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In this chapter, we offer a thorough research compendium that bridges together theories and perspectives from various disciplines including adult and higher education, psychology and social psychology, sociology, and women's and gender studies in order to help instructors think about ways to expand on existing activities by incorporating mobile technologies in the learning process. Based on this review of literature, we discuss the importance of motivation, participation, community, voice, and learning in higher education and offer our Interdisciplinary Model for Student-Centered Classrooms as a guide for helping instructors who want to use mobile technologies in their own classes. In the second half of the chapter, we discuss suggestions for achieving this model through the use of mobile technologies, provide several opportunities for critical reflection of this model through problem-based scenarios to stimulate applications of our model, and consider the process of infusing mobile technologies into current pedagogical techniques. Overall, this chapter provides a theoretical basis and mandate for further research and implementation of mobile technologies as useful pedagogical tools in higher education capable of increasing student retention, engagement, and positive learning outcomes in higher education.

Lars Birch Andreasen is Associate Professor at the Department of Learning and Philosophy at Aalborg University, Denmark, where he is a member of the Research Lab: ICT and Designs for Learning. He holds a Ph.D. in Education from the Danish University of Education and an M.A. in Cultural Sociology from Copenhagen University. His research interests are dialogic communication, problem- and project-based learning, collaboration in virtual learning environments, information literacy, and lifelong learning.

The chapters in this book focus on three key areas of innovation in teaching and learning in higher education today: smartphone devices, texting applications, and multipurpose, multimedia mobile communicative applications such as Skype. Today's educators have at their disposal a wide array of digital technologies that enable them to enhance the teaching and learning process. These technologies, coupled with more valid and reliable learning theories, are revolutionizing the way we teach and are altering our notions of what it means to learn and live in a post-industrial, globalized world. Both individually and socially, these new mobile technologies are becoming increasingly popular and useful as educational tools across a wide range of disciplines as a means to engage and retain students. If used appropriately and purposefully, these mobile technologies are well suited for the increasingly interconnected and interdependent world we live in and they provide educators with another set of tools by which to enrich the teaching and learning process and educational outcomes (Kukulska-Hulme, 2012).