M-Learning and Y Generation: The Reality behind the Myth

M-Learning and Y Generation: The Reality behind the Myth

Melanie Ciussi, Gill Rosner, Marc Augier, Gabriele Suder
Copyright: © 2013 |Pages: 15
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1852-7.ch007
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Abstract

This chapter explores “Y generation” students’ attitudes to mobile technologies in the context of education, and use of podcasts on their handhelds in particular. The authors’ intention is to investigate how students use mobile devices to support their formal and informal learning practices. One of the “Big Issues” in mobile learning that the authors address here is the co-existence of personal informal learning and traditional classroom education. After conducting two experiments and a survey, they conclude that the diversity of student attitudes towards using podcasts in education means that they are in the time of “in between years”. Learning “anytime/anywhere” and “digital natives” prove as yet to be a myth for many. The current challenge for podcasting in education is to move from information transmission to knowledge construction and sharing within a formal setting.
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The Added Value Of Mobile Devices

It is undeniable that mobile devices give added accessibility to resources. Information which once required access to a library, classroom or even an office with a computer, is now available in your hand anytime and anywhere you want it (McFarlane, 2009). Learning materials can now be constantly updated in real time. Students can access the latest version of these at the time and place relevant for them. Learning can even be delivered “just in time”. Instead of preparing a complete set of knowledge (a book for example) and sending it only when the whole picture is set up, mobile technologies allow us to send small pieces of knowledge, as soon as it is available, as soon as the student needs it to progress. Does this herald a revolution in educational delivery analogous to that which the mobile phone brought to our idea of using the telephone?

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