The Mobile Learning Environment for the In-Service ... - CyberLeninka

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Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 7(C) (2010) 671–679

International Conference on Learner Diversity 2010

The Mobile Learning Environment for the In-Service School Administrators Norazah Mohd. Nordin a,*, Mohd. Izham Hamzaha, Melor Md. Yunus a , Mohamed Amin Embia a

Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract This paper reports the study on the students’ acceptance of the m-Learning approach in the teaching and learning process. A total of 100 students from the undergraduate programmes responded to a self-report questionnaire. From the data analysis, the study reported that the students agreed that mobile phones can be used for teaching and learning. The study also revealed that with this age group (35 – 45 years old), SMS is the most popular method of communication and mobile phones are mainly used for talking and messaging. Furthermore, the m-Learn activities are great ways to motivate students and foster interaction among them. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Mobile learning (M-learning), Short Message Service (SMS), Instructional model, School administrators, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

1. Introduction The use of wireless mobile technology such as PDAs, cellular phones, ipods or ultra notebook computers in education and training is making learning more flexible where students can learn from anywhere and at anytime. Mobile learning is defined by various researchers with a focus on the novelty and development of handheld technologies, such as mobile phones, and wireless technologies, such as laptops, allowing easy access to resources. Laouris and Laouri (2006) describe the move from e-learning to m-learning as a revolution since it implies not only a change in terminology but a change of mindset when designing and planning learning environments and goals. Sharma and Kitchens (2004) assign this unavoidable change in paradigm to the unique facilities provided by mobile technology such as the provision of communication facilities at any time or location and the provision of learning content dynamically dependent on the learner’s location, context and device. This necessarily implies a change in classroom culture. It is also clear that the exposure to a greater variety of media is causing a different kind of learner who gathers and processes information differently. Mellow (2005) describes this new generation of learners as the media generation. According to him, educators should explore the possibilities of applying these technologies in educational settings. ____________ *Corresponding author. Tel: +60193328704 fax: +60389254372 E-mail address: [email protected] 1877-0428 © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.10.091

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Norazah Mohd. Nordin et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 7(C) (2010) 671–679

In this research, a study of mobile learning was conducted for a special undergraduate programme for in-service primary school administrators in the Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. In this programme, every semester, the teaching and learning process takes place in two modes. In the first mode, the in-service primary school administrators will spend 50% of the semester in the faculty to attend the intensive face-to-face instructions for the courses registered for that semester. The second mode is they will spend another 50% of the semester in their workplaces doing projects, as well as carrying their responsibilities as school administrators. The objectives of the study were to investigate the innovative practice and the acceptance of mobile phones in teaching and learning, based on an instructional model that adopts the mobile learning concept to supplement the face-to-face instruction. Three activities were being carried out. A questionnaire was used to collect the data at the end of the activities. Data are analyzed and findings are then reported in this paper. 2. Literature Review According to Moseley & Higgins (1999), mobile devices can be more easily integrated across the curriculum than desktops. This is possible since many students already have mobile devices and wireless mobile devices do not need extensive infrastructure as desktop computers. The mobility enabled by these devices can also foster a greater feeling of work ownership by students. Additional research shows gains in students’ motivation in their studies. Time needs to be allowed to ensure adequate familiarization with the new mobile devices. Technical staff must be available for helping. The pedagogical approaches and goals must be clear as in traditional teaching (British Educational Communications Technology Agency, 2004). M-learning has been a subject of interest to researchers for the past one decade, and many research findings indicate that m-learning is an effective tool for strengthening learning strategies as well as m-learning learners can utilize wireless network and mobile learning device to get convenience, expediency and immediacy of mobile learning in appropriate time and accessing appropriate learning content (Su et al. 2004). The last ten years have also seen a revolution in communications and computing technology, with the installation of digital cellular phone net works, and development of mobile computers and digital cameras. These three technologies are now converging, into personal digital assistants that enable learners to access internet resources and run experiments in the field, store and manage everyday events as images and sounds, and communicate and share the material with fellow learners throughout the worlds. According to Sharples et al.(2000), there is a natural alliance between learning as a contextual activity and the new personal technology, so that it is becoming feasible to equip learners with powerful tools to support learning anytime, anywhere. The fact that mobile phone could be used on the move, e.g. in a bus or train anytime, anywhere to make learning environment lifelong. Prensky in Tsi(2005) indicates that children are growing up with wireless mobile technology with positive outcomes in modern society and some technologicallyadvanced countries start to conduct wireless mobile technology in their educational institutions. According to Sharples (2000), formal education cannot provide people with all the knowledge and skills they need to prosper throughout a lifetime. Therefore, people need continually to enhance their abilities, in order to address immediate problems and participate in a process of continuing academic and professional development. Ting (2005), in his research mentions that fundamental belief of mobile learning is not to convert all PC-based learning content into a mobile format, but to consider how the mobile devices can be used to strengthen and harmonize overall learning strategy. M-learning is contributing in various way including voice communication, e-mail interaction, short message service etc. Voice communication provides negotiation between facilitators and learners for support and cooperative purposes. To access the learning portal in the internet, the learning management system provides appreciatory content to support the continuity of learning activities. The facilitators can send reminders and alerts to their learners through SMS (Short Message Service) as a powerful way and help to keep them on the proper learning way. The SMS can also be sent as a daily message to learners as a daily amount of learning. 3. Focus of the Study The focus of this study is to find the acceptance of mobile phones for teaching and learning by the first year undergraduate students. This may link heavily to their daily operational use of mobile phones. In general, there are three dimensions that are critically affecting the success of m-Learning, which are location independence, meaningful content and time independence (Rosenberg 2001). Among the three dimensions, mobile phones have greater advantages in term of “location independence”. Mobile phones make it possible to gather and record

