Leveraging mobile technology for m-learning: 3rd generation threaded discussions

Emerging mobile technologies hold great promise for educational institutions seeking to extend the learning experience to an increasingly nomadic and time-challenged student community, especially at urban campuses where both faculty and students typically commute to school and struggle to multi-processes work, study and family time and location demands. The ability to reach out and engage learners, unconstrained by physical location, enables true anytime/anyplace access, helping combat the out-of-site/out-of-mind effect and leverage time otherwise wasted sitting in traffic or standing in line. This paper proposes a "third generation" (3G) threaded discussion facility that exploits mobile technology to enhance collaborative learning by adding a real-time, location-independent "push" dimension to this valuable, but previously passive, pull-oriented paradigm.