New mobile media technology is moving both information and communication capacity away from central repositories and into each individual learner’s hand. Mobile media learning includes the instant and ongoing connection of handheld devices to online information and communication for personal growth and increased agency within professions and communities of practice.

Learning about or how to do anything is no longer necessarily relegated to scheduled times or places, but can be accessed personally anytime, anywhere. Yet because the devices are both relatively young, the ways in which to best use these tools for learning is still in a compelling state of experimentation and design.

Also, because mobile devices are becoming more and more ubiquitous, while the tools of production are simple, powerful, and increasingly free; everyone seems to be doing something with them. This isn’t a slow burn of adoption, it’s more of a bonanza. Those interested in both informal and formal learning are left to wonder: What mobile media learning efforts show promise? Which can they do themselves? And most importantly, where are potent examples and models of mobile media learning?

This book shares a collection of stories where mobile technologies have been successfully used for learning. We make the claim that these cases represent more than just creative lessons; they represent potential for new ways to design learning environments that can be replicated, refined, and polished for use by you, the reader, this weekend. Each chapter in this book features a purposefully selected educator from a variety of learning contexts and content area design goals — yet each leverages the power of intimate, instant, and invigorating learning on the move. Mobile media learning. Ideally, you should be able to look through the table of contents and find a chapter where mobile media has been used with skillful design in your context. We hope that you can be inspired to modify and adopt one of these examples and start on a road to mobile media learning.