The role of mobile phone and powerpoint in enhancing writing skills: Lecturers' reflections

These day mobile phones are being resorted to as indispensable pedagogical tools for imparting language skills to the present day students who are termed as ‘Generation Y’, ‘Net Generation’ and above all ‘Digital Natives’. Mobile phones have the potential to be reliable pedagogical tool to teach writing which is the most neglected skills to the intermediate students.The current paper examines the perceptions of two lecturers regarding the use of mobile phones and PowerPoint in teaching descriptive essay writing skills to intermediate students at M.A.O. College, Lahore. The qualitative data for this purpose was collected by means of semi-structured interviews from those two lecturers who taught experimental as well as control groups respectively.The findings of the study indicated that the lecturer of experimental group was very much in favour of mobile phones to be incorporated in the teaching writing class.Even the lecturer of control group favoured the use of new technology as she was not in favour of PowerPoint to be used for teaching writing skills.Moreover, the findings of the study indicated that the mobile phones can very easily, successfully and conveniently be employed as pedagogical tool to impart writing skills as they can motivate the lecturers for teaching as well as the students for learning the writing skills

THE ROLE OF MOBILE PHONE AND POWERPOINT IN ENHANCING WRITING SKILLS: LECTURERS’ REFLECTIONS

These day mobile phones are being resorted to as indispensable pedagogical tools for imparting language skills to the present day students who are termed as ‘Generation Y’, ‘Net Generation’ and above all ‘Digital Natives’. Mobile phones have the potential to be reliable pedagogical tool to teach writing which is the most neglected skills to the intermediate students. The current paper examines the perceptions of two lecturers regarding the use of mobile phones and PowerPoint in teaching descriptive essay writing skills to intermediate students at M.A.O. College, Lahore. The qualitative data for this purpose was collected by means of semi-structured interviews from those two lecturers who taught experimental as well as control groups respectively. The findings of the study indicated that the lecturer of experimental group was very much in favour of mobile phones to be incorporated in the teaching writing class. Even the lecturer of control group favoured the use of new technology as she was not in favour of PowerPoint to be used for teaching writing skills. Moreover, the findings of the study indicated that the mobile phones can very easily, successfully and conveniently be employed as pedagogical tool to impart writing skills as they can motivate the lecturers for teaching as well as the students for learning the writing skills

Breaking the boundaries of space and time: A review of applications of bring-your-own-device in higher education

Throughout history, various technologies have been used to bridge the boundaries of time and space, from 19th-century postcard education to present day mobile technology. Previous reviews examining the first decade of the new millennium showed many research projects using institutionally owned equipment, mostly supporting a teacher-centred approach and with a focus on content delivery. With the rapid development of small, portable and smart devices since 2007, devices becoming ubiquitous in the lives of students of today, has the focus of research changed? This paper reviews journal articles published 2009-2014 with the aim to examine how mobile devices are applied to bridge the boundaries of space and time in higher educational settings, and thereby supporting networked learning for the campus classroom as well as the online student. A search in major databases for English language journal articles was conducted with phrases "mobile learning" and "higher education". We found 109 articles indicating some form of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) philosophy. Categorizations were made primarily based on the abstracts. About 85 per cent of the articles were empirical in nature. Another eight per cent were theoretical and/or argumentative. The remaining articles were reviews, method development or meta-analyses. Subjects of study in the empirical articles were primarily students, but also faculty or a combination of those appears. Geographically, most studies are concentrated in the English-speaking parts of the world, although for instance Sub-Saharan Africa could benefit from development in this area. Not surprisingly, the top three countries by number of publications are USA, UK and Australia. About a third of the articles did not deal with the dimensions of time and space explicitly. Several of the non-empirical articles are among them, and so are a group of empirical articles that examined behavioural intents, perceptions, and attitudes amongst students and faculty. The principal phenomena studied with respect to the bridging of time and space was social media, the most common variety being podcasting, followed by text- and instant-messaging and social networking. Another group addressed how learning management and support systems could be developed to better support flexibility in time and space, or attitudes, intentions and perceptions regarding mobile learning implementations. Results indicate a shift from teacher-centred content delivery approaches towards student-centred communicative approaches. Recent improvements in network infrastructure and device usability seem to afford this development for teachers and students alike. However, a more thorough analysis of the material is required to validate such a claim

Using a smart phone to learn Spanish: Does it work and will students use it?

