Will Student Devices Deliver Innovation, Inclusion, and Transformation?

In much of the world educational institutions prescribe, procure, provide, and control institutional technology, and hence in many respects constrain and define the nature of education and the interpretation of learning. However, the majority of people choose, use, own, and understand a vast but diverse range of powerful personal technologies that allow them to create, store, and transmit information, images, ideas, resources, and knowledge, and to connect to communities and to each other and hence, in very different senses, to engage in learning. Central to these personal technologies are mobile devices and central to this learning is 'mobile learning' (Traxler, 2007, 2008; Winters, 2006). If institutions chose to work with student-owned devices, they would increase their capacity to deliver inclusion with innovation but would find the transformation challenging. This paper addresses the tension between educational institutions aspiring to provide students with the technology for learning, specifically and increasingly mobile devices, and supporting students using their own devices. It explores the nature and implications of the strategic challenge, represented as a potential disjunction between societies at large and their institutions of formal learning, and the practical challenge of using student devices to consolidate, resource, sustain, and embed mobile learning. Resolving this tension is crucial for innovation, inclusion, and transformation.