A Review of the Current Status of Mobile Apps in

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A Review of the Current Status of Mobile Apps in Education Implication for Emerging Country’s Business Education Strategy Christoph Lattemann1, Ferial Khaddage2 1

Jacobs University, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, GERMANY 2 Higher Colleges of Technology, Business/IT Department SWC, UAE [email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract Since the early 21st century mobile technologies and tools are becoming more affordable, connectivity is becoming more ubiquitous and the usage of mobile devices is constantly on the rise in developed countries as well as in emerging markets, in particular in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Research suggests that this also marks the beginning of a new educational paradigm (e.g. Daniels, 2009) as mobile applications (mobile apps) will make their way into the mainstream of the educational environment. Cloud services in combination with off-line access via mobile devices - will have far reaching consequences for education. The main purpose of this paper is to emphasis on the applicability and usage of mobile apps in higher education. We will review the current status of mobile apps and their usage. A preliminary study on students’ use of mobile apps for educational purposes is described. We derive conclusions about the future usage of these technologies and application in higher education.

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Introduction Mobile applications (in short: mobile apps) are software applications designed to run on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers. These technologies have come a long way since the opening of the Apple App Store in 2008, especially in its application for business, information, communication, health, and gaming. Most mobile devices are capable of processing and disseminating information in an efficient way. Smart devices, such as the iPhone or iPad, are equipped with innovative functionalities and unique features for an easy delivery of content, sharing information, and collaborative work over the internet. This is the basis for the use of these technologies in the education industry. Smart phones and other mobile devices are widely spread around the world (see table 1). The average penetration and usage rate of mobile devices in major emerging markets, such as Russia, Brazil, China and India and in the developed markets such as United States, Japan, and Germany are between 67 73 per cent and 130 132 per cent. {table 1 near here} A percentage of more than 100, like in Brazil, does not necessarily mean that every person has more than one mobile phone, it cannot even be interpreted that every inhabitant has a mobile device. These figures, however, show that the usage of mobile phones are widespread in the developing countries and that emerging markets are on the same developmental stage in respect to the usage of mobile phones than developed countries. According to Accenture (2011) BRIC market consumers have an even higher rate of adoption of the newest technologies and a greater willingness to pay premiums for features and applications. Malpica et al. (2011) state that most of the future demands for smart phones are expected to come from emerging markets.

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Khaddage et al. (2009) listed functionalities from mobile devices which can be used for teaching and learning purposes (see table 2). Most of these features are already used by students to help them during the learning process (Khaddage & Knezek, 2011): {table 2 near here} Currently the rapid development of mobile apps for mobile devices is taking the educational world into a storm. The mobile app sphere has grown tremendously in recent years and shows no signs of stopping. The world wide mobile app market is expected to grow from $6.8 billion in 2010 to $25 billion by 2015 (Zadensk, 2011). A study by the mobile research specialist group confirmed that the mobile app market is moving rapidly and this is affecting the world globally (Jahns, 2010). The fast penetration is due to an open, easy and direct access to cloud services and online application distribution systems (app stores) via the internet. And it is due to the availability of tools and resources for developers to code, manage, and maintain apps for any particular purpose. Currently there are about 500.000 mobile apps (Grothaus, 2011). Mobile apps are spreading widely and they exist for almost every purpose, such as business, health, music, finance, games, and news. But there are only a few mobile apps in the area of higher education, especially at universities, and there is very little support for mobile technologies in the current online course delivery systems at most institutions (Seibu & Biju, 2008). Several of the big universities such as CalTech, Stanford University, Duke University etc. are currently putting their course material online so that, either with or without academic credit, everybody has access to advanced education over mobile devices (NY Times 2012). Herewith, mobile learning forms a crucial part of distance learning environments (Tatar, et al. 2003).

