In 2008 mLearn was under the metaphorical banner of ‘the bridge from text to context’, in part motivated by the location of the conference, Ironbridge in Shropshire, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, as well as the increasing importance of location awareness. The choice of conference theme, unsurprisingly, reflected changing priorities in the field. In part, the 2008 papers show that the growing functionalities of mobile devices are leading to an extension of traditional notions of context, normally bound up with spatial proximity, through social networking tools across existing geographical and socio-economic boundaries. Among other things, the 2008 conference problematised issues around the relationship between discourse, identity and knowledge in ever more global contexts in learning with increasingly ubiquitous mobile technologies in and across formal, informal and work-based contexts. Whilst the number of practical examples of use of mobile devices for pedagogical purposes in and across a number of spheres and sectors of education is undoubtedly growing – most noticeable in 2008 we saw the growth in the number of large(r) scale projects (city-, Local Authority-, sector-wide) reported on –, the extent to which that work is underpinned by explicit theoretical considerations remains limited as does the number of papers that address conceptual and theoretical considerations. Nevertheless, the number of conceptually and theoretically underpinned papers is growing with a number of presenters, for example, trying to use Activity Theory as analytical frame for explaining their data. This might well have been linked to Yrjö Engeström bring one on the keynote speakers in Telford. Judging by the 2008 proceedings, whilst mobile learning has clearly matured and consolidated, it still has some way to go before it can be said to be theoretically grounded.