Empowered Learner Identity Through M-Learning: Representations of Disenfranchised Students’ Perspectives

E-learning has been promoted as a key component of improving educational access and opportunity internationally, but for disenfranchised learners, many forms of e-learning are just as alien as the educational systems they have rejected. M-learning utilises technologies, activities and social systems that are integrated into many people’s lives, including those who have had limited access to, or rejected, formal education systems. This paper discusses projects conducted in Northern Australia that explored a range of e-tools to support indigenous students’ engagement and recognition of their knowledge and contexts. Mobile learning tools emerged as the preferred way to learn throughout the project. This approach challenges educational institutions to connect to students’ lives and contexts. This paper shows how participants utilised m-learning to demonstrate their diverse knowledge systems, the decisions they made about representing knowledge though m-learning, and the implications for trainers and assessors.