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 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

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 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.