This paper outlines the main infrastructure for implicating mobile learning in medicine and present a sample mobile learning application for medical learning within the framework of mobile learning systems. Mobile technology is developing nowadays. In this case it will be useful to develop different learning environments using these innovations in internet based distance education. M-learning makes the most of being on location, providing immediate access, being connected, and acknowledges learning that occurs beyond formal learning settings, in places such as the workplace, home, and outdoors. Central to m-learning is the principle that it is the learner who is mobile rather than the device used to deliver m learning. The integration of mobile technologies into training has made learning more accessible and portable. Mobile technologies make it possible for a learner to have access to a computer and subsequently learning material and activities; at any time and in any place. Mobile devices can include: mobile phone, personal digital assistants (PDAs), personal digital media players (eg iPods, MP3 players), portable digital media players, portable digital multimedia players. Mobile learning (m-learning) is particularly important in medical education, and the major users of mobile devices are in the field of medicine. The contexts and environment in which learning occurs necessitates m-learning. Medical students are placed in hospital/clinical settings very early in training and require access to course information and to record and reflect on their experiences while on the move. As a result of this paper, this paper strives to compare and contrast mobile learning with normal learning in medicine from various perspectives and give insights and advises into the essential characteristics of both for sustaining medical education.

Date Published: 7 March 2013
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8667, Multimedia Content and Mobile Devices, 866715 (7 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2013833

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8667:
Multimedia Content and Mobile Devices
Reiner Creutzburg; Todor G. Georgiev; Dietmar Wüller; Cees G. M. Snoek; Kevin J. Matherson; David Akopian; Andrew Lumsdaine; Lyndon S. Kennedy, Editor(s)