Teacher's adoption and use of mobile devices outside the classroom for learning in Africa: A complementary case study of secondary school teachers in South Africa and Tanzania (original) (raw)
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Secondary school students are labelled as bad mannered, and low achievers because of their extent of using mobile devices. Elder siblings and parents have not supported these students use of mobile devices. In some cases, students have had their devices confiscated. Little do parents know; their children are using mobile devices for learning outside the classroom. Students view using their mobile devices for learning to be compatible with using textbooks and that as they use the devices outside the classroom, they are supplementing their learning. When confused, they contact teachers for clarification. To understand the extent of secondary school student’s use of mobile devices for learning outside the classroom in Tanzania, a single secondary school was purposively selected. A total of 202 students responded to questionnaire, and 20 students were interviewed by the researchers. The theory of diffusion of innovation was employed to provide an understanding of the phenomenon of interest. This research aims to debunk the myth on secondary school student’s use of mobile devices, equip students staying far from schools, and with less resources evidence of a tool they can use for learning, provide a theoretical elaboration on usage of mobile devices for learning, and apprise the informal learning community.
Proceedings of the 47th Annual Conference of the Southern African Computer Lectures' Association (SACLA 2018), 2018
High school learners are intrigued by mobile devices and constantly use them. Society has labelled this constant use of mobile devices as misuse and inappropriate. South Africa provides different challenges due to uneven development that has affected high schools with shortage of teachers and shortage of teaching and learning material. Based on independent learning approach, technology is advocated as one of the options in reducing the shortages. Mobile devices are one of the technologies that can be used inside and outside the classroom. Outside the classroom use of mobile devices assists with accessing content and as a tool to acquire learning material from. To this end, the research investigated learners' adoption and use of mobile devices for learning outside the classroom in a high school in Cape Town, South Africa. The research used the theory of diffusion of innovation as a lens to understand learners' adoption and use of mobile devices. A high school in Cape Town provided for a contemporary phenomenon and was used as case study. Questionnaires were distributed to 92 Grade 12 learners, 15 of whom were interviewed. Findings reveal that all learners own (have access to) at least one mobile device, and only a few of these do not have Internet access. Learners use mobile devices to search for information and for academic purposes. Learners use YouTube, maps, camera, video and Google search to enhance knowledge acquired in classroom. While learners use social and knowledge networks for learning, some learners suffer consequences of mobile device confiscation and disciplinary action based on assumption of misuse or using them within school compound. Outside the classroom, teachers tap into the social and knowledge networks learners have and provide support, guidance and facilitate learner's use of mobile devices for learning. This research contributes to the theory by providing empirical evidence from a high school in a developing country. The research also contributes to the body of knowledge on education and adoption of technology outside the classroom.
Using Mobile Phones in Teaching and Learning in Secondary Schools in Tanzania
2015
This paper discusses some of the findings from a recent cross-sectional survey that examined how secondary schools’ teachers use their mobile phones in teaching and learning. The participants were drawn from Mwanga and Chamwino districts in Kilimanjaro and Dodoma regions respectively in Tanzania. A large area of the study location enjoys a reliable mobile phones’ coverage network, many mobile phones’ service providers and reliable wireless internet. This study involved 100 teachers from public and private secondary schools obtained using purposive sampling. These teachers were only those who owned smart phones. The study used likerty-type questionnaires and semi-structured interview to collect data for understanding the contribution of teachers’ mobile phones in teaching and learning process in secondary schools. The 90 (90%) questionnaires were filled and returned, while 10 (10%) questionnaires were not returned. The study found that most of the teachers had little knowledge on the...
2017
There has been an unprecedented growth in the number of mobile devices in recent years. This spread and prevalence of mobile devices has promoted the popularity of mobile applications. This has instigated the need to understand the usage pattern of mobile devices particularly among high school teachers and learners. This paper reports on the results of a survey of one hundred and twenty (120) high school learners and twenty four (24) high school teachers in the Erongo region of Namibia drawn from three different high schools. This research is conducted in order to find out the usage pattern of mobile devices and to ascertain the possibility of its adoption in Namibian High Schools. This study is expected to establish an understanding of the usage patterns based on its benefit for pedagogy.
