摘要：While the enthusiasm that Ballance shows in his commentary (see this issue) for mobile learning and the possibilities that new developments in technology of mobile devices may bring about is commendable, there are several areas of concern in his commentary which deserve mention. My first concern is that the commentary misrepresents the vocabulary learning system described in the Stockwell (2010) article in many respects through, among other things, describing the learning activities inaccurately (it was an intelligent adaptive system), and suggesting that the same format was adopted for both the PC and mobile versions of the system (which was not the case). Secondly, Ballance seems to be stating that since problems that existed at that time were going to be solved by smart phones anyway, many of the findings were already obsolete at the time of publication. Not only does this seem to place an exaggerated expectation on the effects that smart phones may have, but it also fails to consider the ways in which learners engaged in the activities and their views towards mobile learning in general. These issues will be dealt with in more detail later, but in short, this paper will argue that (a) Ballance has failed to comprehend the activities described and the learning environment; and (b) Ballance has unrealistic expectations of the effect that new technologies have on learner attitudes towards using them for learning purposes.
