Teachers’ Perceptions Of M-Learning In High School

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Abstract

The emergence of m-learning has been a promising technology for students. But the teachers’ perception is equally important for the technology to be implemented. There is shortage of time in the classroom to practice the work taught by teachers. It requires a connection with the teachers. Teachers cannot be present everywhere. M- learning plays the role of a virtual classroom. This paper deals with the teachers’ perceptions of m-learning in high school. Teachers perform various activities with the help of m-learning in order to ease their jobs, such as tracking progress of students, providing materials, managing online classes and check the exams and assignments. This research includes literature review on m-learning and a case study on Indonesian school using Quipper school as a platform for enhancing English skills. In this study, Qualitative research method has been followed to conduct the research interviewing three teachers reviews on Quipper school as an extended learning platform and 16 articles research on teachers’ perceptions on mobile learning in high school. The results show that teachers have been practicing mobile learning in order to ease their jobs and resolve the problems faced by traditional learning and there has been increasing trend of m-learning among teachers and students.

Introduction

Learning is the process of studying built by teachers in order to improve the thinking ability of students to be creative and discover new things as an enhancement to the study as a scholar. Learning is also defined as the understanding between teacher and a learner and adapting the teachings accordingly. The objective of learning through students can be seen by their achievement and positive changes in the behavior. High school education starts during adolescence. Students at high school use to face problems studying various subjects such as mathematics which make it challenging for teachers to make high school students understand.

Technology has played a big role in every field including education, businesses, health, agriculture and almost every sector. Education is now in the reach of every age human without any space restrictions as well and this could never have been possible without technology. However, the use of technology is the second option as a source of learning as there is not maximal use by teachers and students. This is because teachers are still familiar with the previous method of learning. Mobile devices are not just for communicating but it has become really a broad concept. M-learning or Mobile Learning is “learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions, using personal electronic devices”. (Crompton, Burke, 2018). M-learning has a significant role to play in education sector. M-learning is the most flexible way of learning. Every person carries a mobile device making M-learning affordable for every student.

The main focus of this research is to focus on teachers in the classrooms, their perceptions, their use of technology, their perceptions of benefits of m-learning for students. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of mobile learning in high schools from the teacher’s point of view.

Literature review

Students who were born between 1995 and 2015 is categorized under generation Z (Agustina & Cahyono, 2017). They are the fluent users of gadgets and mobile devices. They are digital natives and rely on gadgets. They use their mobile devices not only for communication but playing games, listening music, surfing browser, shopping, studying, doing assignments and even chatting. It has become a part of their life and is almost impossible to forbid them from using mobile even in the classrooms.

1.1 Mobile Learning

The use of Information and communication technology has transformed the education sector grouping together e-learning system and m-learning where e-learning is learning by combination of electronic devices and digital media; and m-learning as a form of learning that comprises mobile communication technology and devices. The high advancement in mobile technology, its affordable price, compact size, ease of accessibility and easy rate of usage as compared to computer devices is increasingly popularizing m-learning shaping learning sector in the new context accessible whenever and wherever (Kurniawati & Priyanto, 2018).

M-learning is a branch of e-learning that is used to connect teachers and students by the use of mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets etc. The main benefit of m-learning is that it can establish a connection between student and teacher anywhere in this world. They need not to be present on the same location. (Andre, 2018).

My review of research showed that teachers are moving towards technology such as PowerPoint, Videos, Blogs, Electronic dictionary and many educational apps. Teachers approach to teaching has been changed due to evolution of technology and now m-learning.

Quinn 2000 stated m-learning as: ‘The intersection of mobile computing and e-learning: accessible resources wherever you are, strong search capabilities, rich interaction, powerful support for effective learning, and performance-based assessment. E-Learning independent of location in time or space ‘.

M-learning provides imparted access to the learning process. It is an advanced way to access learning content using mobile devices. It is revolutionizing education system. There are many educational apps that have made easier for the teachers and trainers to make students familiar with the concepts. (Webdesign, n.d.).

Mobile learning sets a network between teacher and student through both synchronous or asynchronous communication techniques. Teachers can upload the lectures anywhere making it easy to access for the students. (Asabere, 2013)

1.2 Teachers’ perception of m-learning in high school.

Quipper or Quipper school is a web based online application developed by Quipper ltd. positioned in London. Quipper has been widely used in many countries including Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, United Kingdom, India, Russia and Turkey. Quipper school Indonesia is an online platform for teachers and students allowing teachers to conduct online classes and tracking progress of students. Quipper has become a medium of learning English as a foreign language. Quipper has two parts: LINK for teachers and LEARN for students.

Quipper school link is for teachers to track students record and manage online classes. Teachers can do the following while using Quipper school link:

Send assignments and conduct online exams.
Teachers can upload or make changes in the online study material.
Check exams online and upload results.
LINK allows teachers to manage their classes either personally or in a group.

Teachers have access to ‘overview’, ‘assignments’, ‘curriculum’, ‘message’ and ‘manage’ menus. This has helped teaching system to get familiar with the language and is being widely used.

Lot of research has been conducted showing different views on teacher’s perceptions of m-learning in high schools. Mobile learning gives global and continuous access to teachers and students to vast information. (Kukulska-Hulme et al., 2009; Seppälä & Alamäki, 2003). The features on m-learning provide options for individual, combined, situated and informal learning approach without any space restrictions. (Cheon et al., 2012). Mobile devices were already popular for its tools providing portability and mobility but now emergence of geospatial technologies, camera features, broad searching potential and context awareness has made it versatile providing learning experience without any restrictions and access to information with authenticity supporting inquiry-based learning (Martin & Ertzberger, 2013). (Savery (2002) stated that the teachers were more likely to use technology such as email, videos and overhead projectors.

