Model of teaching using mobile phone.

Introduction

The world of digital computing has gone through rapid growth since its inception. It was just 2 centuries ago in 1822 when the first mechanical computer was in function, thanks to Charles Babbage also known as the father of the modern computer. From there, the digital world never looked back coming from a giant computing unit to a hand-held device that later evolved itself to a smart mobile device. The growth is exponential whether talking about the physical size or the computing capacity. Now, engineers are working diligently to bring AI into real practice which may surpass every expectation.

Evolution of mobile device

A mobile device in this case also known as the smartphone has been a go-to source for being updated whether the latest news, navigating through places, conducting transactions, getting information, or just being active on social media. The smartphone is turning to be an integral part of a normal person to be a citizen of this 21st-century world. Smartphone has been used from the starting minute to the end of the day as it has replaced the alarm clock in the morning as well as the calendar or clock hanging on the wall.

Back in the day, the use of mobile phones was to establish communication while in a mobile state and soon the texting feature was added followed by many overwhelming features. It all started when a senior engineer at Motorola, Martin Cooper made a call through a mobile phone, now everything is history. Now, giant tech companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, Xiaomi, Sony, etc. are dominating the smartphone market Nuhel (2021).

 Mobile device in education

Mobile devices are not only useful for the teaching-learning process but also in administration, organization. As the world moved from the physical mode of learning to the digital mode of learning also naming itself as e-learning, a more upgraded and easier to access mode has been introduced in the education arena as mobile learning also known as m-Learning in short. Here are some of the benefits of using mobile device in education:

·       As an interaction tool among the learners, educators even the peer not limiting them behind the large monitor.

·       Much easier to accommodate many mobile device over huge bulky desktop computers.

·       Use of digital copies of content rather than back breaking bags with piles of books and many more.

·       Use of stylus is more convenient than using of keyboard and mouse.

·       More room for collaborative learning through sharing of digital resources.

·       The convenience of using a mobile device anytime and anywhere as per need.

Technologies relating to mobile device

There are various technologies revolving around m-Learning which are listed below:

·       SMS

Short Message Service, allowing users to send/receive message of up to 160 characters between mobile.

·       MMS

Multimedia Messaging Service, allowing users to send/receive not only text but also graphics.

·       WAP

Wireless Application Protocol, allowing users to access internet through any WAP enabled mobile devices.

·       GPRS

General Package Radio Services, allowing users to access internet in greater speed of connection (171kb/s)

·       Bluetooth

A short-range wireless connection allowing the users to pass resources to and forth through mobile devices.

·       3G, 4G, 5G

An evolving technology of generation of mobile phone providing higher transmission rate adequate for multimedia.

-       3G à 5 – 8 Mbps

-       4G à 50 – 80 Mbps

-       5G à 150 Mbps – 200 Mbps

The development in the mobile technologies has increase the possibility of m-Learning to the higher level as the possibility for fast and reliable interaction.

Model to use m-Learning

The following are two examples of implementing m-Learning in the classroom Santoianni, F. (2021).

·       Micro learning by Herman Ebbinghaus

Microlearning can be defined as the learning occurring in a digestible bite sized units avoiding the need to have separate learning session (Krishnamoorthy & Padmanaban, 2018).

Some of the examples of micro learning are as follows:

-       Paragraph reading, viewing email and short mail services

-       Reading and memorizing the word, phares, sentences and vocabularies

-       Memorizing the definitions, short theories, principles and formulae

-       Sorting a set of (micro content) items by chronological order

-       Identifying the appropriate answer to the question

-       Attention with others useful talks

-       Reading proverbs, short poem and haiku

-       Play micro games for humorous learning

-       Answering puzzles

·       Cloud computing

Cloud computing is internet-based computing whereby hardware and software resources are provided to users on demand. It is an ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the internet as defined by Lai, W. T., Trancong, H., & Goh, S. (2012). The students and the educator can have a common resource which can be shared to the selective users mobile.

Possible challenges

·       Limited storage capacities of mobile devices

·       Battery life/charge

·       Small screen of mobile device

·       Limited potential expansion of devices

·       The device is quickly outdated

·       Financial limitation

Examples of Mobile Phone teaching:

•  Google Search
• YouTube to clarify a process
•  Share group work through social media
• Socialize a question through reddit, twitter, or quora
•  Monitor student progress completing a lesson using any number apps
•  Capture artifacts of student work for sharing on closed social/community.
• Have students podcast all group work and collaboration
• Flipped Classroom

Reference

Lai, W. T., Trancong, H., & Goh, S. (2012). Cloud Computing. In A Fresh Graduate’s Guide to Software Development Tools and Technologies (12th ed., pp. 6–25). essay, McGraw Hill.

Nuhel, A. (2021). Evolution of Smartphone

Santoianni, F. (2021). Educational design of Mobile Learning Environments. Teaching and Mobile Learning Interactive Educational Design, 50–72. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003052869-4