Designing a Framework for Training Teachers on Mobile Learning in Sub-Sahara Africa
Journal of Education and Practice, 2020
Mobile technology has the potential to enhance the capabilities of students and educators in effective teaching and learning process. Understanding the factors that hinder integration of mobile technology in instructional delivery is key to the effective uptake of mobile technology for instructional purposes. The benefits of using mobile technology in the classroom can only be fully harnessed when teachers and other educational stakeholders are guided by framework that captures factors that enhance and hinder it use. It is against this background that this study seeks to design a framework for training teachers in the uptake of mobile learning in classrooms in Sub-Sahara Africa. The interactions among the factors considered suggest that Personal and Societal beliefs, Ownership of devices, Cost of devices and Type of devices contribute significantly to the teachers' technology self-efficacy, mobile phone self-efficacy and readiness to use mobile learning for instruction. Training on pedagogy could also enhance uptake, likewise, technical, and instructional support need to be considered in content development, delivery and evaluation. Feedback constitutes an important variable throughout the process leading up to uptake. Therefore, these factors need to be properly considered in the uptake of mobile learning in classrooms in sub-Sahara Africa. This would engender seamless integration of mobile learning in instructional delivery at different levels of education.
Abstract Various technologies are often quoted in the literature on education transformation in the 21 Century (i.e. twitter, facebook, blogs, social networking and iPhones), to name just a few. The focus of this paper is on the use of mobile phone technology at the secondary school level. There is research evidence to justify that this form of technology has gained use in developing countries (UNESCO, 2012). This study adopted a qualitative review of literature method in assessing the capabilities of mobile phone technologies as used in schools. The paper explores the use of mobile phone technology so as to adopt and adapt their integration in the Botswana secondary education context. The purpose of the study was to investigate how mobile phone technology could enhance teaching and learning, and also how developed countries have adopted the use of this contemporary technology in their secondary school systems. The findings of this paper show a variety of effective ways of using mobile phone technology in the classroom environments. The assertion in this paper is that mobile phone learning technologies can be enhanced through stakeholder development, visionary leadership, robust technology capacity and policy changes. The paper also proposes an Activity Theory Framework that is specific to mobile phone technology integration in settings where teaching and learning are purposive and controlled, such as school settings.
THE USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY DEVICES IN BOTSWANA SECONDARY SCHOOLS TO ENHANCE TEACHING AND LEARNING
Traditionally learning was transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the learner, but today, it is a two-way process where both the teacher and the learner are involved. Mobile technology devices have taken the world by storm. Many people own a mobile technology device, and these devices are now also used in teaching and learning. Different learning methodologies have been used in teaching and learning; however, results have not improved as was expected. This study examines an intervention where some learners were allowed to use their smartphones in their learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether mobile technology devices (smartphones) can be used to enhance teaching and learning in secondary schools in Botswana. This study employed a mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) design. Purposive sampling was used to select the sample for the study of 75 respondents. The findings recommend that mobile technology devices (smartphones) should be allowed in classroom teaching and learning and should be incorporated into the school " s curriculum, since the results of this study showed that smartphones do to some extent enhance teaching and learning and thus improve academic performance. .
2019
Technology has become the by-word in education, in fact, it has permeated all facets of life to the extent that ignoring it in the classroom may result in products that are not fit for the global village. Most countries in Africa and globally, acknowledge that they cannot provide a 1:1 learner computer ratio. However, learners in the same locality especially in the urban and peri-urban own smart phones which are powerful hand-held computers. This research set out to find out what other countries in Africa and elsewhere have done so far in terms of integrating pedagogy with technology through the use of the smart phone in the classroom using content analysis method. The researcher looked at some countries in parts of Africa, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the United States of America. This corpus-based descriptive study followed a five step process of qualitative data treatment: (i) collection of related data (ii) organization of data (iii) data coding (iv) identifying themes (vi) interp...
THE UTILIZATION OF MOBILE DEVICES FOR TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMME IN NIGERIA
There has been a radical shift in pedagogy courtesy of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’S). The living style and skills acquisition of students in manipulation of ICT gadgets is worthy of investigation and recommendation into educational system. Common factors in implementing any choice of ICT facilities rely on increased speed, efficiency, effectiveness and appeal to learning while questions hinge on the extent to which the ICT option improves learning outcome, improve access, increases “share ability” and backups processes. The move towards mobile learning is carefully considered and this paper seeks to determine the use of mobile devices in teacher education programme in Nigeria, using survey research design. The population consists of students of colleges of education in Nigeria. The sample consists of four hundred and eighty (480) second year students of Nigeria Certificate in Education program and stratified random sampling techniques is used to select a college from each of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.