M-Learning In Practice: Language Learning Mobile Application

2013

At each step, the Internet and information technologies are changing many aspects of life. We live; we buy, work, manage and communicate new ways that technology has enabled. Information and communication technology are pervasive the technology of today. It finds application in every branch of industry, and in all areas of education and the basis for the successful operation of all social and state structures. Information and communication technology (ICT) provides a good foundation for creative and effective use of knowledge. Using mobile technology in education changes the basic view of learning when, where and how to learn. M-learning is a unique type of learning because students can access the lessons anytime, anywhere. Mobile learning is learning supported by mobile devices. It represents a new form of education. The notion of mobile learning covers a wide range of devices used for learning at any place at any time. These include various wired and wireless devices (mobile phones, PDA, iPod, Sony PSP, notebook devices ...). M-learning offers the possibility of using mobile devices combines many benefits of e-learning in a single portable package that can be used at any time and anywhere using mobile devices. Mobile devices are emerging as one of the most promising technologies to support learning as they offer new opportunities that do not offer static devices.

Today, mobile learning is an essential foreign language learning tool containing unlimited and very different materials. A more important feature of mobile learning is that it attracts the attention and interest of young people, representing the most significant foreign language students. Let us take into account the objectives of language teaching. The understanding that it should be transferred with different methods and materials has become essential in today's world to increase the motivation and interest of students. For this purpose, this research focuses on mobile learning and language teaching with mobile applications. Instead of staying away from mobile applications that guide our lives more in developing and changing living conditions and are no longer irreversible, we should follow the developments in the technical and digital fields and think about how we can incorporate them into our educational life in the best and most efficient way. Mobile tools can be used effectively in the field of foreign language education as well as in other areas of education and training.

The use of modern technologies is believed to facilitate communication, collaboration, sharing and learning in informal settings with students peers, friends and family and it is unbounded by time and location. Students seem to spend more time in such ‘informal’ settings than in ‘formal’ settings in the school (Looi et al. 2010: 2). In fact, today’s students are designated as Digital Natives because they have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using new technologies (computers, video games, digital music players, cell phones, etc.). They think and process information in a fundamentally different way than they predecessors; they may be called ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet (Prensky 2001: 1). Therefore, it might be necessary for teachers to implement some technology into the learning process. The first chapter of this thesis presents the concept of mobile learning. For that reason, different definitions of m-learning will be discussed as well as types of learning that it can facilitate. Moreover, Pegrum’s (2014) categorisation will be presented to explain the concept of mobility with reference to mobile devices, learners and learning experience. Next, chapter I will describe the idea of seamless learning, present the research conducted by Knight and Steed (2012) that checked the effect of mobile devices on certain aspects of the learning process, and state the benefits and limitations of m-learning. The first chapter will also define the concept of gamification which elements are often used in mobile applications. Hence, the main principles and basic elements of gamification will be investigated. Additionally, the existing gamification projects will be presented as well as positive and negative aspects of this concept in education. This thesis concentrates on mobile applications that teach vocabulary to young learners. Vocabulary is often claimed to be one of the most important elements of language knowledge. As Wilkins (1972: 111-112) stated ‘while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed’. Young learners are particularly interested in learning words as they are easier for them than grammatical rules. Teachers should therefore encourage their students to learn new vocabulary items and teach them in an attractive and engaging way. With proper knowledge of teaching vocabulary and a lot of enthusiasm and energy, teachers can help children build up their lexical dictionaries. Chapter II of this thesis will discuss various issues connected to word acquisition and teaching vocabulary to young learners. Firstly, the characteristics of young learners will be investigated as well as certain personality factors which can be related to the process of second language acquisition. Moreover, chapter II will present different aspects of vocabulary knowledge, explain the importance of presentation, practice and reinforcement procedure, and state which vocabulary items are suitable for young learners. In the final chapter of this thesis, the evaluation of nine educational applications will be conducted. The evaluation will be divided into two parts. The aim of the first part will be to check if tested applications possess certain features which can facilitate the process of vocabulary learning. Hence, it will be examined whether they indicate users’ progress, follow the procedure of presentation, practice and reinforcement, include suitable vocabulary for young learners, teach vocabulary by the use of various techniques, and have attractive design. The aim of the second part of the evaluation will be to check which elements of gamification are used in certain applications. Finally, the third chapter will present the application that was created for the purpose of this thesis. Each screen that appears in this application will be presented with careful explanations of the choice of certain functions and elements. Furthermore, the application will be described with reference to teaching methodology of young learners, gamification elements and graphic design.

