Enhancing the flexibility of distance education through mobile learning

For NKI it has been a major challenge to design solutions for users of mobile technology who wish to study also when on the move. Thus, when students are mobile and wishing to study, the equipment and technologies they use will be in addition to they equipment used at home or at work. The solutions must be designed in ways to allow both users and non-users of mobile technology to participate in the same course. This means that we have looked for solutions that are optimal for distributing content and communication in courses, independent on whether the students and tutors apply mobile technology or standard PC and Internet connection for teaching or learning. The learning environment must efficiently cater for both situations and both types of students. The solutions were developed for PDAs. During the time of the development and research the technologies have developed rapidly. Mobile phones are including PDA functionalities and vice versa. In principle the aim of developments is to design solutions that can be used on any kind of mobile devices.