 Hello everyone. My name is Mohamed Ali and I'm a professor at Athabasca University in Canada. Today we will be discussing the benefits of mobile learning. You know, many people ask me, why should I get into mobile learning? What are the benefits of mobile learning? Well, today we're going to discuss what are the benefits and you will learn about the benefits of mobile learning. So first, students can learn when they are alert, very very important. Students should learn at their peak times. So with mobile learning, students can access the learning materials from anywhere and anytime. And in education we have something called the learnable moment. Some students learn better in the morning, some students learn better in the evening, some students learn better late at night. So with mobile learning with the technology, they can access mobile learning materials anytime of the day depending on their peak time. And I call it the learnable moment. So we each have learnable moment. And the young kids, the young students today, they tend to learn better in the evening. So they can access learning materials in the evening. Students can learn from anywhere, anytime. As they move around, they can learn with their mobile devices. Encourage lifelong learning, very very important for the older generations. They can use the mobile devices to learn in their own communities or in their workplace so that they better themselves and they improve their quality of lives. And in some cultures, the older generations are very shy. They tend not to go to a formal school to learn. But with the mobile technology, they can actually access the learning materials from anywhere and they can learn at their own pace anytime that they want. Many students live in remote locations. And with the mobile technology, with the connectivity in the remote locations, the students can actually access the learning materials using their mobile devices. With mobile technology, learning is learner-centered. So the learner is in control of the learning. They can actually access information from the internet. If they see the learning outcome and they want to find more information, they can do their own research rather than depending on the teacher. So it's more learner-centered. It caters for different learning preferences. Students have different learning styles, different preferences. So they can access different types of materials based on their preferences. So for example, if a student like to look at video, they're very visual, they can actually access the visual materials. If they like to read text, they can access the text materials. Student learn in context so that they can apply what they learn right away. Very, very important. This is very important for a higher level learning. So the more you learn in context, the more you apply right away, the better you remember it and the better you can apply it. Very important, educate the special needs, the disabled. Some students can't move around. They can't travel. With the mobile technology, they can get educated in their home, in their own community without having to leave the community. So very, very important for the special needs, the disabled people so that they can access learning materials. They remove barriers to learning so people who do not have access to learning materials, to library, to schools, etc. And there are millions of students in development countries, there are no schools to go to. Why not give them the mobile technology to access learning materials? Very important to educate the females. In some countries, females are not allowed to go to schools. Why not allow them to use mobile technology to access the learning materials from wherever they are located. And one of the major benefits we are seeing today is we have a lot of youths today in the community who are lost. They are school dropout, they're not interested in school, but yet they have mobile technology. So why not design learning for access and mobile technology for these lost youth who have the technology that they use to play games and to interact with each other, get them to learn so that they can get employment and they can improve themselves. Also educate the displaced due to natural and human disasters. We have natural disasters around the world, earthquake, tsunami, etc. And schools are destroyed and people need to know what to do when these disasters happen. So why not send information on mobile devices? They all have mobile devices, provide learning materials and the mobile devices. And we also have human disasters, wars, which are human disasters. People get displaced, but they have to learn. A young generation have to learn. Allow them to access learning materials from mobile devices. So yes, they are many, many benefits of why we should use mobile learning and we should design learning materials for delivery and mobile technology. So why is access to education important? Education is a human right according to the United Nations. Everyone should have access to basic education, reduce illiteracy, especially in developing countries, so people can improve themselves. Productive society, if you have an educated society, educated country, people are more productive, which means that they improve their quality of life. So they will get meaningful jobs, they will know how to interact with each other, they will know how to get along so that they can improve their life. Education also raises people's self-esteem. So if you get people to access learning materials to better themselves, their self-esteem will improve. And if their self-esteem improved, they will have a positive outlook of life, which means you will have a better society. So we will change the world for the better if we educate people. And mobile technology, mobile learning has a major role to play in education. So why use mobile technology to improve access to education? We have the new generation of students who are very comfortable using mobile technology. They use it to interact, etc. So why not deliver the learning