Tablet PCs, MIDs, UMPCs, and other mobile PCs have launched a new emerging paradigm of Open Learning (OLP). Sometimes I think of this as opening a mass market of independent learners. It appears to be forming among learners and educators in response to various commercial electronic communication ventures. I use the term Open Learning (OL) as a working descriptor referring to the commonly used assertion of ways anyone with a mobile PC can learn anything, anytime, anywhere (Any; ATTW; A3TsW?) on demand.

This paradigm requires different assumptions about learners in schools today and about access to information from those traditionally used to organize school learning. In turn, emerging assumptions alter the nature of what constitutes a disability, as well as special talents and gifts in school.

New Assumptions

• Technology natives enter schools with different skills from technology novices and different from previous students and most educators today, including those in teacher preparation programs. (The term technology natives appears in journalistic writing about students born into an environment of technology, especially those born since 1985 with personal computers and TVs, then later beepers, DVDs, IPods, cell phones, etc. They know, use, and expect more mobile technologies to meet their demands.)

• For mobile technology natives, location and family background seem less distinguishing in schools than current student social economic factors.

• More information and skills flow faster and globally through wireless, mobile personal computers than through schools.

• Management of access to learning content with mobile PCs relies more on commercial ventures vs. conventional schooling controls.

Outcomes
Given these or whatever other assumptions that seem reasonable, I'd like to know the following, perhaps through a Research Center on Mobile Learning.

o Description of an emerging paradigm of mobile PC and other technology enabled on-demand, personalized, individualized student learning that could replace special education school programs as they operate today.

o Description of implications developers of this paradigm have found for preservice and inservice teacher preparation.

o Descriptions of actionable tasks to replicate activities described by venture educators.

o Agreements by venture educators to provide technical support for others to replicate actionable tasks.

o Formation of an Open Learning Study Group to monitor implementation of replicated actionable tasks and their derivatives.

I wonder, who else thinks, "Let's do it!"

Tablet PC Education Blog