Mobile learning 'can be an essential tool for modern teaching environments'

Teachers are increasingly finding that mobile learning can be a useful tool for providing students with a tailored educational experience, according to an expert.Speaking to the Huffington Post, Suren Ramasubbu - the co-founder and chief executive officer of Mobicip.com - has observed that the advent of mainstream smart device adoption has provided educators with a great opportunity to embrace a "new paradigm of learning".Whereas in the past lesson plans would have to be structured around the lowest common denominator in order to ensure students of all levels are kept engaged, it is now possible to provide differentiated instructions, where a student's education is tailored to their individual attributes.In modern schools and teaching environments, every student owns a personal tablet or learning device, allowing them to work at their individual skills levels and automatically follow their own interests and styles of knowledge acquisition.Since devices like these can be taken home and used during the student's own time, this also allows parents to engage with their child's learning and ensures education does not end once the student leaves the classroom.According to Mr Ramasubbu, the popularisation of technology such as this also makes it possible to embrace a wide range of different learning styles, including cooperative education that involves group work, or project-based learning that encourages students to tackle a predetermined task in the way that suits them best.Additionally, mobile devices can facilitate choice learning, a working model that allows pupils to select the assignment they want to complete from a menu containing several equivalent projects."The challenge is for teachers to identify or learn the effective use of mobile learning to implement any combination of the automatic differentiation strategies," the expert said.With recent research from Global Industry Analysts suggesting that the worldwide e-learning industry is set to be worth as more than £64 billion next year, it is clear that tools such as these will become even more widely used in the coming years.