Just as Sesame Street helped transform television into a revolutionary tool for learning among young children four decades ago, advances in mobile technologies are showing enormous untapped educational potential for today’s generation.
This report, undertaken by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, draws on interviews with a cross-section of research, policy, and industry experts to illustrate how mobile technologies such as cell phones, iPod devices, and portable gaming platforms might be more widely used for learning. More than half of the world’s population now owns a cell phone and children under 12 constitute one of the fastest growing segments of mobile technology users in the U.S. Examining over 25 handheld learning products and research projects in the U.S. and abroad, the report highlights early evidence and examples of how mobile devices may help redefine teaching and learning in the decade ahead.

Die Broschüre sieht fünf wichtige Potenziale beim Einsatz von Mobilgeräten in der Schule:

1. Jederzeit und überall: Die Geräte ermöglichen den Kindern, Informationen auch ausserhalb des Schulzimmers zu sammeln, empfangen und zu verarbeiten. Dies ermöglicht lernen in realen Situationen sowie Verbindungen zwischen Schule, Freizeit und Zuhause.
2. Durchdringung aller Schichten: Durch die relativ tiefen Kosten ist es möglich, eine hohe Durchdringung mit Mobilgeräten zu erreichen, einerseits in allen Einkommensschichten, andererseits auch in Entwicklungsländern, womit die Chancengerechtigkeit erhöht werden kann.
3. Förderung der Sozialkompetenzen des 21. Jhd.: Mit Hilfe von Mobilgeräten können für das 21. Jhd. wichtige Kompetenzen des Kommunizierens und Kooperierens geübt werden.
4. Passt in verschiedene Lernumgebungen: Die kleinen Geräte lassen sich einfacher in verschiedene Lernumgebungen integrieren als bisherige, eher klobige Geräte.
5. Ermöglichen von persönlichen Lernerfahrungen: Nicht alle Kinder sind gleich. Mobilgeräte erleichtern das Inidividualisieren des Unterrichts.

The report highlights five opportunities to seize mobile learning’s unique attributes to improve education:

1. Encourage “anywhere, anytime” learning
   Mobile devices allow students to gather, access, and process information outside the classroom. They can encourage learning in a real-world context, and help bridge school, afterschool, and home environments.
2. Reach underserved children
   Because of their relatively low cost and accessibility in low-income communities, handheld devices can help advance digital equity, reaching and inspiring populations “at the edges” — children from economically disadvantaged communities and those from developing countries.
3. Improve 21st-century social interactions
   Mobile technologies have the power to promote and foster collaboration and communication, which are deemed essential for 21st-century success.
4. Fit with learning environments
   Mobile devices can help overcome many of the challenges associated with larger technologies, as they i t more naturally within various learning environments.
5. Enable a personalized learning experience
   Not all children are alike; instruction should be adaptable to individual and diverse learners. There are signii cant opportunities for genuinely supporting differentiated, autonomous, and individualized learning through mobile devices.