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From a technical perspective, this is enabled with the deployment of cloud computing, where computing and storage capacity (applications, platforms, and infrastructure) is provided and can be shared over the internet. Cloud computing forms a foundation for a strong mobile apps infrastructure for teaching and learning. Today’s predominating infrastructures, with closed systems, restricted access and local data storages form a barrier for an effective integration of mobile technologies in education. Some factors limiting right now the usage of mobile devices for distance learning in higher education are listed in table 3, along with the possible solution to overcome these barriers. {table 3 near here} Despite rapid developments in the usage of mobile apps and devices, universities are yet to formally acknowledged and integrate mobile apps for teaching and learning. The major issue for integrating these technologies they say is that interoperability is not guaranteed, and there isn’t yet a standardized one mobile device to be used by all students. Some universities have overcome these barriers by offering services for one particular device, such as the iPhone or the iPad, to provide access to the curricula and distance learning content. A good example for such integration is Abilene Christian University (ACU) in the United States. They integrated the iPhone for teaching and learning after a thorough investigation of students’ and teachers’ needs, pre-requisites, existing mobile technologies and devices. They finally were able to integrate the iPhone to promote mobile learning at their university. This practice has been an offer since 2008 (ACU, 2008). Just recently, ELSYonline, a platform for mobile productivity and mobile learning, together with the U.S. Ministry of Education, has tested mobile apps for mobile learning with about 100 U.S. colleges and universities (openpr 2012).

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Since mobile devices and app technologies can provide an efficient delivery mechanism of learning content and an effective mean for communication, universities should actively promote such technologies. In the next section mobile apps and technologies for teaching and learning are discussed, and cloud computing is described as an alternative and effective approach for successful mobile app integration.

A Review of Mobile Apps in Education Mobile apps - if integrated properly - can provide an efficient delivery mechanism for learning content and is an efficient tool for a 1:1, 1:n, and n:m communication. In this section we investigate app integrations, methods and approaches that can be adapted to meet today’s students’ needs. Oblinger (2003, 2004), Oblinger et al. (2005) along with McMahon and Pospisil (2005) describe today’s learners as digitally literate, ‘always on’, and always connected and reachable. Students want to experiment and have community-oriented personalities and characteristics. They are collaborative and multitasking learners who like to study in a groupbased environment (McMahon, et al. 2005). Khaddage et al. (2011) also state that the method of communication among students have changed over the years and these days students stay connected with their peers via devices such as smart phones, and tools such as social network sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace), instant messaging (e.g. Skype, Vibre), micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter) and other web 2.0 applications. Students belong to the new digital mobile world, while universities and educators are still reluctant to use these technologies in their teaching and learning

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environment. They even view these technologies as a distraction for students (Khaddage, et al. 2011). To make mobile app technologies the main distributer of learning content to students at universities in the future universities have to develop unique didactical, technical and methodological approaches for teaching and learning in higher education (Lattemann and Stieglitz 2012). There are many methods and approaches that can be adapted to integrate mobile apps and which could ease learning and teaching. Apps can be used for multiple purposes such as down loading content, group communication, test preparations, study guides and as a new types of instructional materials to the classroom environment. Mobile apps offer four important features to foster mobile learning in higher education by providing service, speed, security, and simplicity. Together they form the four S’s which are important for applying them in higher education. •

Service: Apps are mobile and interactive tools for an effective exchange of information, for collaboration, and to impart knowledge. E.g. real-time collaborative (editing, commenting, ...) upon the same documents at the same time is possible over a wireless connection.

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Speed: Apps are designed to be fast and efficient, they are very quick to load and start up remotely from any mobile device regardless of how complex the query is. Fast and efficient communication and data sharing is enabled by using asynchronous data transmission concepts such as the Ajax technology (Asynchronous Java Script and XML) where only updated content is transferred and not entire documents or webpage contents.