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information nearly everywhere. They have the highest mobility inside or outside classrooms. The coverage of mobile phones allows teachers to engage in activities requiring ubiquitous tools. With respect to the dimension of “time independence”, mobile phones can also be used in asynchronous and synchronous learning. SMS and forum messages can be retrieved and sent to support asynchronous learning. Synchronous learning can be facilitated via inclass voting systems and interactive games on mobile phones. They can also be used as real-time assessment tools. The dimension of “meaningful content” is the most critical one. Without quality content, m-Learning will be meaningless. There are many factors adversely affecting the delivery of quality content using mobile phones. Slow processing speed, limited bandwidth, small form-factor, limited memory and one-finger operation are some of them. Through this research, the researchers would like to determine whether features of m-learning can be implemented in the blended learning mode. The results are hoped to provide output for the future planning of the reconstruction of the undergraduate teaching and learning modes. Since a mobile phone is nothing more than a limited but featured computer, the limitations of these devices must be recognized. Furthermore, the researchers would like to develop what they can do best. In this study of the acceptance of mobile phones for teaching and learning, the samples are the in-service primary school administrators who are students of a special undergraduate programme. In this special programme, every semester, the teaching and learning process takes place in two modes. In the first mode, the in-service primary school administrators spend 50% of the semester in the faculty to attend the intensive face-to-face instructions for the courses registered for that semester. The second mode is they will spend another 50% of the semester in their workplaces doing projects, as well as carrying their responsibilities as school administrators. Through this research, the researchers would like to determine whether features of m-learning can be implemented in the second mode. The results are hoped to provide output for the future planning of course structure. 4. Methodology In this research, three activities were developed to address different applications of mobile phones for teaching and learning. Simulators developed to execute in real mobile phones are used for this study (Openwave,2006). There are three reasons for this approach. Firstly, the chosen software has been implemented in a number of real phone models. It behaves like a real phone. Secondly, many students may not have mobile phones with advanced features to support WAP 2.0 (Wapforum, 2006). Some students may still have text based mobile phones! To support the experiment of this research or any m-Learning application in general, a WAP gateway connected to a Web server is needed. Figure 1 outlines the system architecture to support applications over mobile devices. Apache, PHP and MySQL were chosen as the Web server, server-side programming and database support respectively.