on the mobile technology for the new generation of students? We have information explosion and they say information is changing every five years. And in the future, it may change in months or in days. So people need the technology to access the current information so that they can apply it right away. And if someone has a mobile device, they can actually access the information from the internet so that they can get the current information. We have globalization where we have to design for different cultures. So whatever we design on mobile learning, we have to make sure that it applies to different cultures. So we have to follow standards, international standards such as the UNESCO standards, very, very important. So whenever as teachers educate us when we design mobile learning materials, we have to think globally. So we have to make sure we take into consider the different cultures, their values, etc. Increasing use of open education resources, we are seeing more and more open education resources available, which are electronic. The existing electronic repository. So it's very important for students to actually use mobile devices to access the electronic materials, open education resources. Many initiatives around the world to deliver education for all because the students in developing countries have mobile devices. So we have to design courses for delivery and mobile devices. We are seeing a trend now of user generated content and a good example is Wikis. And that's where actually people are coming together to design their own content and other people are validated in the content. So in the future, we may see the student actually generating their own content and the teacher validating the content. More to more peer tutoring with mobile devices, whereas the students will actually help each other. And this is one area that we're missing in education peer to peer tutoring. We have to get students to help each other so that they can tutor each other. They can teach each other and they say the best way to learn something is to teach others. So why not get students to use the technology to to tutor each other to interact with each other and to help each other. Digitization of learning materials information in the future. We are seeing more e textbook, more electronic materials. And who knows eventually all information learning materials will be electronic. Which means the students have to have a device to access the electronic materials. With mobile device, they can actually access the electronic materials from anywhere anytime. We also look in a cloud tutoring where the tutor will exist anywhere in the world. So for example, a student will have a question on a course or some content, they will enter the question. And someone, a tutor or teacher from anywhere in the world will actually answer the student question. So the teacher is somewhere in the cloud. So for a student to interact with the teacher, he or she will have to use a technology, the mobile technology, so that they can actually connect to the teacher or the tutor. Efficient learning, learning will be much more efficient because the students can access information from anywhere anytime. They can learn anywhere anytime. And we are talking about smart learning, where in the technology the system will detect the learning style of the learner and will actually prescribe the appropriate learning materials. So there are some intelligence in the system, in the content, to actually prescribe the appropriate learning materials to the student. So these are some very important reasons why we need to use mobile technology to improve access to education. So we, I mentioned education for all. And it means that all citizens of the world achieve at least a basic education level to function in society, so that they have a better life, so that they're protective in society. There are many projects that actually work in towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. And according to United Nations, education is a human right. Everyone should have access to basic education level. But the only way to give everyone access to education around the world is to deliver on mobile devices, mobile technology, because people have the mobile phones. And the fastest growing rate of mobile adoption is in developing countries. So we need to make sure we design learning materials for delivery in these developing countries. So UNESCO Education for All Goals, by 2015, all children, particular girls, those in difficult circumstances and those belong to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free compulsory primary education of good quality. So as teachers, educators, we need to design learning materials, electronic learning materials, high quality, so that students can access on their mobile devices around the world, so we can achieve education for all. And people can access learning materials to improve themselves, their life skills on their job, so that they perform better in the job. So here's a list of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. And I will just highlight a few. The second one, Achieve Universal Primary Education, which says that all children around the world have at least a primary education. Again, mobile technology has a major role to play, so that when you design courses, you have to design for delivery on mobile devices. In terms of health care and child mortality, you can actually provide information to people around the world, so that they can access the information right away, so that they can improve their health, or they can have a prevent diseases, etc. So yes, the mobile technology has a major role to play to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, especially in education. So mobile learning and access to open education resources will help achieve the goal of education for all. So as teachers, educators, we have a responsibility to design our courses for delivery on mobile technology and make sure that the courses are available as open education resources. Thank you.