Effective integration of the mobile device into education and learning

It is a real fact that mobile devices, specially smartphones, and Internet have substantially changed the customs of the population, the social habits, the communication media, and, ultimately, the way of life of people. Inevitably, although with different barriers and with more time that many studies and reports estimated, mobility has arrived to the educational context, with different intensity, penetration and usage in formal and non-formal education, and in a full way into the informal learning. Mobile device is called to revolutionize the educational practices due to it introduces some degrees of freedom that other previous technologies had not offered. The power of ubiquitous connectivity and the possibilities of having access to the knowledge sources in a pocket device, such as mobile phone, or with a size as a notebook, in the case of tablets, and also equipped with a processing capacity higher than that of personal computers a few years ago, pose disruptive scenarios in educational methodologies based on technology and support eLearning as a natural option both as a complement or as a main educational model. However, this idyllic vision has a different degree of acceptance according to the educational level, the disciplinary area and the formality of the formative action. Therefore, large-scale research studies are needed to convey the degree of advancement, effective use, acceptance and penetration of mobile technologies in education and learning. This is the reason for this special issue at the Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia (RIED), which consists of 13 articles selected after a rigorous peer review of the more than 35 proposals received.