Education environment at Sookmyung has undergone major changes in recent years. In particular we have witnessed how effectively Problem Based Learning(PBL), launched as the pioneering and revolutionizing teaching and learning method at Sookmyung, has reshaped teaching and learning environment to empower students’ learning and leadership skills in class and group activities, in spite of the increasing workload on the part of the students and teachers.In fall semester, some classes, as the continuos efforts to enhance teaching and learning method at Sookmyung, will be run by a kind of “Ubiquitous Learning.” As a dictionary defines, “ubiquitous” means “pervasive,” “omnipresent,” “ever present” and “everywhere.” U-learning literally means you are able to learn at any time, any place, as and if you wish. It sounds unrealistic. But it is a new type of learning and teaching method which takes advantage of the development of digital information transfer, storage, wireless and mobile technology and communication methods in our time. In addition, another significant influencer of U-learning is the trend towards greater opening up and sharing of teaching and education materials, such as Open Course Ware(OCW). Actually you are already exercising U-learning if you are doing research by using global resources such as OCW, Wiki, Podcasting, RSS, Meta Blog, youtube.com and online communities. U-learning environment can encourage participation of students, cultivate the leadership skills in class and group activities, and enhance critical thinking by broaden their perspectives in the global scale,improving their skill to use the global resources to meet their research needs and empowering their learning skills up to the level of independent study.To be specific, U-learning has the potential to revolutionize education and overcome many of the physical constraints of traditional learning. While you are taking a course at Sookmyung, you will utilize global resources in the States, U.K. China and anywhere to maximize your knowledge. In other words, if you are studying romantic nature poems in the 19th century in “Romanticism” class at Sookmyung, you will have a chance to gain access to the similar courses offered at MIT, and evaluate, annotate and share its content with your class at Sookmyung. But there are a couple of requirements for students and teachers who wish to adopt U-learning. Teachers will be able to offer a variety of learning support services for students. Students will be able to select the learning means best desired by or suited to themselves, from a variety of alternatives, depending on time, place, and their objectives. Students are also required to have an ability to obtain knowledge by themselves, which ability will become more important than what knowledge they have at any moment. In order to perform the above function, students will have to improve their language skills first. Since most of the open global sources, visual and aural both, offered in English, students have to sharpen their language skills. Beside the language barrier, there will be many problems to solve in order to successfully customize Ulearning method suitable to Sookmyung such as mobile and internet equipments on campus, integration of lecturer-prepared knowledge and student-initiated knowledge, development of technologies to lighten the load of producing course content and that of actual learning by students, mixed use of conventional teaching method and new one. If you are taking U-learning based class this fall, don’t forget that you are one of the pioneers who will make a new way of teaching and learning for the future.
