CURRENT SCENARIO IN MOBILE LEARNING

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NADIAH BT HASSANKHALID BIN MAT PARDI

1. School of Distance Education in USM offered the Mobile learning system for their students in academic year 2008/2009.

2. Through the system the lecturer will send notes, important notice and remainder to the E-learning portal.

Satisfaction of Distance Learners towards Mobile Learning in USMIssham Ismail, Thenmolli Gunasegaran, P. P. Koh & Rozhan M.Idrus (2009)

Universiti Sains Malaysia

3. All the SMS sent were shortened and edited by the lecturer into 160 characters only so the content is very short and brief but very powerful.

4. Most of the respondents were satisfied with ML which the item related to the study material, important notes and remainder. However, the respondents were not satisfied with the cost of communication with the tutor and other students in ML course.

Adoption of Mobile Learning Among Distance Education Students in USM.Issham Ismail, Rozhan M. Idrus, Azidah Abu Ziden and Munirah Rosli (2009)

Universiti Sains Malaysia

1. Mobile learning using SMS was a method of learning adopted by the students enrolled in the School of Distance Education, USM.

2. In February-April 2009, the system was implemented by sending course content using SMS to students who have registered with the SMS learning programe.

3. This system has helped the learners to pace their studies. By using mobile learning, learners easily get any information that they need at anytime anywhere.

4. The learners are also excited to take another mobile learning assisted course if the course is relevant with their learning need.

Mobile Learning via SMS at Open University Malaysia: Equitable, Effective, and Sustainable Tina Lim, Mansor Fadzil, and Norziati Mansor

Open University Malaysia

Scenario:1. Open University Malaysia (OUM) embarked on a

Mobile Learning initiative in an effort to support distance learners via SMS started in 2009.

2. The universities recorded success in the following areas of support to their learners: administrative support – reminding learners of

contact session dates and registration deadlines, particularly those who have been missing

face-to-face sessions (Ericsson Global, n.d.; Viljoen, du Preez, & Cook, 2005; Kajumbula, 2006; Yousof, 2007; Keegan, Kismihok, Mileva, & Rekkedal, 2009);

academic purposes – sending SMSes that contain important course content, which is chunked in small sizes (Uday Bhaskar & Govindarajulu, 2008);

e-Counselling services (Commonwealth of Australia, 2006);

learner development support – helping learners to self-manage their studies better (Stone, 2001);

learner assessment – sending interactive quizzes for learner self-assessment (Sukaphat, 2007; Clarke, Keing, Lam, & McNaught, 2008).

Obtain learners’ mobile phone number from Registry database

INTERNET

OUM SMS Application

Bulk SMS Gateway

Local TelCo operators

Learners’ Mobile phones

Prepare .txt file

Key in SMS, set delivery date and time

Process flow of one way SMS Process flow of interactive SMS Process flow of interactive SMS when learners respond

Findings have consistently shown that learners appreciated the text messages and felt that the SMSes had helped them to stay focused and engaged in their studies.

Every semester over 95% of the learners involved expressed their wish that Mobile Learning via SMS be extended to other courses as well.

The Mobile Learning Readiness of the Post Graduate Students

Norazah Nordin, Mohamed Amin Embi, Ruhizan M Yasin, Saemah Rahman and Melor Md. Yunus

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

1. In Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Faculty of Education has designed and developed mobile content for the research methodology course for the post-graduate programme which implemented the mobile learning (m-Learning) concept to supplement face-to-face instruction.

2. The students’ readiness towards the mobile learning approach in the teaching and learning process was investigated.

3. Based on the implementation, the students agreed that mobile phones had successfully enhanced the teaching and learning process. Mobile-learning activities are effective ways to motivate students and to enhance interaction.

4. The impact of the study is that mobile content should also be implement to other post-graduate courses.

Improving Critical Thinking Skills in Mobile Learning. Nadine Cavus & Huseyin Uzunboylu (2009)

Near East University in North Cyprus1. Students converse, question each other and share

opinions using m-learning.

2. They were also encouraged to practice collaborative learning without the space, geographical and time obstructions.

3. The use of camera-phones enables the students to pop-up questions and gain more knowledge based on related issues highlighted.

4. M-learning potentially moves learning outside classrooms and into students’ environments (both real and virtual) to promote critical thinking process.

5. It shows that students’ attitude toward the usefulness of a mobile learning system and creativity improved significantly.

Role of institutions of higher learning towards a knowledge-based community utilising mobile devices

Rozhan M. Idrus & Issham Ismail (2010)University of Pretoria, South Africa

Most students are from remote rural areas with a very limited infrastructure access, yet most have mobile phones. SMS was utilized for basic administrative support and academic learning purposes (Viljoen et al., 2005).

Universiti Sains MalaysiaStudents copy each SMS received into their

notebook. Having a forum in the electronic portal, which the event being initiated via the SMS.

University of Manchester, UKHas recently begun installing a new service

that provides users with the ability to send text messages directly from a PC to a mobile phone.

SMS is now has become ubiquitous since the majority of students have mobile phones. The facilities provided are very flexible as SMS can be sent to individual students or groups of students.

Directions for m-learning research to enhance active learning. Litchfield, A., Dyson,L.E., Lawrence, E. & Zmijewska, A. (2007)

University of Technology Sydney;This survey also showed a high take-up of

mobile technologies - 95% owned mobile phones.

The online survey confirmed the importance of integrating mobile technology into the learning and teaching environment as 95% of the surveyed students regularly use a mobile phone and 72% stated they would be interested in using a mobile device in their studies.

The experience showed that mobile devices can assist students collect data in richer, multimedia formats and make subsequent classroom presentations of their field study much more interesting.

However, it also revealed certain usage and deployment issues with the mobile devices themselves, which were too difficult for most students to learn to use quickly in the short period of time they had available to acquaint themselves with the technology.

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