The Advantages of Utilizing Mobile Technologies in Learning - Essay Example

College: Mobile Learning Introduction Mobile learning, abbreviated as M-Learning, has varied meanings for various communities. Although m-learning is related to distance education and e-learning, it is unique in its spotlight on learning using mobile devices as well as across contexts. By definition, mobile learning is any mode of learning, which occurs when learners are not at predetermined or fixed locations, or the learning that occurs when learners takes advantage of opportunities of learning offered by the mobile technologies. It is a form of e learning via mobile computational devices such as Windows CE machines, Palms, as well as individuals’ digital cell phones (Quinn 2000, Para 1). In other words, m-learning reduces the restriction of the location of learning with the general portable devices’ mobility. The use of the mobile technologies elicits interesting queries as scholars examine the effectiveness of learning and teaching in this digital age. In real sense, mobile technologies enhance and extend learning across diverse groups of people. Currently, almost all people use and own at least one form of mobile devices. Such people not only own and use the devices but also invest some considerable amount of time, resources, and efforts in choosing, purchasing, customizing, as well as exploiting them. Most of these handled devices are an expression of part of even much of the values, identity, individuality, and affiliations of their owners via their choice as well as use. The devices are ubiquitous and pervasive, unobtrusive and conspicuous, taken to granted and noteworthy in lives of majority of the people. This explains why m-learning is more than e-learning using mobile devices as it also hints the possibility of leveraging the devices of learners and this can take education to new spaces, places, and modes (Traxler 2011, p. 4-5). For clarification, mobile learning is the use of handheld and mobile information technology devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet PC technologies, as well as laptops in learning and teaching activities (Prensky 2001a, p. 1). As the internet and computers become vital tools of education, the technologies become increasingly portable, effective, easy to use, as well as affordable. This offers numerous opportunities for broadening the access and participation to information and communication technologies, and specifically to the internet (Campbell 2005, p. 32). The mobile devices like PDAs and mobile phones are more reasonably priced in comparison to desktop computers, thus representing relatively cheaper mechanism of internet access; though the connection cost might be higher. Introduction the tablet PCs currently allows access to mobile internet with equal or even more functionality than the desktop computers (Prensky 2001b, p. 5). The purpose of this paper is to carry out a literature review to examine the ways in which students use m-learning as a practice of their learning. The paper will also examine the extent of opportunities afforded by m-learning towards new teaching and learning. The literature review will highlight some literature gaps to facilitate future research. Literature Review This is the main body of this paper and it shall be divided into three independent sections. The first will examine how students use m-learning as part of their learning practice followed by the degree to which mobile learning provides new teaching and learning opportunities to both the students and their teachers. The third and final part of this section will examine the epistemology and ontology of m-learning. How Students Use Mobile Learning as Part of Their Learning Practice Educators have pondered on the possible advantages of utilizing mobile technologies in learning for a number of years, with numerous scholarly articles having been published in the recent years about the probable mobile devices’ affordances for supporting, facilitating, as well as enhancing learning (Prensky 2001a, p. 1). Research and speculation into use of the mobile devices in learning, as well as the broad affordability and availability of the mobile devices, there lacks a matching surge in use of the mobile devices in the educational contexts. Questions have been raised as to why students, who have free access to mobile devices, fail to use them for lifelong and personal learning (Kukulska-Hulme 2005, p. 25). Two overriding strategies have cropped up in relation to the digital devices ownership for m-learning. One is about the standardized set of devices provided to all the learners in order to overcome device access and platform diversity barriers, on temporary or permanent grounds. The other one leverages the already student-owned mobile devices (irrespective of interoperability) for the activities of learning. Both strategies have their own problems, which currently symbolize the psychological barriers towards the mobile devices’ adoption as tools of learning, despite their affordances (Prensky 2001a, p. 2). The first instance has cited that an educational institution may sell, provide, or even direct its students to buy a specified mobile device such as an Apple iPhone, to be used for study or educational purposes. In cases in which mobile technologies are loaned to the students on temporary basis, the students have minimal time of developing fluency and proficiency in use of such mobile devices (Ally 2009, p. 86). On the contrary, better results are palpable in the cases in which students are permitted retention of the devices for relatively longer periods to develop their proficiency and fluency as well as personalize the devices in order to match their individual usage preferences. However, the cost of purchasing these typical devices (for either the students or the institution) can make the implementation of this strategy quite difficult. In the other scenario, educators may rely on the mobile devices owned by the students. This strategy is met by a major difficulty in that students own a wide range of the mobile devices, which are divergent in their capabilities of media capture and playback, communications and networking, as well as application customization. However, this approach has a perceived advantage in that it permits