Two-way text messaging: an interactive mobile learning environment in higher education

Short messaging service (SMS) is perhaps the most popular mobile technology prevalent among students in higher education due to its ubiquitous nature and the capability of two-way communication. However, a major limitation in two-way text messaging is sending back a part of received data with the reply message. This limitation results in users of a mobile learning environment being unable to reply back to the correct destination. This article presents a two-way text messaging system that can be integrated into a learning management system (LMS) to provide an interactive learning experience to the user community. Initially, a database is integrated into the LMS that holds message information such as recipient's phone number, message body and user data header. A specific port associated with the SMS is used to conceal and exchange data of a particular course unit. Subsequently, software in the student's mobile device captures this message and sends back the reply message to the appropriate course unit allowing both teachers and students to view messages sent and replies received pertaining to a particular course. Results indicate the educational impact of the proposed system in improving the learning environment and benefits it offers to the community in a campus-wide implementation.

To BYOD or not to BYOD: factors affecting academic acceptance of student mobile devices in the classroom

This article reports on factors affecting local academic acceptance of bring your own devices (BYOD). A review of the literature revealed a paucity of studies that have explored the complex factors that affect academic use and intention to use mobile devices in the classroom, with even less exploring truly ubiquitous and varied personal devices as opposed to supplied institutional or research study sets. A detailed qualitative investigation with 14 academics was undertaken, drawing upon and aiming to compliment mature acceptance research. Firstly by employing a focus group to identify initial psychological factors and the relevance of acceptance theories to the local context. Then, secondly by using in-depth semi-structured interviews, shaped by acceptance categories, to identify a breadth of psychological factors affecting faculty use and intention to use BYOD. This small-scale study found clear distinctions in local academic perceptions of BYOD compared with faculty devices and reported a range of factors that appeared to distinctly affect local academic acceptance of BYOD.

Practical assessment on the run – iPads as an effective mobile and paperless tool in physical education and teaching

This paper investigates the use of iPads in the assessment of predominantly second year Bachelor of Education (Primary/Early Childhood) pre-service teachers undertaking a physical education and health unit. Within this unit, practical assessment tasks are graded by tutors in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings. The main barriers for the lecturer or tutor for effective assessment in these contexts include limited time to assess and the provision of explicit feedback for large numbers of students, complex assessment procedures, overwhelming record-keeping and assessing students without distracting from the performance being presented. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate whether incorporating mobile technologies such as iPads to access online rubrics within the Blackboard environment would enhance and simplify the assessment process. Results from the findings indicate that using iPads to access online rubrics was successful in streamlining the assessment process because it provided pre-service teachers with immediate and explicit feedback. In addition, tutors experienced a reduction in the amount of time required for the same workload by allowing quicker forms of feedback via the iPad dictation function. These outcomes have future implications and potential for mobile paperless assessment in other disciplines such as health, environmental science and engineering.