TheMobileLearner.org exists to provide a forum to address simple questions: In what manner and how rapidly must the state-of-the-art of planning practices for individual facilities and campus master planning change in the face of mobility-enabling technology and the diffusion of learning and other academic functions beyond the traditional campus?

The questions are simple, but the answers are more complex.

These questions are especially apt today. Higher education is in the midst of a continuing building boom. We have seen campuses engage in a sort of an “amenities arms race.” This has resulted in new classroom and laboratory facilities plus a new generation of libraries/learning centers, student unions, health and recreation centers, natatoriums, commodious residence halls and dining facilities, and new breeds of fused-use facilities that creatively combine a number of these functions under one roof.

Many exciting, technology-rich facilities have been designed. Some campuses have retrofitted existing facilities to meet the transforming needs of today’s students. Some campus planners have used the design of these new facilities to introduce the campus community to the impact of wireless technology and mobility on familiar habits and usage patterns. But few have addressed the question: How do we revisit the campus master plan and retrofit facilities to address the emerging needs of students as they are now and as they will be in the future?

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