Over time, mobile devices have penetrated the classroom, requiring new and beneficial ways to implement classroom instruction. Research suggests that Short Message Service (SMS) based instruction is an effective tool for acquiring second language (L2) vocabulary and idiom knowledge (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu,). Additionally, studies have found that students believe that mobile learning (m-learning) is beneficial to acquiring a second language (Cavus & Ibrahim; Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu, 2008). This study examined whether m-learning can lead to Spanish vocabulary familiarity and if sentence comprehension outperforms reading definitions. Participants were 29 native English speakers studying Spanish as a second language at the intermediate level. Learners received definitions of Spanish words in Spanish and sentences in Spanish on their mobile devices through a popular messaging application. The results demonstrate that vocabulary familiarity significantly improved and participants overall had a positive perception of m-learning. Our discussion explores the implications for classroom and mobile second language teaching

Analisis Dampak Penggunaan Teknologi Komunikasi Whatsapp Pada Dunia Pendidikan

Teknologi memengaruhi banyak area dan memberikan kemudahan besar di area yang tersebar luas. Tujuan dari tulisan ini adalah untuk menganalisis dampak positif dan negatif dari penggunakan aplikasi media sosial Whats App dalam proses pembelajaran dan untuk membuat kerangka kerja konseptual dalam hal tata krama. Metode yang digunakan terkait dengan topik tulisan ini adalah metode studi literatur yang mana sumber berbeda dari penelitian penelitian akan dievaluasi. Hasil analisis dalam studi ini bahwa para siswa yang kecanduan pesan instan kurang berhasil pada proses akademik, mereka tidak dapat mengendalikan waktu yang dihabiskan untuk olah pesan, mereka mengabaikannya pekerjaan rumah dan mereka juga kurang disiplin dibandingkan dengan siswa lain. Selain itu juga terlihat tingkat pemahaman siswa, keterampilan belajar, produktivitas, dan prestasi akademik telah dipengaruhi secara negatif. Siswa yang menggunakan pesan instan selama proses membaca dapat meningkatkan waktu yang diperlukan untuk menyelesaikan tugas membaca mereka. Saat menggunakan Whats App dalam proses pendidikan mungkin ada masalah seperti siswa yang mungkin tidak memiliki ponsel cerdas atau akses internet, karena semacam pembatasan juga. Siswa bisa jadi ragu untuk bertanya di lingkungan WhatsApp, karena merasa ada perasaan seperti sedang diperhatikan di lingkungan WhatsApp. Menerima terlalu banyak pesan melalui WhatsApp dapat berdampak negatif terhadap pembelajaran

Learning English phrasal verbs through interactive text-messaging

This study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of interactive text-messaging in learning English phrasal verbs by Iranian EFL learners. The study employed a pre-test, post-test quasi-experimental design with two experimental groups exposed to two learning conditions (paper-based and SMS-based) and a control group. Forty-eight EFL learners were assigned into two experimental and one control group(s). The participants in each experimental group were divided into four smaller groups and performed an interactive task (i.e.,expand the story) in two different ways. The results indicated that although both groups improved significantly from pre-test to post-test and did significantly better than their counterparts in the control group, the SMS-based group outperformed the paper-based group in learning English phrasal verbs. Furthermore, the results of the delayed post-test showed that the participants in the SMS-based group had significantly more vocabulary gains than their paper-based counterparts

EMPOWERING THE USE OF MOBILE-BASED VOCABULARY NOTEBOOKS

The high demand on the mobile devices like smart phones and Ipads in daily life has given a rise to mobile learning trends in foreign language learning. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in vocabulary achievement level of students keeping mobile-based and paper-based vocabulary notebooks in English language learning. The study was designed through mixed method where a pre-post test control group quasi-experimental study was conducted. Data were collected through a vocabulary achievement test used as pre and post tests. The results indicated mobile-based vocabulary notebooks have positive effects on students’ vocabulary achievement

