Journal Summary-Mobile Application 2010

Title: Mobile Education

21st century is said to be a century of knowledge and sharing of knowledge.

Information and communication technology is taking over all aspects of human life and

activities (Hussain & Adeeb, 2007). Developments in information and communication

technologies (ICTs) lead to the creation of portable computing/ communication devices such

as laptops, PDAs and smart phones connected to wireless networks (Corbeil & Valdes-

Corbeil, 2007, p.51). Creation of ICTs devices help to promote and improve opportunities of

advanced communication among people. Mobile technology such as iPods, MP3 Player,

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), USB Drive, E-Book Reader, Smart Phone, Ultra-Mobile PC

(UMPC) and Laptop/Tablet PC have the capabilities of storage and transmission of data and

information either in sound, text, sound-text, pictures (Corbeil & Valdes-Corbeil, 2007)

tremendously facilitate and improve the way people communicate and use ICTs in their

daily lives. Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) stated in their periodical Artical, that many

mobile applications ,such SMS/MMS clients, browsers and music player come pre-installed

on mobile phones, whereas others may be provisioned and/co configured post-sales. It

shows that mostly mobile applications are easily available for customers and may be easily

downloaded and installed based by their choice and needs. People seem to be more and

more technology literate due to exposure by such technology and communication devices.

Based on a research done by Aiolli and Claudio E. Palazzi (2008) mobile phone have

brought into our lives the possibilities and the willingness to be always reachable by

anybody. Mobile phones have almost become an extension of ourselves, making as Homo

Mobilis for much we tend to never separate from the (Aiolli & Claudio, 2008). Besides

mobile phone, gaming has become people favourite digital application. Based on an article

Prepared By : Hishamuddin Bin Siri

 Journal Summary-Mobile Application 2010
by MMA, it seems that there three main reasons enabled its success even in the mobile

market. First the incredible proliferation of mobile phones, which have surpassed in number

base line phones in countries such as Finland and Italy, thus creating hundreds of millions of

potential customers. Second, technological advances have transformed mobile phones from

a cordless version of a regular phone into a hand-held computer able to deliver quality

audio/video and quickly run complex algorithms, as those required by recent games. Third,

the increasing availability of wireless connectivity (i.e., GPRS, UMTS, Bluetooth, Wi- Fi)

provides the possibility to play online with other people and allows to create new business

models where the game is bought online and directly downloaded in the mobile phone.

Berners-Lee (1989) once stated that internet is a network that anyone from

anywhere in the world can contribute to. Advancement in communication technology has

helped to promote online education and online learning/M-Learning. Ebner (2009) said both

technology & social interaction, implementation of interactivity to large lecture room

presents itself as a promising new methodology to improve the learning and teaching

process of academia. The main medium is by using interaction as the key point between

technology & human.

Today the domain of World Wide Web (WWW) seems to be part of our life. For

example the existence of application such as Wikipedia, Youtube, Flickrs, and Google help us

to contribute to a worldwide global community (Korina et al, 2006). Besides that, online

applications such as Wikipedia ,Weblogs & podcasts have turned the possibilities to enhance

higher education lecturing (Downes, 2005; Augers et el, 2005; Caddick, 2006; Luca &

McLoughlin, 2005; Farmer & Bragg, 2005; Evans, 2007; Towned, 2005; Raitman et el, 2005;

Ebner, 2007). Within the teaching and learning environment the term “social learning” often

occurs according to the aspect that many people share, collect & discuss worldwide over

Prepared By : Hishamuddin Bin Siri

 Journal Summary-Mobile Application 2010
different websites and applications (Ebner, 2009). Within a few years, social facilitations

(Contre & Paolucci, 2001) then help to support an amazing change in the “use of the web”.

In Ebner et al (2007) and also discussed by Downes (2005), both described that

accessibility and affordability of broadband access to the internet enabled anyone to easily

accessing the internet and share information with each others. Recent technological and

infrastructure advancement assist not only on the precondition (which is access to the

Internet) is fulfilled; improvement in high connection speed is also available which is very

necessary for working and dealing with bulky data in the internet. Besides that,

advancement in communication devices and social software gets more people to use it

(O’Reilly, 2005) and these improvements promotes more people get in touch with each

other and improve their social connections. By using technologies in our daily routines

pervasive computing becomes an extremely new event in our lives (Weiser, 1991).

Besides the advancement in communication devices and social software, the

usability of such ICTs devices is one of the main factors in promoting ICTs among users

(Nielsen, 2003). Writing, sharing and collecting data in the net have become as easy as

dealing with common desktop applications due to the simple nature of online applications

which needs no special skills such as HTML-knowledge or even web programming

knowledge. Moreover, personal learning environments are getting more popular (Schaffert

& Hilzensauer, 2008). It also can be summarized in a way that our next generation is more

technology savvy that more and more users become involved in it. Web technologies are

influencing Higher Education considerably (Ibid). The most famous part of this movement is

the use of Weblogs or Blogs. The best definition about this phenomenon in Walker (2007)

and Schmidts et al (2007) describe it as a frequently updated website consisting of data

entries arranged in a reverse chronological order. The simple application of weblogs may

Prepared By : Hishamuddin Bin Siri

 Journal Summary-Mobile Application 2010
replace tradictional HTML pages due to the fact of actuality (“frequently updated”) and

personality (“data entries” of users) (Ebner & Taraghi, 2008). By integrating Weblogs into

our daily working routine, the tool can turn into a new form of digital memory by supporting

three crucial factors: individuality, collectively and community (Schiefner and Ebner, 2008).

Furthermore, several examples pointed out how Weblogs can be used for different

didactical scenarios. Karger & Quan (2005) reported that the concept of decentralization,

per-user publication and user cantered information helps improve lectures. Luca &

McLoughlin (2005) presented that tracking and checking the running of processes of oneself

from the learner group is of high relevance. Huberman et al (2009) pointed out that social

networking aspect and corroboration of the communication process through micro blogging

platforms can be very beneficial whereby it is fast and mobile communication.

In conclusion the active participation of a number of people can be a new dimension

of new learning and teaching attitude. By using new technology, students may share among

them and the knowledge of new media. This may also make an impact on social interaction,

allowing the rethinking didactical approaches. Both student and teachers alike will gain a

great deal by using ICTs. There are a great potential of using new media and the internet in

big lecture rooms. The interactivity of lecturing using this new method guarantees the

future of education. It is needed for us to rethink of new complete dedicated approaches.

The technology which will enhance learning must ensure the learners to become more

engaged and that the learning process should be done through conversation by the means

of ICTs.

Prepared By : Hishamuddin Bin Siri