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Although many studies adopt information technology to enhance the effect of English learning, some literature suggests that learning effects may vary depending on what a learning device involves, especially, a learner’s attitude toward the use of information technology. The learner’s attitude toward the use of information technology equipment also influences its learning effects. When mobile Internet technology becomes mature, and smartphones popular, the use rate of transmitting and receiving signals via a mobile device has increased. Also, mobile technology bas employed to various schools setting and subjects and its results and effects has been explored by many prior studies (Shih, 2011; Cheng, Lou, Kuo, & Shih, 2013; Cheng, Isman, Hsu, & Hsin, 2014; Huang, Tsai, Ray Diez, & Lou, 2014; Hsieh, Kuo, & Lin, 2014). As the government and civil organizations have proactively constructed cloud computing spaces, smartphones have become necessary communication tools for daily life. Multimedia data with text, image, sound, video, and animation can be sent to mobile devices economically, conveniently, quickly, and closer to the users through the cloud computing platform, allowing them to obtain stable and fast digital content in real time.
In this study, In order to achieve the goal of active push/pull of information, and to conform to behavior of a smartphone user, we developed an App, “Ubiquitous multimedia messaging platform (U-Msg)” under C2DM (Cloud to Device Messaging Framework), a free Push/Pull cloud service by Google. Although the push/pull technology has been applied to Internet transmission of information and multimedia data, it has rarely been applied to practical instruction. Under this context, this study uses media transmission techniques of Technology-Push and Need-Pull, with Google C2DM for Android mobile devices as a game-based platform for English learning. With this App, teaching material for a class can be transmitted to these learners via mobile phones in real-time. By using U-Msg platform, the real-time interaction, between teachers and students and among students, in language learning, we mainly study a learner’s usage behavior with a mobile phone as learning device.