Mobile Devices Essay -- Technology, Invention, Education

Mobile devices such as mobile phones, smart phones, palmtops and handheld computers (personal digital assistants (PDAs) and tablet PCs Kukulska-Hulme (2005) add an extra dimension to the technology used in teaching and learning. This change has led to a new concept called m-learning (mobile learning) and there are now a number of examples where mobile devices have been integrated into formal education and/or informal learning (Kukulska-Hulme 2009). Opportunities such as learner-centred learning and learning outside the classroom are made possible within m-learning due to the number of different attributes that are offered by mobile devices (Kukulska-Hulme 2005). Pachler et al, (2010) elaborate on this, stating that mobile devices have a number of important characteristics that make them attractive from an educational perspective, including increasing portability, functionality, multimedia convergence, ubiquity, personal ownership, social interactivity, context sensitivity, location awareness, connectivity and personalisation. Kukulska-Hulme (2005) noted that personal, informal, contextual, portable, ubiquitous and pervasive nature of mobile devices are particularly useful in learner centred learning. Moura & Carvalho (2008) and Scanlon et al. (2005) conclude that mobility and portability have the potential for making accessing information and interaction more effective in science learning. Further they allow the learner to lear n autonomously (Callum & Kinshuk 2006), collaboratively (Eliasson et al., 2010) and also provide opportunities to conduct learning experiences outside the teacher-managed classroom (Naismith et al., 2004), (Corbeil & Valdes-Corbeil 2007) by expanding learning beyond the four walls of the classroom and thus... .../or students to bring ‘the outside world’ into the classroom during a science lesson(Ekanayake & Wishart,2010a). According to the findings of this study, the mobile phone camera could be used to support the teacher during the different stages of a lesson including planning, implementating and reviewing. The phones themselves also helped students to learn science effectively by enabling collaborative and authentic learning opportunities. In addition to this Ekanayake & Wishart (2010b) report a study where students used mobile phone video to record the deflection of a galvanometer in a secondary level science lesson. According to the authors, the mobile phones’ video camera helped students to capture a fleeting (observation) event which could have been missed otherwise. This enabled the students to view their observations repeatedly and share them with their peers.