Let's Mxit (Mobile Learning in Higher Ed)

The University of the Western Cape

“joins the evolution”

Education in the 21st Century

Technology has revolutionized business -now it will revolutionize learning

Anywhere - Anytime - Anyone

Just-in-time access to information and knowledge

Higher retention of content through personalised learning

Improved collaboration and interactivity between students

GOALS• To understand the use of technology in

Higher Education

• To look at instant messaging as a tool for

providing additional learning space

• To identify benefits and challenges of using instant messaging as a T & L tool

THE

SOUTH AFRICAN

CONTEXT

Rationale for the study

• In a 2005 report about teens and their use of technology, teenagers were found to prefer new technology for communicating (Lenhart 2005)

• Connecting after hours

• Logistical limitation on individual support

• Lack of internet access

• Academic support

Tools currently used

Ways to synchronously communicate online with your students:

– Blackboard’s Virtual Classroom

– E-learning (VULA)

– Wiki’s, podcasts

– And so on.

• Focus here is on instant messaging.

What is Instant Messaging?

• “Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed over a network such as the internet”

Wikipedia

IM Usage in Education

• Virtual office hours

• Collaborative workgroups

• Class discussions

• Mentoring/ ‘buddies’

The Perils of IM in Direct Instruction

“The online re-creation of the face-to-face classroom can be a dismal failure for both faculty and students.”

(Carnavale, 2000b) Students find nothing more boring than reading screen after screen of text when an instructor is attempting to re-create a lecture online.

Potential Challenges

IM adds more time to the lecturers’ workload:

• Time spent online

• Impact on other activities

• Increase current workload

Benefits of using IM

• Easily accepted by students

• Provides increase collaborative opportunities

• Connect from anywhere

• Heightened “social presence”

My reasons:

• Connecting after hours

• Logistical limitation on individual support

• Student lack of internet access

• Academic support

IMAdvantages Disadvantages

Easy to use Network problems

Instant response Contacts maybe offline

Saves money Can be distracting

Rapid feedback Viewed as a time waster

Interaction in groups

Various services

Mxit: “join the evolution”

• Activate a contact

• Register online

• Notify the students “anonymity”

• Schedule availability and parameters

• Gain input from…

IM Culture

• Use frequent, shorter messages

• Don’t worry about typos or misspelling

• Capitalisation and punctuation are optional

• Learn some of the abbreviations:

- Lol (laugh out loud)Lol (laugh out loud)

- Brb (be right back)- Brb (be right back)

- Btw (by the way)- Btw (by the way)

Conclusion

““If the culture has moved to adoptIf the culture has moved to adopt

technology in commerce, in industry, intechnology in commerce, in industry, in

recreation, and in daily life, higher recreation, and in daily life, higher education education

may be legitimately slow to react, but react may be legitimately slow to react, but react it must.” it must.”

- Philip D. Long