As the title of this post says, does the advent of the mobile phone really impact the e-learning environment? Are users of mobile phones looking for learning content delivered on their mobile phones? Does m-learning have a future? Here is an interesting video of the highlights of the debate that took place at the 2010 Learning Technologies conference.

For the past two years or so, there was a lot of hype about mobile learning or m-learning; which is seen to be a step forward from e-learning. However, the much vaunted numbers of m-learners are nowhere to be seen. Yes, we had the I-Phone and now we have the G-phone, but have you heard about any great m-learning applications yet?

The reason is not for want of courses, software or products. We had launched our m-learning course on RFID (actually a quiz),  more than a year back, but it is not very popular.  Cost is not an issue, it costs just a dollar.  Compatibility is also not an issue, it can run on a Windows smartphone or a Blackberry or a Palm, equally well.

The real issue seems to be that the small screen size of most smartphones (small compared to the large  monitors on most computers). People are used to viewing things on larger and larger screens by the day and the small screen seems to be the biggest hurdle in getting users to accept m-learning.

If there is a way to project the mobile smartphone screen on another surface (like the way a beamer projects a PC screen on a wall), then there may some interest generated, else the situation may remain the same.

What do you think? Comments are always welcome!