Don’t Tell Me the Facts: From Increasing Knowledge to Increasing Ways of Knowing

Higher Education institutions have historically been charged with increasing the content knowledge of students. In recent years advances in technology have challenged the traditional class room method of increasing knowledge and institutions have adapted by mirroring the traditional experience in an online environment. However information content held by the academe and once only available via the class room (physical and online) is now openly available to anyone. The delivery of facts and information are becoming devalued and often superfluous in this context. Therefore, making education mobile is no longer the goal; making education globally relevant in a mobile environment needs to be. Much of today’s mobile education literature focuses on developing content for online delivery for distant/external students, developing technical tools that support classroom activities, assessment submission, collaborative activities and discussion forums. While useful, the paradigm underpinning the approach needs to be reconceptualised in light of changes in environment resulting from the information revolution. ‘Mobile education’ therefore needs to expand from making materials available to acknowledging knowledge created outside academe (mobile information). This shift will assist institutions with educational design and delivery that 1) takes advantage of self-directed learning made possible by mobile information and 2) promotes an increase and exploration in ways of knowing, creating mobile knowledge. This paper will examine issues such as curriculum development, pedagogical design and teaching practice from a mobile knowledge paradigm.