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Security: Apps are designed to keep users safe and more secure when using their mobile devices. For example special security apps keep the users up-to-date with the latest security software. These kinds of built-in malware (Anti-Virus, Spyware etc.) is

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far more a key feature on smart phones than on common laptops or even desktop computers. •

Simplicity: Apps can be streamlined, clean and simple efficient and easy to use. Users can access and perform a search and navigate via the same box and the same interface very easily. Apple Corp.s’ success story in the past decade with the iPhone and iPad shows that simplicity is the key success factor of their mobile devices. Competitors are now bringing also user-friendly devices and apps with intuitive human-computer interfaces on the market which make data sharing and collaboration via mobile electronics - in comparison to the work with desktop computers - much easier.

Currently Apple and Google (Android) are dominating the app market for business as well as for education. The Android operation system pushes the development of educational apps further by applying an open source approach. Google has now provided a new approach to support the use of Google Apps (e.g. Google Docs) in particular for business and education. Only since recently (August 2011) these new applications offer an offline access to information and content which is shared over the internet (Mashable, 2011). This feature can lower costs by avoiding the necessity for a permanent use of mobile networks. Hence when the same access is offered free of charge and off-line, users will be encouraged to integrate these technologies into their daily life and will use it to access learning content. Already some universities, such as Deakin University in Melbourne/Australia, are currently conducting an investigation on iPad (Apple) integration via apps for teaching and learning (O'Loughlin, 2011). Currently there are a growing number of mobile learning apps that can be used for teaching and learning. Table 4 shows selected state-of-the-art apps. {table 4 near here}

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In the next section we will describe an analysis of student perceptions on mobile apps for teaching and learning to support the integration and the acknowledgement of this unique type of access and delivery of learning content. We focussed our preliminary analysis on three developed countries from different continents with high expenditures on public and private educational institutes per pupil/student (Eurostat 2011): Australia, Germany, and Japan. We do not focus on emerging markets, because, “the current state of higher education in developing countries is quite weak” (World Bank 2000), and “developing countries lack the domestic capacity to meet the demand” (Altbach and Knight 2007). Even if smart phone penetration is already widely spread in developing countries and emerging markets, as shown in table 1, we expect that new forms of distance learning in higher education will evolve in developed countries and spill over to developing countries and emerging markets at a later stage. Analysis of Student Perceptions on Mobile Apps for Teaching and Learning From a didactical, methodological, and technological perspective mobile apps promise to be efficient means for teaching and learning purposes. Smart mobile devices provide an easy-touse technological platform for mobile access, transformation and communication of data, knowledge sharing and collaboration. Didactical concepts, derived from a constructivism perspective, show ways to manage dispersed and self-organized work or group work processes (Lattemann and Stieglitz 2012). Our survey was conducted in three countries to explore and analyze students’ perception of mobile apps for teaching and learning. In order to study the attitudes of students on the effectiveness of mobile learning, a questionnaire was developed with 20 items designed to measure students' attitudes and perception on the effectives of mobile apps for teaching and learning. The study was conducted between August 2010 and September 2011. A convenience sample of about 240 students in Japan, 80 in Germany, and 40 students in

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Australia was taken. The surveyed students are from different academic fields and have different cultural backgrounds.

Survey Results The data show that although desktop computers and notebooks are still dominant technologies to access distance learning content, but a large number of students already use their smart mobile devices to access learning content, and to share information with their peers. 90 % of the surveyed students in Germany, 98% of the Australian students, and 95% of the Japanese students have smart phones. About 50 % of the students reported to use Facebook via smart phones to stay in contact with their peers and to share information. Voice over IP (VoIP) services which enable synchronous group communication (conferencing) are only used by a minority of the students. E.g. only 15 % of the German students use Skype or Viber on their smart phones. All smart phone users download free of charge mobile apps, only 20% are willing to pay for them. About 70 % of all surveyed German students and 85% of the Australian students perceive smart phones and mobile apps as useful for distance learning, because of the following reasons: Mobile apps supports and enables the collaboration and communication among students (perceived as useful by 50% of the students) and with the teacher (perceived as useful by 30% of the students). Mobile apps are perceived as useful for quizzes (21% of the students), and for up- and downloading content (30% of the students). Gender and country specific differences could not be observed. The most commonly used mobile apps are language programs (language translators) and apps for quizzes and tests (e.g. SAT test). Some students complain that mobile learning via smart devices is still unrecognized and not formally acknowledged in regular teaching.

