ESHA Magazine April 2012.pdf

MOBILE DEVICES: THE LEARNING DISCONNECT
There used to be a comfortable logic to the way we interacted with
people, places, and things.
You wanted knowledge, you went to a library; you wanted to be
social, you went to a club or café. You wanted retail therapy, to be
a consumer, you went to a shop. These behaviours were imposed
upon us by culture, society and geography. Everything has and is
continuing to change, as the internet imposes itself upon the lives of
every individual. Today a company can go from concept to market
in four weeks, the Rockchip Android Tablet PC is a good example
of this. Our positive
response to these
digital devices and the
increasing power of the
web is imperative, we
need to ask ourselves
as flexible, creative
educators what are
we capable of achieving
if we truly embrace
digital devices and
connectivity?
Events, threats and
opportunities aren’t just coming at us faster than ever before, they
are also less predictable and they are converging and infl uencing
each other to create entirely new and unforeseen paradigms.
The internet has given us a world of connectivity, a world of new
learning potential. Connectivity which allows us to ‘be’ in many
places at once. Online with friends in the UK, scheduling a meeting
in Doha, re-charging in Dubai. Our lives and our learning are
connected by millions of invisible threads. Which brings us to the
present, we don’t go to the internet anymore. The internet is now
an intricate part of our lives.
54 ESHA MAGAZINE APRIL 2012