eLearning: Mobile eLearning

Via elearnspace, "Learning Goes Mobile" describes a scenario that we may not describe as "eLearning", but it really is. The article describes the use of mobile phones and PDA to access information about relevant business information -- doing so through active searching as well as through automatic notifications. This "profiled notification" -- the notification of information based in a particular profile -- is not something new. But it is growing now, and it makes sense to talk about the applications for e-learning. I current receive Google News alerts for certain topics that interest me - surely that is a form of "learning" the latest information on those topics.

Yesterday, Google launched another profiled notification service as part of its Google Personalized search tool on Google Labs. The beta service lets you create a profile that is used to provide search result that are relevant to that profile. The email notification aspect of the service means that it plays into the mobile elearning approach described in this article.

In the near future, look for more intellgent recommender systems like those of Amazon.com to emerge, suggesting pieces of information that you may want to learn: "People who haved learned about _______ have also learned about ______ and ______". Such systems will mature to the point that they are everywhere, in my opinion.