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Consequently, they mentioned that they mostly use mobile apps for learning purposes outside their university courses and their official learning environment as universities and teachers are not offering mobile services. Thus, it is not surprising that the adoption rate of this technology for teaching and learning in higher education is still low. Hence, teachers and administrators are yet to formally integrate and implement mobile learning and teaching apps to help their students. For now, the general sense gained from this preliminary investigation and analysis is that in Japan as well as in Australia and Germany the convenience of being able to connect to the internet and using apps to access learning content via mobile devices is very appealing to students, but not so much yet to teachers. The Future of Mobile Apps The use of mobile devices in education is on the rise. Not only is this technology likely to become a central piece of distance learning in higher education but also for interorganizational learning and executive education (Jahns, Mikalajunaite, 2010). New and innovative mobile learning and teaching apps are emerging on a daily basis. This rapid development will push the integrating and usage of mobile apps and smart phones in higher education, even for not technology-savvy teachers and learners. Cloud computing and the trend toward interoperability between applications will drive the usage of mobile apps even further. For example, Kindle allows users to read and synchronize their notes and bookmarks in the same books on different readers. Tool and apps will soon be able to communicate over different operations systems and smart phones. Taken these developments into considerations, universities are forced to implement didactical and pedagogical concepts which merge the tools and technologies in their education environment. Therefore we may see that educational institutions start to acknowledge and formally recognize informal learning (learning that happens outside a classroom environment), as

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mobile app technologies and methods of communication are already enforcing this push into the curriculum, hence giving mobile apps the capability to bring together informal and formal learning approaches (Knezek, et al. 2011) A framework to evaluate how these technologies can improve learning is yet to be developed and implemented as technology keeps evolving rapidly. Making textbooks digital and streaming lectures won’t revolutionize education. But mobile devices with their ability to provide the four mentioned S’s (Service, Speed, Security, and Simplicity) probably will fundamentally change the learning and teaching in higher education. Therefore a change in teaching methods and a focus on social factors is what is needed to shift education for the better. Although most agree that mobile cloud computing holds a great promise for delivering cloudbased mobile apps by enabling access from anywhere (Khaddage & Knezek, 2010), there may be still several barriers that need to be addressed to elevate its usefulness and capabilities. For mobile cloud computing to reach its full potential, network latencies have to be reduced, and network bandwidth for faster data transfer between the cloud and devices has to be increased. Adaptive monitoring of network conditions to optimize networks has to be implemented and device costs have to be reduced (Betts 2011). None of these are easy issues to accomplish, but service and network providers in corporation with educational institutions are already making important steps to improve the mobile cloud experience (Mashable, 2011).

Conclusion This paper aimed at analyzing the usage of mobile apps in higher education settings and for distance learning. We analyzed the status of smart phone usage in distance learning in higher