students to employ mobile devices, which they are mainly familiar with for learning purposes (Ryu & Parsons 2008, p. 108). The Extent Mobile Learning Provides New Teaching and Learning Opportunities In this section, it is imperative to examine the reasons as to why mobile devices should be employed in learning. While the students are capable of utilizing their mobile phones for numerous purposes such as phoning, texting, listening to music, photographing etc), they are somehow unaware of the ways in which they can use them in supplementing their classroom experiences. Most of the students have not considered how the idea of wireless portable devices can play a crucial role in their learning ways. Thus, scholars argue that there is a need of modeling diverse ways of doing this (Guy 2010, 76).Most of the mobile devices are essential in learning as teaching, administration, and organization aids for practitioners as well as tools for supporting students’ learning obligations. Mobile learning facilitates an easier interaction between students as well as with their tutors as opposed to hiding behind the large monitors. This makes it easy for students to raise any concern regarding their studies and the teachers are given a viable platform for responding to the same. In addition, use of the mobile learning devices saves on space as it is much easier for several mobile devices to be accommodated in a single classroom compared to the number of desktop computers that can be accommodated (Guy 2010, 76). PDAs and the tablet holding e-books and notes are less bulky and lighter than traditional bags full of papers, textbooks, and files. They are also better than laptops and this fosters comfort among students, which in turn fosters their understanding. Use of keyboard and mouse is less intuitive than using stylus pen in handwriting. M-learning also fosters the ability of sharing assignments as well as working collaboratively. It facilitates e-mailing, cutting or copying, and pasting of texts among learners and practitioners, as well as passing of devices around groups or beaming of work to one another through the function of infrared of a wireless network like Bluetooth or a PDA. The mobile tools can be utilized anytime, anywhere, including on the train, at home, in hotels, making it valuable for committed students. Scholars also cite another important opportunity as being engagement of learners in the learning process. The mobile devices such as mobile phones, games devices, and gadgets like Play station or Nintendo DS reconcile the young individuals who may have in the learning process lost educational interest. Thus, the potential dropouts end up enduring in the learning process as mobile devices act as a source of motivation for them over their academic life. The m-learning technology has the potential of contributing towards combating of the digital divide since the mobile equipment such as PDAs are generally cheaper in comparison to desktop computers. Epistemology and Ontology The question of whether m-learning should be integrated in the education system enables this paper to consider the various modes of information elicited and hence help in defining a viable methodology. This agrees with the research conducted to examine how universities respond towards disruptive technical innovation via the processes and individuals engaged with it: students, lecturers, business managers, administrators, information technology service providers, as well as their associated ways of working and policies (Bird 2009, p. 3). This agrees with (Edmondson & McManus 2007, p. 1155) who integrated epistemological instinct based on a rather interpretive paradigm with the perception that knowledge is constructed socially. The structure and content of knowledge are always molded fundamentally by the media via which communication of knowledge occurs. In the present day, mobile telephony and internet are indispensable parts of such media and minds have increasingly been bound up with diverse technological devices. Face-to-face communication and the solitary documents’ study merge with the world undergoing constant digital networking, text full of images. Thus, education has been confronted by some radical challenges, which imply that an epistemological revolution is underway (Eisenhardt & Graebner 2007, p. 25). Literature has revealed that mobile learning is more essential for distance-education students. In most circumstances, both the faculty and students tend to be already participating in a range of mobile communication and computing activities for recreation and at work (Vavoula et al 2009, p. 78). The most distance-learners tend to be the working people taking courses to further their careers. The workplace m-learning has become a culturally and socially perpetuated and negotiated phenomenon, which remains uncommon. This unpopularity is similar to the available taxonomies, which further analyze this thought paradigmatically, perceptively and critically (Remtulla 2010, p. 17). In addition, such distance-learning students and instructors lack a deep integration of mobile technologies to their learning and teaching activities respectively (Vavoula et al 2009, p. 78). The implication for the faculty with the urge of implementing m-learning in their traditional or online courses is that they could start by making information and content available to the students in easily accessible formats by laptop computer or mobile phone. This could be a logical undertaking since majority of the faculty and students utilize these tools in most of their every day activities. Some other tools like MP3 players and video iPods can be integrated into the system gradually (Corbeil & Valdes-Corbeil 2007, p. 56). Discussion Devices of mobile communication or computing offer a distinctive opportunity for both the faculty and students in various types of instructional settings for capitalizing on freedom and flexibility offered by such devices. These benefits, however, demand new approaches and pedagogies towards delivering and facilitation of instruction. If mobile learning is appropriately facilitated, it can benefit the learners through provision of interaction and instructional materials via their mobile devices whenever and wherever they require it. The instructors would also benefit