable with to drive an authentic, meaningful learning experience.

I’ve tried to open the mobile floodgates, but I’m eager to learn more about how to personalize my students’ learning even more.  I ultimately don’t care if kids use an e-book or hard copy of our texts (so long as they annotate).  I’ve piloted blogging with my sophomores this year, and I encourage them to post from their phones, tablets, laptops, whatever.   I’ve been known to skype with students the night before an essay's due, and Googledocs has been a fantastic tool for kids who can’t physically get together to collaborate on projects or essays. I also grade almost all of my students' essays electronically, so they don't have to physically be in class to receive feedback on their writing.

I find two challenges to my successful implementation of a mobile learning strategy.  First, I need to get better at managing my students’ expectations about access to me—while today's digital natives are learning  “whatever, wherever, whenever,” I'm not sure if that idea applies to human beings as it does to information.  Second, I need to keep myself organized, so I can track, assess, as well as guide each student’s learning.

I'm excited to see what comes out of this online course.  Hopefully I'll come away with some ideas I can implement ASAP in my classroom...