BYOD Future Trends

      Mobile learning is the mode and BYOD is the method; the benefits of BYOD in schools are endless. “Mobile technology has the potential to transform the learning landscape by providing expanded access to educational resources beyond the limits of the classroom and the school day” (Krueger, 2013, para 3). However, Simmons (2014) said it best, today’s students are tomorrow’s employees, and they will enter the workforce expecting the same opportunities. Nurturing the BYOD initiative in school is a novel idea. Integrating M-learning in primary school will prepare students for use in college. Learners will grasp at an early age the importance of collaboration and engagement in the virtual arena, which will likely follow them into their adult careers.
      BYOD is a great vehicle for M-learning, it affords autonomy that fosters an anytime, anywhere learning experience on a personalized level. However, the benefits also present challenges as well. Good instructional design is critical for M-learners because it could affect their ability to reach their learning goals. “Poor design will hallmark poor student autonomy, which in turn can lead to poor student achievement. Important design considerations or potential barriers for a BYOD situation include file type, organization, length of learning content, culture and language, connectivity, motivation, and assessment” (Estable, 2013, p.22). An important factor to note is the transition of M-learning as BYOD evolves.
      As students and educators we should anticipate the mutation of M-learning because its predecessor e-learning was not that old long ago. E-learning focused on learning as an activity and M-learning is capitalizing on learning through access. Mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and portable tablets offer expanded academic access through mobile learning (M-learning) when gives way to a ubiquity that is prompting even more transformation under the auspices of U-learning derived from the term Ubiquitous Learning.
      Learners want no limitations and that’s why U-learning has become so attractive. Ubiquitous learning is versatile and universal. It can be situated and immersive; in a traditional classroom or in a virtual classroom. U-learning focuses on one-to-one computing enabled through technology. According to Lloyd (2013), One-to-one learning is based on the belief that people learn differently as a result of owning personal handheld computing devices. Ironically, one-to-one computing is just as socialized as it is personalized. Spector (2014) asserts that social media coupled with mobile technology present real-world and situated learning experiences. This marriage of the two caters to a variety of learners and learning goals and enables life to become a world of learning. U-learning moves us into the next dimension of lifelong learning. Our lives are literally consumed with the things around us as teaching mechanisms; our learning networks have expanded across the globe. Students can see how mobile technology impacts economic and educational decisions in other nations.
      As the BYOD concept transforms, we transform to a world with machines powered by cats and dogs; where elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, and whimsical inventions are the norm. If this world sounds like déjà vu, that’s because it is, it closely resembles Orbit City, the home of the Jetsons. Ironically, a gadget-centered galaxy was imagined and introduced through animation decades before mobile technology surfaced. A projection for year 2062 is already a manifestation of year 2014. Future household chores are carried out by electronic push-button mechanisms. Daily life is far more relaxed due to our strange reliance on numerous labor-saving devices; and people complain all the time of exhausting hard labor because life isn’t filled with even more conveniences (Hanna-Barbera, n.d.). Think about it! We are the Jetsons and BYOD has brought us to the Cyber Space-Age, Orbit City – here we come.