Mobile Social Sketching

Today, the mobile phone is a must-have item for every school age child. It is no longer just a means of communication but has become a major tool enabling adolescents to establish and maintain social relationships. More than 71 million Europeans routinely use their mobile phones to access the Internet. The widespread use of mobile technology, along with the availability of mobile broadband connections, offers a unique opportunity to develop innovative methods of learning. It is, therefore, no coincidence that we talk increasingly about mobile learning and that testing of these technologies in universities and companies around the world is growing. This paper will argue for the use of mobile technologies in conjunction with the application of social networks in educational contexts. Thus, we investigate the educational potential of mobile devices that we think will only be realized when we fully understand their role in the management of social relationships, and we define models and learning experiences firmly grounded in the underlying social theories of learning itself. Then, we will introduce an iOS application where we have designed a module for the integration of the most popular social networks (the Facebook) with a mobile learning activity carried out in an educational context.