After the third industrial revolution, the popularization and promotion of digital technology have brought tremendous changes to all walks of life, including the education industry. In traditional education, students need to listen to the teacher in the same space -- the classroom and at the same time. Modern science and technology help education break this time and space limitation (Cope & Kalantzis, 2016). This means that students can learn whatever they want to learn anytime and anywhere through what we call ‘ubiquitous computing’. Here, I only consider me as a Chinese learner, with the mass media learning and social media learning in China that I have experienced, to express my own views on ubiquitous learning.

Mass media refers to “a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication”, which emphasises one-to-many. When applying it in the field of education, this way of learning has its own limitations. First, this learning method is a ‘single arrow’, that is, the public receives knowledge passively on the platform of mass media, such as broadcast, newspaper and television, but cannot give any feedback. Another limitation of this learning method is that it ignores the difference between the knowledge level and cognitive level of the public, which makes the learning effect at a relatively low level. For example, the education channel on Chinese TV teaches junior high school English and high school English in a large scale. For me, an advanced EFL learner, learning through this kind of mass media is less effective, and I have limited option to choose the learning content I want as the learning content they produced is limited.

However, the learning experience on social media is very different from the learning experience of the above-mentioned mass media. 1. Social media is many-to-many, that is, students are very cooperative on social media. They can discuss learning content through online communities, such as forums and chats. Take the learning experience on Coursera, for example, learner not only can learn from the videos and reading materials given in the course but also comment on other people’s work in the community and upload your own work or ideas for everyone to discuss and study together. In such learning, the learner is no longer just a passive recipient of the learning content, he can also act as an initiator of the learning content. As we all know, a person only truly masters the knowledge when he can fully explain what he has learned and can teach it to others. 2. Learning on social media can be personalized, which facilitate motivation and engagement. A learner can choose whatever he liked, interested or well-suited to his learning level on social media. For example, there are many bloggers on WeChat and Weibo in China. They use their expertise in various fields to create various video and graphic versions of teaching content. These contents can be stored for a long time and can be watched and learned repeatedly, which means that students can use these learning contents/products according to their needs.

Although learning through social media has such benefits that we mentioned above, can it really guarantee the effect of learning? The information on the Internet is complicated, and the level of learning content providers varies. How can students discern the correctness of what they have learned with their limited learning knowledge? Besides, how can we make sure that target students have the self-consciousness and self-initiative to learn when they have course online? What can our online teacher do to improve the classroom effect? These are worthy of our discussion on ubiquitous learning in the future.

Reference

Cope, Bill, and Mary Kalantzis. (2017). Conceptualizing e-learning. In B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (Eds), e-Learning Ecologies. New York: Routledge.

Cope, Bill and Mary Kalantzis. (2009b). "Ubiquitous Learning: An Agenda for Educational Transformation." in Ubiquitous Learning, edited by B. Cope and M. Kalantzis. Champaign IL: University of Illinois Press.