as they too, could interact with students as well as access services while travelling. Sharma and Kitchens (2004, p. 204) posit that keeping up with the changing phenomenon as well as enhancing effective mobile learning, it is important for instructors to learn about as well as adapt to the increasingly changing environments, where and when appropriate. Naismith et al (2004, p. 11) theorized that the impacts of mobile technologies on learning will be huge. The scholars came up with a number of predictions with the basis of emerging trends. First, learning will emphasize on an individual learner’s environment as opposed to the classroom. Secondly, learning will compose the learners making consequential connections towards to resources as well as other people. Third, the capacity of publishing their reflections and observations instantly as digital media will allow learners to become their own environments’ investigators. The fourth prediction is that the ability of easier capturing and recording of life events will help the learners in collaborative reflection and recall. Finally, mobile team opportunities and distributed collaboration will be greatly fostered. If accurate, these predictions have important pedagogical implications, which are both an opportunity for, and a consequence of, mobile learning. The educators will require shifting from their current or traditional form of being knowledge transmitters to learning facilitators as a means of creating new pathways of learning, which are more personal, situated, long term, and collaborative (Wagner 2005, p. 43). Reflections From the literature review above, it is clear that the implications of m-learning are far-reaching as well as having profound potential impact on education. In fact, the next couple of years ill witness a rapid growth period towards mobile learning, particularly with the evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary changes. The capabilities of mobile learning will continue expanding with introduction of some smaller, more powerful, and sophisticated gadgets with capacity of delivering data through a range of formats anytime, to any place. The present day devices of mobile computing have greater computational power in comparison with the largest computers a generation ago. This trend is continuous and more developments are expected. This paper observes that whether m-learning will be integrated by students and faculties into their system will to a larger extent depend on the efficiency and necessity they will attach to their features and services. For instance, if the students prefer being informed through SMS every time new messages are posted on their online courses’ announcement pages, they have a higher likelihood of subscribing to such services in case it were presented as an option. Similarly, many faculties would gladly take the advantage of m-learning as a means of facilitating easier online courses as well as responding to the individual queries of the students while in travel. The faculties and students already using the devices of mobile communication or computing will find mechanisms of integrating them into all the facets of their lives. This includes the teaching and learning tasks. Educators can help the students through making content more available as well as in formats, which are easily accessible via popular mobile devices. With the development of these devices into more powerful ones, they may supplant with other technologies or coexist in order to make learning much more portable. Thus, both the faculty and students need to be efficiently prepared to take full advantage of their reimbursements, especially in higher education, through effective plans of the best means of employing mobile devices in both traditional and online classes. Conclusion In conclusion, m-learning may presently be the most effective learning tool, which can supplement online learning, information and communication technology, as well as more traditional methods of learning. In addition, mobile learning can do much more towards enriching the experience of learning. Mobile learning is widely believed to be a vast factor in luring disaffected young adults towards engaging in learning, where the traditional means of learning have failed dramatically. As mobile phones, merge PDA purpose with cameras, MP3 and video players, while as tablets combine portability of PDAs with desktops’ functionality, the learning world changes and becomes more flexible, more mobile, as well as more exciting. The paper has thus supported the use of mobile learning, as it can be an interesting means of learning, which helps the teacher and student to interact in rather comprehensive ways as opposed to the classroom setting in which their relationship is diverted due to the number of students served within a limited period of time. References Ally, M 2009, Mobile learning: transforming the delivery of education and training, Athabasca University Press, Athabasca. Bird, P 2009, Methodological issues in a study of mobile learning as a disruptive innovation, viewed 22 February 2012, Campbell, G 2005, “There’s something in the air: podcasting in education,” EDUCAUSE Review, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 32-47. Corbeil, JR & Valdes-Corbeil, ME 2007, “Are you ready for mobile learning,” Educause Quarterly (EQ), Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 51-58. Edmondson, A & McManus, S 2007, Methodological Fit in Management Field Research, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 1155-1179. 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Ryu, H & Parsons, D 2008, Innovative mobile learning: techniques and technologies, Idea Group Inc., California. Sharma, SK & Kitchens, FL 2004, “Web services architecture for m-learning,” Electronic Journal on e-Learning, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 203-216. Traxler, J 2011, Introduction, in: J. Traxler and J. Wishart (Eds.) Making mobile learning work: Case studies of practice, The Higher Education Academy, Bristol. Vavoula, G, Pachler, N & Kukulska-Hulme, A 2009, Researching mobile learning: frameworks, tools, and research designs, Peter Lang, New York. Wagner, ED 2005, “Enabling Mobile Learning,” EDUCAUSE Review, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 40-53. Read More