If you’ve ever heard the term ‘eLearning’ (Electronic Learning), a technical term referring to Electronic Learning and the use of computer aids to facilitate the electronic access to learning material, this shouldn’t surprise you much. Ten years ago, accessibility to the Internet exploded as a new apparatus for the mass distribution of information. Today, it is a Web 2.0 and media rich collaborative classroom. In the same limelight, a similar transition is occurring between eLearning and what’s now referred to as ‘mLearning‘ (Mobile Learning).

Just as we’ve seen eLearning shatter geographic boundaries with tools like WebCT and Blackboard, virtual classrooms, and off-campus email, we now have the mechanisms to further support these tools, and expand into a realm of mLearning.

The meat-and-potatoes of the matter is that not only will students continue the tradition of being able to access information anywhere, listening to lecture podcasts and videocasts on the go as they do, in addition, mLearning could offer push-notifications, changing the rate at which pertinent campus and course information is delivered to students.

Enter the world of the post-secondary Learning Management System. Sure, it’s multi-faceted and has a wide range of tools, but in the whole it remains difficult for students to openly collaborate in person, be creative from a distance and proactively learn class material, and all within the same environment, all at the same time.

Virtual worlds like Second Life and Lively beta by Google, on the other hand, are three-dimensional (3D) environments accessible over the internet through a high-speed connection. At first, they feel like games, but after some time exploring you begin to realize that it’s not all stimulation: It’s intuitive, interactive, collaborative, and social. These virtual worlds have not only begun to attract attention from companies seeking better conferencing tools, considerable attention has been delivered by educators who believe that virtual worlds have a place in the educational discourse through ‘immersive learning’ - worlds that can offer course content in a virtual setting in different ways that students can immerse themselves in, rather than requiring the student to be adaptive to the material.

According to Calongne, “Virtual world classrooms use a mix of media-rich course materials”, and “since a student’s understanding of complex content may be hazy, offering information in a variety of ways allows students to use the information and virtual environment around them to solve problems and create solutions for their projects.” Suddenly, students are a part of the learning and not just mindlessly assimilating concepts before storing this information in the back of their minds for the long term. Now, they can experience it.