Speaker: Professor Agnes Kukulska Hulme (The Open University) Title: Learning activity designs for a mobile age

We consider transformational designs for learning with mobile devices, with a special focus on language learning. As partners in the EU-funded MASELTOV project (2012-14), The Open University has led the development of an incidental learning framework to guide the design of a set of mobile tools and services for informal learning in cities across the European Union. These information, learning and community building services which are being provided on smartphones will benefit newly arrived immigrants, with the aim of improving social inclusion. The process of developing the incidental learning framework has prompted reflection on many aspects of informal learning, its significance and relationship to formal education, as well as its role in shifting the focus and content of language learning. The opportunities, challenges and pitfalls of mobile-assisted incidental learning in the city will be shared in this seminar, against a backdrop of evolving mobile learning activity designs that increasingly incorporate situated learning.