The focus in over two decades of mobile learning (m-learning) research has meanly been on PK-12 education. M-learning is seen as an important new development in PK-12 and higher education (HE). Yet, the ease of app identification is lacking. This paper aimed to classify different m-learning applications to ensure that they are more easily accessible to teachers. Such a framework has been proposed earlier. However, the technological approach misses, and the apps are mainly for PK-12 pupils. Thus, the current paper aimed to create a framework for (learning) apps for higher education, including their pedagogical and technological approaches. Overall, eleven different app types were identified and categorized into four main categories: practice, organization, social, and creation. Then the apps were further classified using their pedagogical design and instructional approach. The applications can be identified as skill-, content- or function-based applications with overlap in the different categories. Finally, the mobile platform and the features used were analyzed and included in the framework here it was found that most of the apps were hybrid applications which allow for a diverse set of features for the apps. Web based applications are the least prominent and provide the least amount of features.

Mobile learning is growing in popularity due to its nature and the access to mobile devices: students of different ages can use their mobile phones to access any information almost anywhere. The popularity of mobile devices and the current growth of social media allow to apply mobile social media learning in higher education. This systematic review gives an overview of the current usage of mobile social media learning, the use cases, barriers, advantages and difference between personal social media and higher education apps within a learning context. The main findings of this paper indicate that social media is a good tool for collaborative purposes, communication purposes, resource sharing and accessing. However, social media use cases are limited at the current state, as higher education apps provide more specific and learn-based functionalities. Furthermore, using social media in a formal way helps to make the education process more personal by having a direct connection with instructors. However, there are still barriers that institutions have to overcome, which include the social media integration models into higher education. This paper, therefore, also discusses the existing integration frameworks and proposes an extension of its current model.

The growing significance of microlearning in the context of digital education, higher education and lifelong learning makes it an interesting field for research. Microlearning can be described as learning through small chunks of learning activities which are designed to be concise and focused. In the studied literature, microlearning content development and the content delivery system were the topics most often researched. The main findings include the potential of microlearning tools to provide an adaptive and personalized learning experience using educational data mining techniques and building learner models. In addition, context awareness provides the potential to take contextual factors into account like location and distraction levels of the learner to enhancing focussed microlearning. Current literature focuses on features and design principles of microlearning tools rather then evaluation criteria making it difficult to adequately assess these tools. Building on the current literature focus on features and design principles together with identifying potentials and shortcomings of current microlearning tools, this research paper aims to conceptualize an evaluation framework for microlearning tools based on core criteria in the context of digitalization and higher education.

The mobile device market has been steadily growing throughout the last two decades. Nowadays, most people own smartphones that support various applications. Many of these applications fall under the category of mobile learning. These apps have many exciting features which could potentially enhance the learning experience in higher education. If academic institutions decide to use such applications, they also need instructions on how to integrate these apps in a common learning portal, such as a learning management system. This research identifies six features of modern mobile learning applications - augmented reality, gamification, artificial intelligence, push notifications, personalization, and collaborative learning. Then, it describes them and their applicability in both educational and non-educational contexts, with the focus on higher education. Finally, two technologies, namely learning tools interoperability (LTI) and application programming interfaces (APIs), are presented for data and application integration.