Technology has become an significant thing in almost everyone’s lives. It has been added into the educational procedures over and over again throughout the years and has granted better implements to help learning. One implement is the Internet. Keeping up with technologies, schoolsare now incorporating mobile learning into both their regular and distance classes. Many schools are creating mobile apps to assign students to partake in their classwork in and out of the classroom (Olavsrud, 2011). Today people are always on their phones, either emailing on their phones or shop on their phones. At most jobs, it would be troublesome to work without a mobile device.
One might ask why not access and use all that mobile technology has to propose. Kukulska-Hulme and Traxler (as cited in Zawacki-Richter, Brown, & Delport, 2009) state that mobile devices can “open up new opportunities for independent investigations, practical fieldwork, professional updating, and on the-spot access to knowledge. They can also supply the mechanism for improved individual learner maintain and guidance, and for more efficient progress administration and management’ (para. 14). Mobile applications can be used on school grounds maps and GPS location to help students navigate across school grounds maps as well as access school directories and event schedules.
Students can investigate schools libraries and other things, find reference enlightenment, practice required skills, submit assignments, and access grades (Engebretson, 2010). School groups can use apps to send magnitude messages. “Professors are able to utilize apps to send attendance reports, send automatic emails to absent students, and have class or group discussion forums” (Engebretson, 2010, para. 3). General educational applications various creator can be downloaded by students and can be very useful. Apps in English, Math, Science, History and Geography, Art, Music, and originality (Apple, 2012).
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As with any improvement to a system, there are difficulties and obstacles to overcome. Within learning institutions, having apps that are usable on a variety of systems is also an obstacle (Olavsrud, 2011). Students and educators are using varying devices and systems, and apps need to be able to work efficiently across all these systems. Long writing assignments are also difficult to accomplish through an app on a phone or tablet. Although shorter discussion forums work well, most would agree that essays and any kind of creative design are too complex to work out on a mobile device.
Quillen (2011) also explains that there are not many apps out there that have “content designed to fit the face-to face classroom” (p. 16). Most apps designed to run on handheld devices do not let teachers monitor student progress or save student data. As an educator, I want to use anything that will benefit my students. Looking at the overwhelming advantages of mobile apps and their potential use within academia, I believe they will become an important asset to education. I would like for my GED students to be able to use mobile apps to help them succeed in their test preparation.
There are not any adult basic education apps, but there are some apps for basic subjects that could be integrated into our curriculum. My students might work harder and more often if they could pull out their mobile devices while waiting in the doctor’s office or in the car line and work on skills they need to build in order to pass the GED exam. Mobile apps can convert how students learn. As Mike Pennington says (as cited in Walker, 2012), “Schools need to embrace mobile technology and mobile learning.
Students live in this world. These devices belong in the classroom” (para.3). Whether it is allowing college students to reserve funds by not having to purchase expensive $100 scientific calculators or letting GED students practice basic algebra, apps can be learning resources. It is predicted that in the next five years, smartphones or tablets will be in the hands of every student in the United States (Walker, 2012). Because of this, using mobile apps in education seems to be inevitable.