For teachers who were less familiar with m-learning and technology found m-learning less beneficial and less likely used technologies in the class room (Cope & Ward, 2002). Teachers can record lectures through their mobile device and upload even if they are not able to conduct classes.

The literature suggests that mobile learning with the help of its technologies have changed the pedagogical role of teachers. Teachers can access mobiles anywhere providing extended teaching options. The technology will not create student centered learning environment but it depends on teachers’ perceptions of m-learning in schools.

Research Methodologies

Educational research synthesis illustrates the important points from the above literature and propose conclusions or build theories for further research and practice (Minner, Levy & Century, 2010). In this study, descriptive qualitative design has been used to analyze the teachers’ perceptions of m-learning in high schools. Qualitative research basically focuses on data which is not in the form of numbers. It is a naturalistic approach following research that focuses on sensible data, interpret on the basis of views of different people (Mcleod, 2019).

This research has been conducted on various views and subjected three teachers of senior high school at Mojokerto city under province East Java, Indonesia in context with Quipper school. Each teacher taught in different grade. Mr. Ary taught grade X11 students, Ms. Merry taught X1 grade students and Ms. Terry taught X grade students as shown below. These teachers have been into the teaching profession since many years.

An instrument, interview guide has been used in the process of this research. An interview guide is a semi-structured approach following not a fixed pattern of interview questions (Agustina & Cahyono, 2017). Several steps have been followed in this study together with data reduction, data display, data verification and conclusion. Students data was also collected in order to cross check the teachers’ perceptions. Interview helped to achieve the objective (Agustina & Cahyono, 2017).

This research also included many articles from different databases such Wiley online library, Google scholar, Sage publication using keywords ‘Teachers perceptions on m-learning’ , ‘m-learning in high schools’ and followed several journals related to the topic of research and qualitative data was collected and coded according to the requirement (teachers in high school, m-learning, use of technology) and type (empirical, theoretical, case description, editorial, policy) (Baran, 2014).

Out of 40 articles 16 were selected related to required material and on the basis of that research was conducted.

Results and Findings

The results concluded were presented on the basis of teachers’ perceptions on m-learning using Quipper school.

1) The teachers were interviewed with different questions such as whether they used mobiles (Quipper school) in teaching, to manage classes and prepare their lectures or not. It was also tried to find that what role did m-learning play in their jobs, whether it eased their jobs, helped save time or not. Were they comfortable using Quipper school or not? The following responses were captured through the investigation.

When question was asked about Quipper school that whether it should be applied in English learning, Mr Ary, Ms. Merry and Ms. Terry, three of them replied positive. As Mr. Ary is senior teacher in the school, he found Quipper school really beneficial and recommended others to use it. He said that if he was absent due to some reason, he relied on Quipper school. He assigned students exercises along with deadline using Quipper school from his mobile device.
Ms. Merry replied saying that she often integrated technology in classroom. She has used Quipper school several times after class on mobile. She also recommended students to practice English at home using Quipper on their mobile devices.

Ms Terry used Quipper to perform post learnin g activity. After teaching she asked students to practice the material at home when there was shortage of time in the class. She also asked students to practice the comprehension and grammar related material before their mid-term exams or final exams.
When they were asked about selecting material using quipper school, all the three gave positive response. All of three chose not too difficult material. It was just chosen for the practice of work at home due to lack of time in school and to have a better understanding of lesson taught in classroom.
Overall the interview answers gave positive response to m-learning. It showed the m-learning is really promising and reduced their workload and made their job easier. Its flexibility is a really positive aspect promising bright future.

2) Other results were on the basis of articles published between year 2000 to 2019. These years were the main years when researchers noticed increasing interest for mobile technologies in education. All the researchers and teachers educators showed an intensified interest in using mobile-learning with the growing popularity of gadgets and mobile devices.

Many countries have been taking interest into researching for m-learning in education sector increasing publication trends.

In the 16 articles, different methodologies have been used to research in this review with different case studies and different subjects. Out of 40 articles, I found 16 articles reliable and trustworthy. Out of 40 articles, some were conducted with preschool teachers, some with primary teachers, little with high school teachers and few with higher education. Some of the articles focused on applications of mobile technology. Correspondingly, mobile devices had a majority in terms of usage followed by PDA, tablets, iPads, handheld pcs and laptops. The large number of articles justified the teachers’ positive views on m-learning in high school (Baran, 2014).

Discussion

On the basis of research conducted, it has been analyzed that m-learning can be used in high school from the teachers’ point of view. Due to less time allocated in the classroom, teachers cannot cover the whole syllabus and there is less time for students to practice and understand the concepts. At this stage, the evolution of m-learning has a bright future as it provides extended and distance learning options. Based on findings, m-learning can support mastery of skills. Quipper school is a really helpful learning platform as an example to m-learning. Teachers choose the materials according to the level of proficiency of students.

Teachers should be familiar to all the features of the mobile apps or technologies and capable of handling problems related to the applications. M-learning cannot replace traditional learning but can be collaborated with learning activities to enhance the learning is the teachers’ perceptions.

Conclusion

This article has examined the teachers’ point of view on m-learning in high schools. One case study has also been discussed in order to justify the concept. M-learning is capable of assisting with mobility and portability providing flexible learning environment. Teachers can provide material anywhere anytime to the students, check assignments, grade them, track progress and manage materials online on the basis of students’ proficiency. It proves to be a good experience for improvement of handling learning issues of students from teachers’ perspective. It may be an obstacle for non-digital natives but the gaining popularity of mobile devices promises a bright future and can be implemented along with traditional learning ( Agustina & Cahyono, 2017).

References

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