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The purpose of this paper is to answer the question ‘Why reflection is important to introduce in the teaching and learning’. This paper commences with a brief literature review on reflection, followed by the provision of tentative results of a study on the role of reflection in learning. Data collected from a sample population of 257 undergraduate students at business ethics undergraduate class in Australia were analysed. The data were collected from students’ own reflections that formed part of two of their assessments in the unit. In the first assessment, students were asked to reflect on their own moral development, using Schon’s reflection in and on action, to allow the markers understand the students’ own moral development as highlighted by Kohlberg levels and stages of Moral Development. In the second assessment, the students were asked to reflect on their personal learning as a global citizen and how this assessment has informed their views and perspective on ethical decision-making process and global citizenship using one of the frameworks introduced during the semester (e.g. situation, task, action, result, learning, planning – S.T.A.R.L.P., Gibbs or Kolb). This paper will not discuss students moral developments levels or their ethical decision making, but, will only discuss the ‘reflection’, thus, the findings from this research come in twofold: (i) students acknowledged the new skills they gained, the development of other skills they had through their reflections, such as critical thinking, time management. (ii) Most of the students have demonstrated an understanding of reflection in higher education, and ethical decision making, through use of different frameworks. However, some students felt reflection is difficult, thus, the paper concludes with a recommendation to introduce reflection in the first year of university.

This research aims at identifying mobile learning characteristics. In this exploratory research, focus groups involving students, teachers and administrative stakeholders from Pakistani universities informed the research findings. Socio-cultural aspect is a major contributing factor, in addition to pedagogical and technological factors. A Mobile Learning Framework (MLF) incorporating these factors was developed to cater for developing countries' learning environments. MLF may be generalized to other developing and developed countries with similar higher education and socio-cultural environments.

Technology has played a key role in reshaping the way education is being delivered in university environments. Mobile technologies are one of the latest technologies to enter the higher education arenas around the world, offering great potential for teaching and learning. Students and teachers have been using mobile devices for formal and informal collaboration, communication, and connectivity within learning environments for a couple of decades without recognizing it as mobile learning. Mobile learning needs to be researched and theorized in order to be included in formal educational Information and Communication Technologies and its full potential harnessed for the future generations. A number of mobile learning researchers borrowed traditional learning models as theoretical foundations for mobile learning research. However, theories from a diverse range of subject areas such as Education, Information Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, and Telecommunication Engineering have also been used as the basis for mobile learning projects around the world. This incorporation of a diversity of disciplines and subjects has made mobile learning a multidisciplinary research field. This chapter aims to review the current mobile learning theories, models, and frameworks with the lens of mobile learning characteristics and challenges pointed out by prominent mobile learning researchers across the world in order to present the case of mobile learning as the future of teaching and learning.

Mobile learning offers learning opportunities to learners without the limitations of time and space. Mobile learning has introduced a number of flexible options to the learners across disciplines and at different educational levels. However, designing mobile learning content is an equally challenging task for the instructional designers. Currently, mobile learning researchers are trying to determine a set of mobile learning characteristics to inform mobile learning design. Besides conforming to the pedagogical requirements, mobile learning instructional designers are also considering the nature of learning activities to engage learners with miniature mobile devices. Similarly, there are a number of mobile learning characteristics which are crucial to mobile learning design in order to harness the power and affordances of mobile devices as well as maintaining the learning element as the main focus. This paper is an attempt to point out common mobile learning characteristics as they appear in key mobile learning conceptualizations, models and frameworks in the literature. These characteristics may be useful for future researchers to inform the mobile learning design process as well as mobile learning conceptualizations.

Usability in mobile devices, for learning, has drawn researchers’ attention since the term mobile learning has been coined in teaching and learning arenas. Current mobile devices in the market have ignored the design and styles for learning purposes. Although mobile devices have some features for games purposes, there are other important usability characteristics that ought to be considered to support learning. Therefore, mobile learning researchers need to investigate the learning options with the available capabilities of mobile devices. Students in developing countries reported more problems related to usability based on their individual experiences dealing with mobile devices for learning purposes. This paper aims to identify the implications of usability in mobile devices for learning based on research conducted in Pakistan.

This paper examines and reviews the current literature on mobile learning in developing countries. Mobile device is becoming a more popular interface for connecting with the world and mode of digital presence than the desktop computing devices. Mobile technologies in the developing world enable people to connect to the Internet, become more conversant with the digital world, and network globally via social networking forums. Mobile technologies in developing countries such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kenya and South Africa have significantly increased and advanced. In spite of limited Information and Communications Technology (ICT) resources and an unstable infrastructure, good telecom services exist in the form of cellular networks which provide a favourable environment for mobile learning. The literature suggests that there is pervasive use of mobile devices that would facilitate the uptake of mobile learning in developing countries. However, few researchers have looked into the potential use of mobile devices in learning environments in developing countries. To ascertain the extent of mobile leaning in developing countries, this paper examines the current literature on mobile learning research in developing countries including projects, implementations, theories and conceptualizations of mobile learning for these countries.

Mobile devices are becoming popular tools for learning among learner community in both formal and informal spaces; there is a dire need for researching and conceptualizing mobile learning to assist education providers and educational authorities to include mobile learning into mainstream education. A number of mobile learning researchers borrowed traditional learning models as theoretical foundations for mobile learning research. However, theories from a diverse range of subject areas such as Education, IS, Human-Computer Interaction and Telecommunication Engineering have also been used as the bases for mobile learning projects around the world. This incorporation of a diversity of disciplines and subjects has made mobile learning a multidisciplinary research field indeed. This paper aims to review the current theories, models, frameworks and mobile learning characteristics used by mobile learning researchers.

Mobile learning involves using mobile devices as learning tools and accessing learning resources outside an academic institution's premises to allow the learning process to be more dynamic, flexible and collaborative; it has been theorised, applied and trialed mainly in the USA, UK, Europe and Australia. Trials and pilots in developed countries have shown encouraging results and acceptance of mobile learning by teachers and students in many universities which indicates great potential for the researchers to take further initiatives in mobile learning. In spite of the advancement in mobile technologies, developing countries like Pakistan have not received the attention of researchers with respect to experimentation and conceptualisation of mobile learning.Thus, the current research aims the key stakeholders in universities to experiment with features of mobile learning in teaching and learning for the future. Futhermore, the Pakistani universities could use the proposed mobile learning conceptual model as a guideline to upgrade their ICTs to enrich the existing learning paradigms with the flexibility and interactivity offered by mobile learning. At a further stage of the research, the proposed mobile learning conceptual model will be enriched by collecting data through focus groups of students and teachers in universities followed by individual interviews with key stakeholders in selected universities in Pakistan.