Content Builder

Content

Content Management

DB Connect

Off-line

On-line

WAP Gateway

Server-side Support Pages

Internet

Web server

Simulator’s support Figure 1. System Architecture to support applications over mobile devices

Database

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Among the two applications developed for this experiment, the first application is a voting system. Students can cast their votes and lecturers can interactively check the voting results. Students can use the quick access keys (“1” to “X”) on the keypad to cast their votes. This acts as if the voter has a simple voting machine at hand. Lecturers can retrieve the voting results from the database onto their handsets as well. The second application is a system to administrate tests or examinations. Students attempt the questions stored in the database. The overall score can be sent to the students at the end of the test. The scores are kept in the database as well. The second data set was for the questionnaire. The questions were categorized as follow: x Demography– to establish the background of the students. x Handset and service information – to find out the types, the mobile service providers, the tariffs, and services (e.g. 2.5G or 3G). x Phone usage and practice – to survey information such as airtime, SMS, MMS, ring-tone download, Internet and other usages. x Attitude – to find out how the students feel about the use of mobile phones for teaching and learning. 5. Data collection and analysis A total of hundred students from 3 cohorts of student school administrators completed the two activities and the survey. The data obtained from the questionnaire were keyed into the database for analysis. 5.1 Demography Figure 2 to Figure 4 provide demographic overview of the respondents with respect to gender, age, handset brands and types of mobile services.

Age

Gender

34%

35%

35-40

Men 65%

Figure 2. Demographic overview: Gender

Women

66%

Figure 3. Demographic overview: Age

41-45


Handset Brands

SERVICES

39% 3G 2G/2.5G 61%

b. c. d.

10%

Nokia

10%

Sony Ericson 50%

15% 15%

Figure 4 . Demographic overview: Services a.

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Motorola Samsung Misc.

Figure.5 Demographic overview: Handset Brands

The distribution of male and female respondents (Figure 2) reviews the typical composition of male and female school administrators (headmasters and headmistresses) in Malaysia. Since the respondents are school administrators and they are senior educators, the 41-45 year old age group is much higher than the 35-40 year old age group (Figure 3). Figure 4 shows that only 23% of the respondents use 3G services. Nokia is the leader of the market share on handsets with 50% and followed by Sony Ericson and Motorola, both 15% (Figure 5).

5.2 Usage and practice Figure 6 to Figure 9 reveal how the respondents use mobile phones for different purposes. Most of the recent handsets are equipped with camera, true color display, stereo sound and external memory card. They can be multipurpose for the respondents as shown in the figures.

Figure 6. Voice communication per day

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Figure 7. Handset Usage

SMS received

32.5 40 21.5 20 30 12 11.5 20 10 2.5 0 < 5 5 11 16 21 > to to to to 30 10 15 20 30 No. of sms per week

Figure 7. SMS received

sms sent

% of students

% of students

SMS SENT 50 40 30 20 10 0

sms received

< 5 5 11 16 21 > to to to to 30 10 15 20 30 No. of sms

Figure 8. SMS sent

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M M S USAGE

% of students

100 80 60

mms received

40

mms sent

20 0 to to 20 10 15

No. of m m s pe r w eek

Figure 9. MMS Usage The data in Figure 6 and Figure 7 show that 100% of the respondents used mobile phones for voice communication and taking photos. 16% of the respondents used the mobile phone for playing games, 19% used the mobile phone for listening to music, 15% used the mobile phone for surfing the internet and watching movie and only 11% used handset for taking memos. Sending and retrieving SMS messages are quite popular among the respondents, but sending and retrieving MMS messages remain very low (Figure 8 and Figure 9). 5.3 Acceptance of mobile phones for teaching and learning This section provides answers to the focus of this research. Respondents were asked to express their views on using mobile phones for teaching, learning and administrative purposes. After they have experienced the activities described above, respondents stated their difficulties. They were also asked to provide their opinions on issues like secondary students taking mobile phones to schools, communicating with parents using SMS messages, and incorporating the topic of “m-Learning” into their curriculum.

