Let us think together: 
• Do you imagine that
the future of education has
become in your hand?
We touch here one of the
educational issues that are significant
and are in the need to integrate advanced technologies
in communications, and make it useful in educational process,
and how to take advantage of what
we carry in our
hands of cellphones to renew focus on improving the decades-long stagnation in
classical education by employing
technologies in teaching and
learning processes, rather than the disadvantages
that mar the use,
or limiting use to send and receive particular phone calls.
During this century, the
development of the concept of e-learning
tools and characterized using the Internet, and
looming on the near horizon the potential of investment of public wireless communications
technologies in education
systems by cell phones.
The tremendous accelerated
growth in the technology of mobile devices
and wireless technology, and increasing popularity of cell phones,
all this helps to discover new methods of accessibility to these
important opportunities in education.
E-learning based on this principle:
education anywhere and at any time. This
is what finally realized with the
emergence of learning by cell phones.
1 - What are the reasons and justifications about the need to use a cell phone in
education?
2 - What are the benefits of education by cell phone to the parties of the
educational process?
3 - What services provided by cell phones, which they can accomplish many of the educational tasks?
4 - What are challenges or difficulties could be faced by using cell phones in education?
Technological devices have become at the moment tools which
could hardly depart users on the
day or night, and the number of users have increased greatly, especially now cell phone devices
are cheap. Many studies have shown that the cell phone is more technological
devices use in our hands, and the most important three things we carry are: keys,
wallet and cell phone. After more than 20 years of emergence of
cell phones, number of users exceeded more
than half of the world.
Perhaps that is what was
called Robert Conway, head
of the Association of GSM to say that in our
contemporary world has become impossible to dispense using mobile phone, and with the launch of the
4G mobile phones in 2010 with speed that up
to 100 megabits per
second.
Cell phone user can do so much; it enables him to install cameras anywhere and follow-up and
controls it through the cell
phone, and provides a permanent
connection to the Internet. In
addition to the services broadcast
live satellite TV, efficient and high quality, and conduct calls( video
and audio), and data transfer with
video at high speeds, also
includes service as (video
audio) on demand, this service allows user to view multimedia
files on demand at any time. Many
services that are can be used to provide benefits to all parties in the educational process. This makes
us believe that it is possible
to take advantage of cell phones in the process of teaching and learning.
Mobile education, is on the whole a
true translation of the philosophy of distance education which is based on expanding educational opportunities for
individuals, and lower cost compared with
traditional education, and not restricted by time or
place or a category of learners, and it is
not limited to level or a certain type
of education, learner get learn according to his ability and speed of learning, based on his expertise and skills. Success of mobile
education is in providing educational
service fit with the applicants for such service, and it increases the consolidation of the
concept of individual or
self-education which contributes
in translating the concept of democratic education.
Limited opportunities of learning
which currently available or in future of large sectors of society in rural and remote areas, resulting from the
unbalanced geographical distribution of higher education
institutions, or to certain categories of nontraditional
students, such as employees,
businessmen, housewives and others who
wish to broaden their knowledge and culture and develop their professional skills and get appropriate university degree, but they cannot attend regularly
to the campus. All these reasons make mobile education
the best solution for them. It can also contribute to overcoming the
problems caused by lack of financial resources, especially with
high cost of this type of education, and the lack of alternative sources at the present time to meet future needs.
The lecturers do not
receive salaries but are paid for every lecture
in most cases, in addition mobile education does not need
huge budgets to create large buildings and classrooms, which
usually requires the allocation of funds
for management and maintenance,
especially in lower prices and the prices of related services can also be contribute to overcoming the
problem of poverty in the university library of modern books and
periodicals. Students through
participation in the Internet phone service can access databases on
the network and communication resources
of information, which allows the student
and researcher an exceptional
opportunity to get millions
of various titles, books and recent studies through his
cell phone.
The features of mobile education:
Is all the time and
everywhere, and allows the learner to communicate rapidly with the information network, it is characterized
by easily exchange messages
between the learners, and the
cost is relatively low, small
size makes it easy to portable
and its high speed.
Mobile Education requirements:
1 - Availability of necessary
infrastructure.
2 - Conversion to a
formula that suitable for mobile
education.
3 - Providing financial support and
appropriate budgets.
4 - Create records for students which contain the necessary information to identify the device and the network that will serve them.
5 - Laying the foundations of trade and financial dealings with the company
that operates the network.
The majority of these studies indicated that
most mobile devices are useful in teaching and learning by facilitating
the tasks of teachers, also learning for
students has been such interest in the following:
1 - Broadcast lectures and discussions directly to students regardless
of their location.
2 - Students can receive ads
or urgent administrative decisions and all
information which related to their study.
3 - Enables teachers to review assignments
and home works of students,
and students can find out
teachers evaluation.
4 - helps students and researchers to establish whether a small library of books and lessons, as well as reviews and commentaries, and video clips of a
particular area.
5 - Using these
techniques ensure greater participation of students in education via
mobile devices which they use in their daily lives, and easier to putting a lot of mobile devices in the classroom instead
of a desktop PC that require a large area.
6 - implementation of processes and tasks in a
group/s(partnerships), so that many
of the students and the teacher pass the device between them or use wireless network such
as Bluetooth and so teachers can use it to distribute
work to students easily and naturally.
7 - The renewal
in the traditional method of
teaching in particular, this will raise the motivation among the students.
Mobile phones can do multi-task learning
services:
Technical problems and solutions
The following table shows some problems
and solutions could be objected
that in mobile education
|
Proposed solutions
|
Problem
|
|
1) Using of projector technology, which began to spread with most mobile devices to display this information in the air
2)
Using of wireless technologies
for the transfer of multimedia files
to a computer or television sets.
|
Small size of
the monitors
|
|
Virtual Keyboard
|
Small size keyboards
|
|
Use memory cards of up to
4GHz
|
Small memory capacity
|
|
Using modern technologies of charging, such as methanol fuel cell from Toshiba that allows the duration of the work is equal to 60 times the duration of the lithium ion batteries is well known. They are not rechargeable, but can be easily replaced.
|
The necessity of frequented charging
|
|
Ggeneral operating system for mobile devices such as Motion experience Interface (MXI)
from RADIX Company
|
Cannot invest the same
personal computer software on
mobile devices
|
|
Using the third and fourth generation of wireless communications
|
There are
still difficulties in transferring
video files over cellular networks
|
|
Solution to
this problem is coming naturally with by the gradual increase
in the number of users of mobile devices, and this will drive the emergence of new companies and competition between them for the
consumer.
|
Prices remain high so segments of people are not affordable.
|
The future of mobile education:
E-learning was a long application idea, but it took his place
in the education sector. Therefore, mobile education will take its place as a
natural role in the education sector, to open the prospects of education for
large segments of society. Therefore, mobile is the future of university.
