Wearable Textbooks

In the last sev­eral years we have watched mobiles become ever more capa­ble and com­mon­place, to a point where many are now sug­gest­ing that mobile learn­ing has reached its tip­ping point for main­stream adop­tion, both on cam­puses and within learn­ing orga­ni­za­tions. Most of these pre­dic­tions define mobile learn­ing purely in terms of its tech­nol­ogy; that is, they empha­size the new inter­faces, the capa­bil­i­ties to con­nect with wifi and GPS as well as cel­lu­lar net­works, the third party appli­ca­tions that go beyond mak­ing phone calls, and the loca­tion aware­ness that make mobiles an ever more flex­i­ble tool for learn­ing, pro­duc­tiv­ity and social net­work­ing tasks.

It’s a tech­no­cen­tric view, not a ped­a­gog­i­cal view. But it is worth remem­ber­ing that mobile tech­nolo­gies are designed pri­mar­ily for busi­ness, retail and recre­ational uses, and only sec­on­dar­ily (if at all) for learn­ing uses. If edu­ca­tors do not adopt a ped­a­gog­i­cal con­cep­tion of mobile learn­ing uncon­strained from cur­rent tech­nolo­gies, who will?

I was think­ing along ped­a­gog­i­cal lines, and in par­tic­u­lar about how learn­ers expe­ri­ence mobil­ity, while wait­ing in the back-to-school line up at our neigh­bour­hood office sup­ply store. I was dis­tracted by the large neon-coloured signs hov­er­ing over the bins near the check-out promis­ing extra­or­di­nary bar­gains when I spot­ted a stu­dent rum­mag­ing around one of the bins. He was wear­ing a blue sweater that bore a bold print of the Peri­odic Table of Ele­ments. I could just make out the alka­line earth met­als group behind the stack of school sup­plies he strug­gled to hold under his arm. Here, I thought, must be the purest form of mobile learn­ing, uncon­strained by tech­no­log­i­cal depen­den­cies and phys­i­cal space, per­son­al­ized, authen­tic and sit­u­ated: a page from a text­book on the shirt on his back. Could there be any ped­a­gog­i­cal insight I won­dered from such a seem­ingly small gesture?

Peri­odic Table Sweater knit­ted and pho­tographed by apin­nick. A list of fungi adorn the one sleeve, bac­te­ria the other. This is a much nicer sweater than the one I spot­ted on the stu­dent at the office sup­ply store.

There is no doubt that mobile devices are chang­ing the way we think about com­mu­ni­ca­tion and knowl­edge. They are inspir­ing new forms of expres­sion, com­merce, gov­er­nance and learn­ing. But what exactly does it mean to be truly mobile? Does it mean learn­ing while dri­ving, walk­ing, sleep­ing and shop­ping for office sup­plies? Is it just-in-time, just-enough, just-for-me, just-for-my net­works? Is it hands-free, eyes-free, distraction-free, battery-free, institution-free, and just plain free? Is it for­mal, infor­mal, or sub­lim­i­nal? Is it as John Traxler writes, that “mobile is not merely a new adjec­tive qual­i­fy­ing the time­less con­cept of learn­ing – mobile learn­ing is emerg­ing as an entirely new and dis­tinct con­cept along­side the mobile work­force and the con­nected soci­ety”? As learn­ing pro­fes­sion­als we need to let our notions of knowl­edge and learn­ing also go mobile. It’s a mod­est start, and I’ll just toss the idea into my net­worked space, but once you start pay­ing atten­tion, you can find wear­able text­books every­where. See more exam­ples on my Design Tum­ble Log.

Kevin Van Aelst, Sum­mer Con­stel­la­tions on a sweater.

Kevin Van Aelst’s Sum­mer Con­stel­la­tions is ephemeral lint and thread. But a few glow beads, and I would wear this at every time I’m watch­ing the night sky.

Cir­cu­la­tory sys­tem tights, avail­able at UpFac­tory. Dis­cov­ered via Lily of the Val­ley.

Human anatomy seems to inspire cloth­ing design­ers. I’ve seen stun­ning liv­ers, hearts and large intestines. The skele­tal and cir­cu­la­tory sys­tem strike me as a per­fect life-sized learn­ing objects to port effort­lessly through a learn­ing experience.

Skele­tal sys­tem, drawn on a friend’s cast by Heather Tomp­kins. HT Boing Boing.