Left to their own devices: work-related seamless mobile learning

Today many workers carry portable devices – smartphones, tablets and laptops – which have the potential to alter work-related learning practices by facilitating seamless mobile learning. However, the specific ways in which this may happen remain unexplored for many groups. Drawing on Hedegaard, this study sought to understand the seamless mobile learning practices of civil servants and related agency workers by focusing on affordances and demands experienced in activity settings embedded within institutional practices and values. This methodological approach involved reviewing documents and trace data (records from a learning management system), as well as collecting data via a survey and semi-structured interviews, to form a view of the values and practices of seamless mobile learning as well as resulting conflicts. The resulting analysis revealed the dynamics and tensions in practices which span multiple settings, illuminating the challenges of learning in a seamless manner. Specifically, the findings show that much mobile learning involved abstraction from setting and appeared fragmented and ad hoc, as opposed to forming part of a longer, orchestrated, seamless learning project. Engagement in mobile learning arose from a sense of a lack of time and need to stay “on top of things” as much as from a keen interest in the topic in question. However, in rarer instances, seamless mobile learning was possible and more sustained. Institutional support for learning that was also of individual interest was important for supporting learning over time, even where projects were self-initiated and self-orchestrated. The individual ability to orchestrate learning also played a critical role. This study presents a picture of seamless mobile learning, frequently studied within educational or recreational institutions, within the institutions of work and private life. It contributes to the literature through proposing the use of an activity theory lens to consider the relationship of the learner’s setting to their learning as well as to their broader institutional context and, through drawing methodologically on Hedegaard’s work, proposing the addition of the concept of institution to definitions of seamless learning.