International Association of Technology, Education and Development
Abstract
Based upon three years of mobile learning (mlearning) projects, a major implementation project has
been developed for integrating the use of mobile web 2.0 tools across a variety of departments and
courses in a tertiary education environment. A participatory action research methodology guides and
informs the project. The project is based upon an explicit social constuctivist pedagogy, focusing on
student collaboration, and the sharing and critique of student-generated content using freely available
web 2.0 services. These include blogs, social networks, location aware (geotagged) image and video
sharing, instant messaging, microblogging etc… Students and lecturers are provided with either an
appropriate smartphone and/or a 3G capable netbook to use as their own for the duration of the
project. Keys to the projects success are the level of pedagogical and technical support, and the level
of integration of the tools into the courses – including assessment and lecturer modelling of the use of
the tools. The projects are supported by an intentional community of practice model, with the
researcher taking on the role of the “technology steward”. The paper outlines three different scenarios
illustrating how this course integration is being achieved, establishing a transferable model of mobile
web 2.0 integration and implementation. The goal is to facilitate a student-centred, collaborative,
flexible, context-bridging learning environment that empowers students as content producers and
learning context generators, guided by lecturers who effectively model th