30

students

20

strongly disagree

disagree

agree

strongly agree

di s

0

di s

ag re e

10

Students

ag st re ro e ng ly ag re e

40

50 40 30 20 10 0

st ro ng ly

% of students

50

I am interested to use mobile phones in my learning activities

ag re e

Mobile phone can improve the teaching & learning performance

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60 40

students

20 0 strongly disagree disagree

agree

Mobile phones can be used for administrative purposes

% of students

% of students

Mobile phone can be an effective tool to get me connected to my lecturers and friends 80 60 40

students

20 0 strongly disagree disagree

strongly agree

agree

strongly agree

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

students

te xt

in pu t sm al ls cr sl ee ow n co nn ec tiv ity to o ex pa ns iv e di ffi cu lt to us e

% of students

Problems of using mobile phone in teaching and learning

Figure 10. Acceptance of Mobile Phones This study shows that the majority of the respondents accepted the use of mobile phones for teaching and learning in general. They found the inhibiting factors are slow connectivity (50.5%), too expansive (20.5%), small screen (13.5%), difficult to use (9%) and text input problem (6.5%)


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They somewhat agreed that mobile phones can improve the teaching and learning performance (47% + 33% = 80%). Their curiosity on using mobile phones for teaching and learning is high (45% + 41% = 86%). The respondents are confident that mobile phones can be effective tools to them to get connected to their lecturers and friends. They would like to use mobile phones for administrative purposes (70% + 18% 88%). However, they were somewhat not interested to see “m-Learning” be part of their curriculum. They were also sceptical on allowing students to bring mobile phones to schools (53% + 20% = 73%) . 6.0 Discussions In this study, the focus was to find the acceptance of mobile phones for teaching and learning among the school administrators. The experiment was generally well-received by them. They found that it is fun to participate in the exercise. The findings of this study reveal that the students agreed that mobile phones can be used for teaching and learning. However, they were somewhat sceptical towards the quality that mobile phones can bring to education. Majority of the students are very liberal and interested to use mobile phones for teaching and learning. With the school administrators and adult learner age group, SMS messaging is a popular way to communicate. This study also reveals that mobile phones are mainly used for talking, inputting text, taking photographs and playing games. Although the sample size is small and the findings may not be reliable, this study provides the researcher with the preliminary data to carry out more discriminating experiments on m-Learning. From the study, it can also be revealed that m-Learning activities are great ways to motivate students and foster interaction among them. This is not only applicable to the field of m-Learning, but also a general pedagogical technique in teaching and learning. References British Educational Communications Technology Agency. (2004). What the research says about portable ICT devices in teaching and learning: 2nd Edition Revised and Updated, Retrieved June 28, 2004, from http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/publications/documents/Research3_Portable%20Devices.pdf Laouris, Y. and Laouri, R. (2006).Can Information and Mobile Technologies serve to close the gap and accelerate development? In Proceedings of MLearn 2006, Alberta, Canada, 22 – 25 October Mellow, P. (2005).The media generation: maximize learning by getting mobile. Proceedings of ASCILITE 2005, Brisbane, 4 – 7 December Moseley, D., & Higgins, S. (1999). Ways forward with ICT effective pedagogy using Information and Communications Technology for literacy and numeracy in primary schools. Newcastle: University of Newcastle. Openwave (2006). V7 Simulator. Retrieved 15th April 2006, from http://www.openwave.com Porter, J. R. & Morgan, J.A. (2003). Wireless mobile platform: a tool to implement a distance learning laboratory for teaching computer-based instrumentation and control. International Journal of Engineering Education Rosenberg, M. (2001). E-Learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. N.Y: McGraw Hill Sharma, S.K. and Kitchens, F.L. (2004), Web Services Architecture for M-Learning. Electronic Journal on eLearning. 2(1), 203 – 216 Sharples, M. (2000). The design of personal mobile technologies for life long learning. Computer and Education. Stewart, K. (2003). Using technology to support sustained student inquiry in learning environments beyond the classroom. University of Sydney, Australia Ting, R.Y. 2005. Mobile Learning: Current Trend and Future Challenges. Oriental Institute of Technology Tsai, I., Young, S. S. & Liang, C. (2005). Exploring the course development model for the mobile learning context: a preliminary study. National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan Wapforum (2006). WAP 2.0 Standard. Retrieved 20th May 2006, from http://www.wapforum.org