Literature on the safe and disruptive learning potential
of mobile technologies Tiffany A. Koszalka* and G.S. Ntloedibe-Kuswani
of mobile technologies Tiffany A. Koszalka* and G.S. Ntloedibe-Kuswani
Distance Education Vol. 31, No. 2, August 2010, 139–157
This author mainly focuses on the effectiveness of using laptop and mobile phone for educational purpose. Present information tool which is now available and useful is completely different from the past education. Nowadays, there are many different kinds of devices such as i-phone and smart phone. Although these were created past few years ago, they still have great impact on every society all over the world. Before these kinds of devices appeared, most of educators were not able to predict the great advancement of technology which contributes educational tool. This article provides many challenging and intriguing experiment and information about using these useful devices.
He explains that there are two kinds of learning ways of using technology. One is safe learning, which illustrates the unlimited information which is available for students to use by using Internet. Compare to old educational ways, this provides students with a lot of opportunities which they can get some specific information for their homework or their own interests. Another one is disruptive learning, which means students can communicate and collaborate with each other in remote places by using cell-phone or laptop. As this author explains in one experiment result, there are still many people who cannot afford to have lap-top or use Internet in South Africa because this kinds of developing country have had lack of skills to catch up with 21th technology advancement. On the other hand, author says 50% of them can have the chance to have cell-phones which provide them with the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with other students or teachers, their learning have been rapidly improved and advanced. Furthermore, m-learning, which is often described as learning style of safe and disruptive learning, have helped homeless, illiterate and people who excluded by depending on the location, social status, and educational infrastructure to be activate and engaging.
However, he suggests some problems in different point of view. He describes that m-leaner may have negative effect from using technology. For example, they will tend to use lap-top too much and have some critical issues which involves privacy between students. Furthermore, he comments using lap-top too much make m-learner distract their own personalities. Even worse, which these devices are very useful for learning at first sight, long-term result or any other negative aspects have not been published. Therefore, he strongly states that they need some instruction for using lap-top or cell-phone as a class.
Overall I think that we will have much more useful device in the foreseeable future. As the author stated above, technology development will play a great important role in educational field, for example, people in South Africa will depend on this more and more. We already heard many times that next generation’s lap-top or mobile-phone are going to be our necessity in our daily. However, I believe that it is up to us whether we can handle it wisely and effectively or not. Otherwise, it is possible to say that our future technology will make us live separately from each other. Then, we will not have to communicate with other friends face to face and most of students may spend all the time in their house using lap-top. As this author warned already, we will need strong instruction which protect us from addicting to technology negatively.
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