GADGETS AND EDUCATION

The usage of Internet enabled mobile phones is a 21st century experience which covers various operations. This research work examines phone usage and identified the effects internet enabled mobile phones have on the academic performance of students at the tertiary institutions using the Federal Polytechnic students of Ilaro, Ogun State in Nigeria as a case study.

 

 The research work was performed so as to understand and also find the correlation between academic performance of students and the usage of mobile phone during class hours which is general believed to be an avenue of distractions to students. The information from this work was carried out using structured questionnaires administered to 45 students to get their individual views. In addition 15 extensive interviews were done concurrently to have a grounded knowledge of the students with the data gathered during the course of this study.

 

 Our findings indicated that students are influenced negatively to a great extent by the mobile phone because attention is focused on chatting, music and others while their academic activities are neglected and left to suffer. Also, this study discovered that the use of mobile phone is uncontrollable among students which are the leading cause of poor academic performance among students.

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BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Mobile phones have become an almost essential part of

daily life since their rapid growth in popularity in the late

1990s. A nationwide survey conducted in 2010 shows that

mobile phones are the most necessary medium of

communication for adolescents. It has virtually affected the

society’s accessibility, security, safety and coordination of

business and social activities and has hence become a part

of culture of the whole world.

The traditional agents of socialisation are families and

schools. With the expansion of educational system as a

result of the need for highly skilled workers lead to the

school system taking increasing larger responsibilities in

socialisation

 

 [1]. Surprisingly, research on the influence of

mobile phone on our school today has not been given much

attention.

There is the conflicting priority of young people, parents

and teachers in relation to the mobile phone device, with

teachers more concerned about issues such as discipline in

the classroom and parents worried about means of

contacting their children at every point in time

 [2].

 

 

According to majority of research done so far, it was

discovered that the use of mobile phone in schools is

problematic. As Ling and Helmersen states, the mobile

phone is ―at cross purpose with the mission of the school‖.

While in school students are supposed take on their

prescribed roles as student with full concentration on their

studies and free from contact with the outside world.

However, the mobile phone gives room to blending

students’ roles with other roles thus distracting and

disrupting the students’ academic work. In the past when

fixed telephones were the norm in schools, there were

minimum distractions and disruptions but presently with

the invasion of mobile phone and the eagerness of parents

to maintain contact with their wards, the device is

becoming part of the classroom. Thus, the mobile phone

has the power to undermine the schools’ authority and

weaken their control over students as well as affects their

level of academic performances [3].

 

 

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Mobile Phone

The mobile phone was originally made for adults for

business use [4].

 

 This is extremely similar to the fixed

telephone in the early 20th century, where telephone

engineers explained that the telephone was made for the

business world and not for social conversation[5].

 

 The growth of mobile phone technology is demonstrated by the

fact that in 2002 the number of mobile phone users

worldwide, surpassed those of fixed-phone users [2]. It has

been predicted that by the end of 2005, the number of

mobile phone subscribers worldwide will reach 2 billion

(Deloitte Research, 2005) and in Australia will reach 19.2

million

 [6].

According to Rich Ling 

[7],                                                                                     

 

  the mobile phone has

fundamentally affected our society, accessibility, safety, and

security, co-ordination of social and business activities. It

has become the part of culture of every region in the world.

The craze of mobile phone started after 1980’s, but it has

now touched the level of esteem. First, it was just for a

status symbol but now it has become a dire need of the day

and is in the reach of everyone.

B. Mobile Phone and its Emergence in Nigeria

Mobile space handsets were not designed with the

consumers’ usage in mind at the beginning. As at that time

it was quite expensive to own handset as individual and the

performance of the device was not all that impressive. Back

then, mobile phones were designed for the rich and

businessmen and not for average people. This was so up to

the 1990s even with Nokia and NEC entering the fray.

Nokia’s first handheld mobile phone, the Mobira Cityman

900, launched in 1989 and weighed just 800g which was a

huge improvement over 1982’s 9.8kg Mobira Senator

model[8].

 

 

When mobile phones were launched in the year 2001,

Nigerians were liberated from the bondage and epileptic

national telecoms monopoly NITEL. Nigerians jubilated

and were highly relieved when Econet (now Airtel) and

MTN Nigeria launched their mobile Phones and mobile

services in 2001. Mobile Phones have not only contributed

immeasurably and positively in enhancing economic

activities of the nation but have also improved the quality

of living of an average Nigerian. Citizens now benefit from

services such point on sale payment electronic payment

(POS), internet banking, mobile banking, mobile TV,

inexpensive internet services, mobile tracking services and

affordable international call.

One of the added advantages of mobile phones is that it

has made internet more accessible and affordable than ever

before, thus giving people a voice on the internet. Lots of

Nigerians now access the internet through their mobile

Phones or mobile Phones enabled device.

Nigerians have also joined the rest of the world on

Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Gmail, and Google with quite a

huge number of them visiting the sites daily all thanks to

mobile Phones. Nigerians are so active in these sites that

some of them are considering their sites for Nigeria, all

which would not have been possible without affordable

internet services offered by mobile Phones operators. The

mobile Phones have empowered thousands of Nigerians

through the internet to make money. A large number of

Nigerians make honest living on the internet as web

publishers, bloggers, apps developers, internet security

consultants, social media consultants, and online marketing

consultants.

Having more people accessing the internet now creates

the possibilities of businesses going online, hence creating

more opportunities for web developers, application

developers, graphics designers, and consultants. Shops are

not left out in utilizing the opportunity offered by the

internet.

