Mlearning in Education and its future
We are living in an era where most of the people around us are mobile phone users. By the coming of mobile phone and internet, the information is more accessible than it's ever been. You can obtain the information you want in your fingertips rather than in the past you needed to go to the library, visit many stalls and many troublesome browsing of many materials. Even if we have all of this power at our fingertips, we are not aware of what to do with it.
Mobile learning or mLearning is just learning materials that are accessed through a mobile device. Mlearning is concerned about the mobility of the learner and making learning an important part of self-learning. Mlearning enables you with the ability to learn whenever and wherever you want. With the arrival of mLearning, education has brought a new level of learning.
Growth of mLearning in education.
By the coming of the smartphone and internet, it created a great platform for mobile learning. Many Web design and e-learning development companies developed a platform where we are able to share and access text, videos and audios. This is a way of learning provided by mLearning although this method mLearning can be less interactive while there is no interaction between the trainer and the learners. Mobile learning mainly promotes bit sized learning or microlearning. It is making learning simpler by breaking up the learning context to any bit sized pieces which are more digestible. We can say for sure that mLearning is an emerging educational strategy. Research by JMIR has shown that mLearning is as effective as traditional learning according to the results gained by a total of 29 studies, including 3175 learners. It was able to increase the core scored by the learners in their exam and it decreased the rate of dropout in the technical fields. Mobile learning is an exceptional learning strategy still it's not all good. Mlearning also has some disadvantages. Let's get to know these pros and cons of mLearning.
Advantages of mLearning
learning on the go
The portability and easy access to learning content enable us to learn in a flexible manner from a location which is comfortable for us. We are able to study at any time which suits us. Mobile-learning has enabled us with the ability to study anywhere anytime like on a bus or a train.
Promotes student-centered learning
Mobile-learning provides student-centered learning. The learners are considered as the priority. This helped students learn on their way and allow self-paced learning. Different people learn at different rates, this helps them learn at their own individual pace which is impossible in a classroom where they are forced to pace which is set by their instructor.
Distance is not an issue
After the emerging of mLearning distance education is not at all difficult. The mLearning enabled the students to communicate with their instructors from anywhere and online interaction between teacher and student and student to student is also made possible. Teachers are able to provide immediate feedback from wherever they are. The mLearning records and represents the real-time progress of the students which enable teachers to customize their teaching
Various type of learning content
The learning content available in learning can be a video, audio or an image. Each and every kind of content serves better to the student. Videos make the learning more interesting and more engaging while audio content like podcasts etc, help to listen to the audio recordings of the lectures.
Disadvantages of mLearning
Compact display
The screen size on a mobile phone is a big drawback to mLearning. The small screen of mobile causes leads to some difficulty in readability. The small screen makes the content smaller and causes eye strain. IF the content is not responsive, it becomes a problem.
Easy to get distracted
While using a smartphone for studies, we may get a notification from any social media or any other application this diverts our concentration, and we get distracted. While the youngsters prefer smartphone for learning, there is a chance that they end up playing games or watching movies.
Problem with the network and electricity
Since we are using smartphones, power could be an issue. The device tends to lose charge fast while using the internet and while streaming online. Good network and internet connection are important. So, the poor connection may cause disturbance while learning.
