THE FOUR C’S OF MOBILE CAPABILITY AS GUIDING PRINCIPLE FOR MLEARNING DESIGN: A SHIFT OF LEARNERS’ FOCUS AWAY FROM TECHNOLOGY

Learning using mobile devices also known as mobile learning (mLearning) is the current buzz word in the present debates in the use of technology in education. Responses to the needs of today’s mobile learners have been almost instantaneous and overwhelming with the growing production of mobile learning websites, solutions and applications for mobile devices. However, despite their vast numbers and availability, most of these websites, solutions and applications requires too much of learners’ focus on their devices rather than placing their focus on the physical learning environment. In the interest of engaging learners using full capability of mLearning, learners’ focus should be dominantly on their environment rather than their mobile devices. However, the shift of the focus may instead compromise the usage of the full computational power of mobile devices. Thus, in view of giving priority to learners focus on object of learning while at the same time optimizing the mobile devices computational power, the authors proposed mLearning should not focus solely on content delivery but instead to be designed based on 4 C’s of mobile capability: content, capture, compute, and communicate. Implications of these mobile capabilities to mLearning design and learners’ focus were discussed.