Agency

In well designed mobile learning activities, students have a high degree of control over the places, pace and time they learn. This is referred to as Agency. It also includes the degree to which students have autonomy over what they learn or the learning objectives. This is most evident in non-formal mobile activities such as game-playing, but it is not always as strong when it is transferred into formal, school based tasks. When students have high degrees of agency the mobile learning activity is likely to be more personalised and therefore more engaging. 

Customisation

Mobile learning activities can also be customised or tailored to the needs of individual students, helping to make them more personalised. This often involves designing individual tasks for students and enabling them to use the features of their mobile devices, such as apps, to make their learning individual. In well designed mobile learning activities, students will have a strong sense of personal ownership, especially if they are using a mobile device on a 1:1 basis. Increasingly mobile devices are context aware and this feature enables the device to capture information about the learner such as their location, time and the people/objects they are near. In turn this feature of mobile devices enables the designers of mobile learning activities to 'push' information, additional resources and guidance materials to the students on an individual or tailored basis. This is referred to as customisation.