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education in three high-tech countries with leading higher education environments: Australia, Germany, and Japan. We assume that developments in these countries are predictors for the development in emerging markets. Statistics show that smart phone usage in emerging markets has already caught up with those in developed countries. Our investigations from the three developed countries indicate that mobile apps will soon reshape the future of the current learning and teaching settings at universities. Laptop and desktop computers may soon become irrelevant, while web-enabled smart phones, iPads, tablet PCs, and e-readers will surpassing. Already now, more than 90% of the students in Australia, Germany, and Japan use smart phones for communication and information sharing. Students are using mobile apps for learning outside their university and they see their advantages. This indicates that mobile apps along with cloud computing for teaching and learning will soon become the future of higher education. However, mobile apps for teaching and learning are not yet provided by universities and didactical concepts for an effective distance learning via mobile apps are missing. Hence, the time has come for universities to develop didactical concepts and integrate mobile apps into their curricula and use it effectively. Decision makers, developers, teachers, administrators and researchers will soon see that these technologies and applications become a central piece in their teaching and learning environment. Eventually this will become a success factor for offering higher education in emerging markets and to leap frog to the next stage in higher education. References Accenture (2011). Finding Growth, Emergency of a New Consumer Technology Paradigm, The 2011 Accenture Consumer Electronic Products and Service Usage Report. ACU (2008). Connected. Video: ACU student and staff to visualize a new kind of learning, USA, http://www.acu.edu/technology/mobilelearning/students/videos/connected.html

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Altbach, P. G., & Knight, J. (2007). The internationalization of higher education: Motivations and Realities. In: Journal of Studies in International Education 11 (3-4), 290-305. Betts B. (2011). Overcoming mobile cloud computing challenges with distributed apps http://searchnetworking.techtarget.co.uk/news/2240037496/Overcoming-mobile-cloudcomputing-challenges-with-distributed-apps . Daniels, R. (2009). A cloud in every garage. Forbes, May 7. http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/07/cloud-computing-enterprise-technology-cio-networkcloudcomputing.html Eurostat (2012) Educational expenditure statistics. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Educational_expenditure_stati stics. Grothaus, M. (2011). More than 18 billion apps downloaded from App Store; http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/04/more-than-18-billion-apps-downloaded-from-app-store/ Jahns, R. G. (2010). Smartphone Application Market to Reach US$15.65 Billion in 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2012 from http://www.research2guidance.com/smartphoneapplication-market-to-reach-us15-65-billion-in-2013/. ITU (2011) Mobile-cellular subscriptions; http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/excel/Mobile-cellular2000-2011.xls Khaddage, E. Lanham, E., & Zhou, W. (2009). A Proposed Blended Mobile Learning Model for Application in Higher Education. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning, IMCL2009 , 141-146. Khaddage, F., & Knezek, G. (2011). Device Independent Mobile Applications for Teaching and Learning: Challenges, Barriers and Limitations. In: Barton, S. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Global Learn Asia Pacific 2011, 1-7. Openpr (2012). ELSYonline schließt erfolgreich Test des U.S.Bildungsministeriums ab http://www.openpr.de/pdf/597616/ELSYonline-schliesst-erfolgreich-Test-des-U-SBildungsministeriums-ab.pdf Khaddage, F., Lattemann, C., & Bray, E. (2011). Mobile Apps Integration for Teaching and Learning (Are Teachers Ready to Re-blend?). In: Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2011, 2545-2552. Knezek, G., Kwok-Wing, L., Khaddage, F., & Baker R. (2011). TWG 2: Student Technology Experiences in Formal and Informal Learning. Discussion paper for TWG 2 the EduSummIT 2011, International Summit on ICT in Education, UNESCO Head Quarter, Paris, FRANCE