Chinese Medical College Students’ English Vocabulary Learning Difficulties, Attitudes and Preferences towards the Use of Mobile Application for Vocabulary Learning

English language teaching and learning have undergone a lot of changes in the past decades. Among these changes is the use of mobile application in learning, a new learning method where users use mobile platforms to learn. The purpose of this study is to identify Chinese medical college students’ vocabulary learning difficulties, as well as, to determine their attitudes and preferences on the use of mobile application in English learning vocabulary. The study used quantitative research design using descriptive statistics to analyze the data and report the result of the study. There were 282 Chinese medical college students who participated in this study in which a questionnaire survey was used to collect data. The findings indicated that Chinese medical college students have faced difficulties in English vocabulary learning, such as, spelling, pronunciation, word meaning and word usage. In terms of attitude, the results found that students have had favorable attitudes toward the use of mobile application in terms of its benefit in reading, listening and writing. However, in terms of speaking students tended to have different opinions on whether mobile applications are beneficial for developing their speaking.  However, incorporating, textbooks and mobile technology in vocabulary teaching and learning, might be a good way to help students in building their English language ability to become competent learners

A proposal for the applicability of flipped classroom model in mobile learning environments

Geleneksel öğrenme ortamlarında mevcut öğrenenlerin sayısı ve öğrenme etkinliklerini gerçekleştirmek için yetersiz olan ders süreleri temel sınırlıklar olarak sürekli dile getirilmektedir. Öğrenenlerin gereksinimlerine cevap verebilmek ve bu sınırlıkları aşabilmek için ters yüz sınıf modeli önemli bir alternatif olarak görülmektedir. Bu model ile öğrenenler bilgi edinme süreçlerini sınıf dışı etkinliklerle gerçekleştirirken, sınıf içi etkinliklerde öğrenmelerin pekiştirilmesine ve uygulama yapmaya daha fazla zaman ayrılması amaçlanmaktadır. Sınıf dışı etkinliklerde herhangi bir mekana bağımlı kalmama durumu ise mobil öğrenme etkinlikleri ile benzerlik göstermektedir. Ters yüz sınıf modeli araştırmalarının yeni olması ve alanyazında mobil öğrenme ile kaynaştırılmasına rastlanmamış olması bu makalenin temel dayanağını oluşturmaktadır. Makalede önerilen Edmodo platformunun mobil desteği ile beraber sağladığı diğer faydalar da sunulmaktadır. Böylelikle gelecekteki araştırmalara ışık tutacağı düşünülmektedir.Current learners' numbers and the insufficient lecture time for applying learning activities are usually told for being basic disadvantages in traditional learning environments. Flipped class model is seen to be an alternative choice to respond the needs of learners and to overcome these limitations. While learners apply information acquisition process with out of class activities, it is aimed with this model to devote more time to make the consolidation of learning and practice in class activities. Having no need to adhere to any space in out of class activities is similar with mobile learning activities. Research of flipped class model being new, and the integration of flipped class model and mobile learning having no seen in related research constitutes the cornerstone of this journal. Also in this journal, the other advantages provided with mobile support of recomended platform being called Edmodo is presented. Thus, it is thought to set light to future research

Systematic Literature review on the Use of Applications of Smartphones for Teaching English in EFL Contexts

This review paper provides an overview of the use of applications of smartphones, target language skills, methodology, and EFL contexts from the studies published between 2010 and January 2020. As per time frame and parameters followed by the PRISMA model, 45 of 2707 studies were retrieved from four reputable online databases, namely Springer link, Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect, were eligible for this study, All these studies (n=45) scrutinized and analyzed with NVIVO-12 for obtaining the objectives of this study. The findings showed that 25 applications of smartphones were employed, and the most used application was Short Message Service (SMS). Further, the findings reported that vocabulary was the most targeted language skills, the quantitative research methodology was the most popular and highest number of studies held in Iran employing smartphone apps in ELT. Based on the findings, the study would provide some implications and suggestions over the use of the applications of smartphones for facilitating teaching and learning language skills in the EFL contexts for educators and researchers