C. Uses of Mobile Phone

The usefulness of cell phones are numerous and this

includes keeping contact with friends, members of the

family, conducting business and others. Many people

possess more than one mobile phone for different purposes,

which could be for business purpose or personal purpose. A

number of people are also taking the advantage of multiple

SIM cards for benefit of different calling plans since a

calling plan might provide cheaper local calls, long-

distance calls, international calls, or roaming. The

following are other benefits;

Distributing content: Mobile phone is also used in this

regard. In 1998, an example of distributing and selling

media content through the mobile phone was the sale of

ringtones by Radiolinja in Finland. Later, other media

content emerged which includes news, video games, jokes,

horoscopes, TV content and advertising. In 2006, the total

value of mobile-phone-paid media content exceeded

Internet-paid media content and was worth 31 billion

dollars. The value of music on phones was worth 9.3

billion dollars in 2007 and gaming was worth over 5 billion

dollars in 2007.

Mobile banking and payment: the advantage of mobile

phones is taken in many countries to provide mobile

banking services, such as ability to transfer cash payments

through safe SMS text message. This service also allows

customers to hold cash balances recorded on the SIM cards,

deposits or withdraws cash. Some countries also use mobile

phone banking for loan disbursement and repayment [10].

 

A couple of cell phone can operate mobile payments

through direct mobile billing schemes [11].

 

 This requires

the co-operation of manufacturers, network operators and

retail merchants to enable contactless payments [12].

 

Tracking and privacy: cell phones are also often used to

gather location data. As long as the phone is switched on,

the geographical location of a mobile phone can be

determined easily, with the help of a technique known as

multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a

signal to move from the cell phone to each of several cell

towers near the owner of the phone [13].  

 

The movements of a mobile phone user can be tracked by their service

provider and, if desired, by law enforcement agencies and

their government. Both the SIM card and the handset can

be tracked [14].

 

 

China has proposed using this technology to track

commuting patterns of Beijing city residents. In the UK

and US, law enforcement and intelligence services use

mobiles to perform surveillance. They possess technology

to activate the microphones in cell phones remotely in

order to listen to conversations that take place near the

phone [15]. 

 

D. Impact of Mobile Phone on Education

The aim of this research is to assess the impact of mobile

phones in learning as they enhance students’ learning in

different ways. Mobile phones easily promote collaborative

and different types of learning through their wireless

connection to the internet. Their adoption in learning

processes by the higher institution management as student-

learning and communication device tools is useful. In the

classroom mobile phones motivate students to be more

engaged to the lesson promoting learner-centered

participation. This indicates the dynamic support that the

mobile phone has brought to students’ learning practice.

According to Barker, Krull, and Mallinson [16],

  the

impacts of mobile phone technologies on learning are

portability, collaboration and motivation enhancing

students, parents and teachers’ education system. The

mobile phone portability enables student learning to be

ubiquitous in obtaining or retrieving course information

through their mobile phones as they are carried from class

to class or wherever. Their portability can improve a wide

variety of learning settings, namely a field trip, the

classroom, or outside the campus [16].  

 

Collaboration Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter accessed on

students’ mobile phones allow students to form groups to

distribute and add together their knowledge, and share

information with ease, and this could result in a more

successful collaborative learning.

The use of mobile phones results in increasing parents’

involvement in education, and thus their children’s learning

and capabilities [16].

  

Motivation where mobile phones are

incorporated in a large classroom, students appear to be

more engaged in learning processes. Mobile phones in

education increase students’ will to learn. They take the

initiative in using the device as a learning tool. Teachers

report that the use of mobile phones in learning increases

group participation in activities done during learning in

class [16].

E. Mobile phone Technologies available for Mobile

learning

According to Eteokleous and Ktoridou [17],

  

the benefits

of mobile phones integration into student learning on

campus are useful with the mobile phone capabilities that

are easily supporting learning.

Which are: SMSs (text messaging): Short Message

Services allow users to send/receive messages of up to 160

characters between mobile phones. MMSs: Multimedia

Messaging Service serves the same purpose as SMSs, but it

allows the inclusion of graphics. GPRS (General Packet

Radio Service): This mobile data service is available to

users of specific phone types; it can be used for WAP

service, SMS, MMS, email, and access to the World-Wide

Web. Wireless access points WAPs: There are two types

of wireless standards: Wireless Fidelity: (Wi-Fi) and WAP

(Wireless Application Protocol). They are primarily for

internet access on mobile phones.

Bluetooth: A short-range wireless communication

between PCs, PDAs, mobile phones, camera phones,

printers and digital cameras, and lots more. Bluetooth uses

Radio Frequency (RF) for communication between

multiple devices within a 30-foot range. It uses a globally

available frequency band (2.4GHz) for worldwide

compatibility. 3G and 4G phones: 3G technologies enable

network operators to offer users services: wireless voice

telephony, video calls, broadband wireless data with data

transmission capabilities enabling speeds up to 14.4 Mbit/s

on the download and 5.8 Mbit/s on the upload. The 4G

mobile phones provide up to 100 megabits per second

transmission adequate for multimedia operations [16].

F. Possibilities in Mobile Learning

It is known that mobile technologies have changed life

preparedness; today using a GPS (Global Positioning

System) means you will never get lost again. The mobile

phone technology connectedness is continuing to swing

across different landscapes. Soon the importance of

deploying mobile technologies in both learning and

teaching will be obvious and unavoidable. A few decades

ago graphic calculators were a revolutionary addition in the

classroom environment, but are now often used for

statistics and business classes. Using portable devices in

educational cycles is not a new practice.

This paradigm will come up with new practices, tools,

applications, resources and designing strategies to

understand the situations of ubiquitous, pervasive, personal

and connected learning. This connection could be in a

formal education experience, or an informal education

experience for situated learning. There is no disconnection

when using mobile technologies. Mobile technology

devices allow the user to have relationships with

information in their own ways; learners are uniquely served

by mobile learning. This makes the learning experience

more memorable relating new information to the old

information already known.