Well it is certainly a mobile world, but unfortunately not for me this morning. My iPhone battery is dead as a dodo and I have just spent the best part of an hour running the battery down on my laptop trying to get my wifi connection to work. It's Wednesday and the final day here at Handheld Learning 2008. We have been Flickring and Tweeting the conference on Twemes since the outset - take a look at the fun we have been having! I have just enjoyed sitting in the research strand on mobile technologies listening to three presentations. Mark Kramer from Salzburg, Austria was first up and talked about the future of learning using mobile devices. I like the way Maek draws on his day-to-day experiences and encounters to illustrate the key points he makes. He is doing a lot of ethnographic research and captures these human encounters as digital artefacts on video and audio devices, with live streaming to the web. 
A South African perspective was offered by Adele Botha of Meraka Institute. Adele talked about the pervasiveness and ubiquity of mobile telephony in South Africa and outlined some of the key uses of the technology in education. The main thrust of her presentation was to examine the new digital literacies such as 'mobiquette' that are required by learners and practitioners in the new digital mobile age of learning.
The final presentation was by David Cameron (yes that one - not the other one), who is based at Charles Sturt University in Australia. David spoke on the subject of how mobile media in the classroom can and do transform the educational experiences of young children. He presented some useful examples of how he and his colleagues use the technologies in drama based learning. An excellent session with plenty of time for questions and discussion, although the silubrious but elusive venue - The London Barbican Centre - was a little too difficult to find for those who may have stayed up a little late last night.