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Lattemann, C., & Stieglitz, S. (2012). Challenges for Lecturers in Virtual Worlds; European; Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2012). Malpica, A.P., Memon, A., Rao, M., Rivas, A., & Rivas, K. (2011). Microsoft and Nokia’s Mobile Business – The Road Ahead; Thunderbird Student Voices. http://knowledgenetwork.thunderbird.edu/students/2011/04/17/microsoft-and-nokias-mobilebusiness-the-road-ahead/ Mashable (2010). Online articles Apps for teaching and learning on Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/?s=teaching+and+learning+apps McMahon, M., & Pospisil, R. (2005). Laptops for a digital lifestyle: Millennial Students and wireless mobile technologies. In: Proceedings of ASCILITE 2005. NY Times (2012). Consortium of colleges takes online education to new level: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/education/consortium-of-colleges-takes-onlineeducation-to-new-level.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043 Oblinger, D. G. (2003). Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Millennials: Understanding the new students. In: EDUCAUSE Review, 38(4), 38-47. Oblinger, D. G. (2004).The Next Generation of Educational Engagement. Journal of Interactive Media in Education. Special Issue on the Educational Semantic Web 2004 (8), 118. Oblinger, D. G., & Oblinger, J. L. (2005). Educating the Net Generation. EDUCAUSE, Washington DC. O'Loughlin, A. (2011). The Use of iPads for Educational Purposes: A Study of Lecturer Engagement within Mobile Learning Environments. In: Barton, S. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Global Learn Asia Pacific 2011, 1196-1198. Seibu, M.J., & Biju I. (2008). Mobile Technologies and its Impact – An Analysis in Higher Education Context. In: International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM), 2(1), 10-17. Tatar D., Roshelle J., Vahey, P., & Penuel, W. R. (2003). Handhelds Go to School: Lesson Learned. In: IEEE Computer , 36(9), 30-37. Wikipedia (2011) List of countries by number of mobile phones in use; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use World Bank (2000). Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise: The Task Force on Higher Education and Society. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Zedensk (2011). Mobile in the Enterprise. http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/mobile-help-desk-in-enterprise.jpg

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Country Mobile Devises in use Percentage China 859,003,000 73.20 India 752,190,000 71.59 Brazil 196,929,978 101.02 Russia 237,689,224 179,31 Indonesia 211,290,235 103.09 United States 285,125,000 92.72 Japan 123,287,125 104,95 Germany 104,560,000 132.30 Table 1: Usage of Mobile Phones in emerging markets and developed countries (data from ITU 2011)

Learning Organization/Support Quizzes ePortfolios/Personal Learning Environment Data/File/Knowledge Transfer and Share RSS feeds

Social Tagging/Referencing

Lectures displays Interactive content/ tele-teaching

Lesson plan/Calendar Notes taking/Calculator

Peer to peer data transfer/Sync/Instant Messaging QR (Quick Responds) Reader

Blogging/Micro Blogging

Skype/fibre

Data/File Management Audio recording Imaging /Photo capturing Podcasting /Video recording Others Location based services/GPS Apps download Apps developments Maps Table 2: Mobile Device Functionalities

Factors and Issues Cost and Charges Privacy and Security Battery Life Screen Display Data/Information sharing Connectivity & Communication Options Processing Power Application Tools Audio Development and Implementation

Possible Solution (WiFi) hotspot access/ (Chrome access) No internet connection Build access to Apps via a secure private cloud Current devices are equipped with longer battery life (10 hours) Dynamic and interactive display Touch screen for easy and direct interaction, interoperability between devices and apps, cloud computing Communication Apps can connect and collaborate free, such as Viber, Skype, fb. Advanced operating systems within smart phones are constantly improving Android/iSOiOS Build Apps on the cloud will create a device independent platform Voice recognition input/ recording Use already existing Apps

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Storage Capacity

Most smart phones already comes equipped with 32GB/ and external storage (memory cards etc. Table 3: Factors and issues related to mobile devices in higher education

Individual work

• • •

• Group work • (interactive) • •

Mental Note: (type, draw, add note to pictures.) InClass: (organizing, share note, save .doc files and Ace classes) Audio Note: (write note, setup recording, audio recording with time stamp) Pages: (word processing program, sync doc. Or create new ones) Google Talk and Google • Gmail & Calender: communicating & Chat: Synchronous (IM sharing schedules & Video) • PenUltimate: (store information in communication separate note, students can email it and Google Docs: Real time share it) collaboration for Docs • Kindle: (reading, downloading books etc.) Google Group: To form teams • iStudiez Pro (built-in planners for input and schedules, track workload) • Google Sites: Create their own sites

Synchronous Asynchronous Table 4: synchronous and asynchronous mobile Apps for teaching and learning