RJOE, 2020

The present article discusses the importance of ‘Mobile Learning’ in the progressive transition of a traditional learning to modern learning system that is termed as ‘M-Learning’. Education is the process of facilitating learning or obtaining knowledge, wisdom, skills, ethics, values and beliefs to acquire these, ‘M- Learning’ is the best way which supports learning with ease . Even though ‘M-Learning’ emerged a decade ago, no one presumed that it would undergo such a phenomenal development. In this Globalized learning system ‘MLearning’ has been recently introduced and it is the beckoning future. It is a new approach of learning the content by using electronic gadgets like hand-held mobile devices, laptops or tablets. This method of learning is more convenient for anyone to learn whenever and wherever if it is felt. The advent of mobile learning is utilized by corporate institutions because most of the corporate educational institutions have been changing their traditional learning system and turning towards to introduce ‘M- Learning ‘ in their institutions. Through this method, learners can quick access to the content multiple times and whenever and wherever they want to learn. By watching videos which are relevant to the content and learners can understand the concepts with ease. In support of this method in the market, many educational learning apps have been designed and developed with the help of these apps learners are getting the concepts quickly. It is presumed that ‘M - Learning would take lead in all educational institutions by 2025.

From any generation to another one, knowledge, skills and wisdom are transmitted through education. Nowadays there are new forms of education: besides to formal education and classical methods, techniques of teaching-learning process; there is innovation and improvement in this field. Mobile learning, or "M-Learning", is one of modern ways to support learning process through mobile devices, such as handheld and tablet computers, MP3 players, smart phones and mobile phones. In this paper we have tried to introduce the subject of mobile learning for education purposes. It talks about mobile phone in teaching and learning practices and goes on to look at the opportunities presented by the use of digital media on mobile devices. The main purpose of this paper is to describe the current state of mobile learning, advantages, limitations, to support teaching and learning. Information for this paper was collected through bibliographic and internet research in April 2015. Five key areas will be addressed in this paper: 1. Different mobile teaching-learning dimensions 2. Objectives of m-learning 3 .Differentiating E-Learning from Mobile learning 4. Advantages of Mobile Learning 5. Limitations of Mobile Learning.

Mobilelearning …, 2005

2005

Strengthening the Role of ICT in …, 2007

This is a position paper which explores the use of mobile communication devices in teaching and learning. We especially undertake a crosswalk around the fast evolving field of mobile learning with a view of positioning it as new paradigm for learning. We deduce that successful development and implementation of any mobile learning solution requires a deep understanding of the learning environment which is greatly influenced by the learners learning styles, theories behind m-learning, the technology at play and the institutional/organisational culture. Interplay of all these factors enables the contextualization of learners and provides a learner centered learning environment. We eulogize the need to blend mobile with fixed communication devices in order to bridge the digital divide in electronic learning and finally conclude that mobile technological innovations per se are not enough to propel mobile learning but a match in growth need to be realised in the mobile learning pedagogies, theories, philosophies and organisational attitudes towards its use in education.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023

Due to the fact that they no longer represent a static or fixed idea of context, where changes are modest, nonexistent, or predictable, mobile devices demonstrate a radical break from traditional computer platforms. This abrupt change, together with the growth and ongoing development of contemporary mobile devices, has created an opportunity for a far more thorough integration of these contemporary devices into educational settings. An important instrument for our educational system is mobile learning, a relatively new area of study. Our students' and teachers' overall learning experiences can be improved with the use of mobile learning. This essay explores the history of mobile learning and how it may improve the entire eLearning system. The next generation of learning systems will be broadly accessible and will make learning easy for everyone who wants to participate, whereas the paper proposes the M-learning method as the next generation of eLearning. The advantages and potential difficulties of mobile learning in current educational settings are also highlighted in the article.

2014

With the change of time and technology in 21st century, the teaching and learning processes are also changed. New portable and electronic devices take place of old text books. In this paper we introduced an emerging paradigm "Mobile Learning" also called "M-Learning" that has yet to be clearly defined. Mobile learning is relatively new, so we are only beginning to see the potential of mobile devices in training and performance support. We start with the introduction of different learning techniques and equipment's then introduced Mobile learning their advantages, disadvantages and in the last, we talk about the impact of Mobile learning on college students. For our research we take data of 500 hundred students from different colleges of urban as well as rural areas.