THE DEVELOPMENT OF SMARTPHONES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

TO THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS.

A Position Paper in Science, Technology, and Society (STS)

Submitted to:

Mrs. Imelda M. San Miguel

&Ms. LuichieLoisa M. Vargas

STS Teachers

By:

Aquino, Luvimin Jr. A.

Pablo, Adrian Neil

April 2020
II. INTRODUCTION:

Before the rapid development of smartphones, the world waits a lot in various

aspects. Snail mails still exists, phone booths are still working, and internet cafes are still

full of customers. Our access on things are limited before. No doubt, smartphones

changed our lives. Mobile internet access gives more opportunities to people to work

anywhere, we can now easily transact payments and receivables online, ease to access

information, or simply stay in touch with friendsthrough social media.

In the line of academics and education, the development of smartphones did great

impact for the society. It widely helps students to have more ease into accessing

information for their study. It helps educators to enhance their teaching skills. It helps

school to control its systems, disseminate information, and better interact with their

students and parents.

Smartphones are equipped with multimedia phone features, which include camera

function, sound recording function, video function and many others. These features assist

students to drive their learning process and dreams effectively. Smartphones, being

something that people always hold in their hands makes it easier for people to access

learning on its own. It makes things easy in such a way that people can do things even on

their commuting time. The development of smartphones opens more doors of

opportunities when it comes to our educational systems. The development of various

smartphone applications helps the students and educators to have better interaction, it

gives more options for them to present their ideas, and it also makes online learning much

feasible and possible.

III. BODY:

Norries, Hossain, and Soloway (2011) in their study demonstrated that students’

achievement increase significantly when students use mobile learning devices, including

smartphones, during learning time. This is because their time-on-task completion will

increase as they have the device at hand. Norries et al. (2011) also found that students

were constantly using the smartphone camera to take pictures of abstract concepts taught

in class so that later they could relate them with the concrete ideas.

Gowthami and VenkataKrishnaKumar (2016) in their pilot study argued that the

use of the internet is now a routine for people and also a medium that is used by the

students to search for information at anytime and anywhere. This is a clear indication that

college students now turn to smartphones to help them carry out academic activities.

Even as the use of smartphones is common among college students or, in this case,

undergraduate students, there lie with it some factors that are detrimental to the increase

of the academic performance of students who use them. However, the positive aspects of

smartphones can improve the performance of undergraduate students if used well.

Though many current studies have shown smartphone usage benefits in learning,

Woodcock et al. (2012) demonstrated contrasting findings. Students were found always

using their phones more for playing games and other leisure activities than for learning.

Among the identified factors preventing widespread adoption of smartphones for

education are physical, technical and psychological limitations. White and Mills (2012)

Despite of its negative effects, having access to leisure applications, smartphones

still has a great help when it comes to academic learning. Ifeanyi et al. (2018) stated that
students happen to be interested in ways they can learn and at the same time have their

attention captivated. They may be provided with autonomy over their educational

experience and access to standard learning contents and opportunities.

In their case study with regards to the impact of using smartphones the effective

use of smartphones brings in more advantages than disadvantages to undergraduate

students’ lives, Ifeanyi et al. (2018) concluded that “The findings show that

undergraduate students, in general, need to understand that smartphones improve their

social and academic lives and it can also cause decreased performance in academic

studies. However, the effective use of smartphones brings in more advantages than

disadvantages to undergraduate students’ lives. The results of this study will enlighten

undergraduate students on the effects of using smartphones for multiple aspects.”

(,Ifeanyi et al. (2018))

IV. CONCLUSION:

In today’s generation, the existence of smartphones clearly improves the

standards and quality of education. Smartphones is the most efficient and the most

frequently tool of the younger generation, and allowing the students explore more of its

capabilities to help learn more will greatly benefit their learning experience. With all its

capabilities to get, share, and improve existing ideas, it gives more avenue for students to

boost their knowledge and intellect. Moreover, the development of smartphones gives

more freedom for educators to improve their teaching capabilities and have them easily

disseminate additional learnings and even modules to their students. This developments

present in this modern generation makes eLearning or Online schooling possible, most

especially in this current time this paper is written. Despite of the disadvantages stated on

this paper, smartphones are still undoubtedly to be considered beneficial for the

development of education on this generation and to the future.

V. BIBLIOGRAPHY

- Woodcock, B., Middleton, A., &Nortcliffe, A. (2012). Considering the

smartphone learner: an investigation into student interest in the use of personal

technology to enhance their learning. Student Engagement and Experience

Journal, 1(1), 1-15.

- Norries, C., Hossain, A., &Soloway, E. (2011). Using smartphones as essential

tools for learning: A call to place schools on the right side of the 21st century.

Educational Technology, 51(3), 18-25

- White, J., & Mills, D.J. (2012). Examining attitudes towards and usage of

smartphone

- Kevin Jackson (July 2018). A brief history of the smartphone.

Retrieved from:

https://sciencenode.org/feature/How%20did%20smartphones%20evolve.php

- Ifeanyi Peter Ifeanyi&Chukwuere J. (2018) The impact of using smartphones on

the academic performance of undergraduate students.

Retrieved from:

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1247625.pdf
- S. Gowthami, S. VenkataKrishnaKumar (2016) Impact of Smartphone : A pilot

study on positive and negative effects.

Retrieved from:

http://ijseas.com/volume2/v2i3/ijseas20160353.pdf