A potential research topic

More and more students bring mobile devices into the classroom for learning. I am a very typical example. Due to my pregnancy and long journey to Hongkong, I am very reluctant to bring my laptop to the classroom, so my mobile phone are used in a very extreme way in learning. I preview lesson plans on Prezi, watch relevant videos on YouTube, view web pages through safari, manage key reading materials (word, PDF, PPT, etc.) with iBook, post my reflections on Group blog and individual blog as e-portfolios on Weebly and Blogger, discuss about presentations and homework with team members through webchat and QQ by sending instant text and audio messages, store and share our documents on Google drive, edit the same document at the same time with all the other team members on Google docs, check my emails from different faculties, teachers, classmates and so on through gmail, check and manage my own learning process through moodle, look for difficult terms or English words through electronic dictionary, and share what is happening in the classroom and school with friends through Weibo and Facebook, etc. only this small mobile phone can support teacher-directed instructions, small group learning and individual learning very well. Besides, iPhone is Palm-held, not expensive, and support keyboard input with acceptable screen size. From my own experience, wireless and mobile technologies bring forth a unique opportunity for educational researchers to find out how to construct a seamlessly integrated learning environment. Currently, schools can only accept iPad or laptop as mobile learning tools and are against iPhone. In the long term, I do believe smart phones will become the trend. That's why I'd like to explore more about how to utilize smart phones, especially iPhone, better in mobile learning, including the teaching strategies, learning materials, computer components, etc. needed to support it. PS: This short proposal is written and posted on iPhone. I am comfortably lying in the couch. It feels so good! I hope more people can benefit from my experiment and research.

-- Judy (Zhu Dan)