Abstract:

In the last years there is an explosive growth of smartphone availability [1]. Some educational authorities drew attention to the disturbance it creates to the learning process [2]. Previous reports described also positive contribution of this wave on high school and higher education learning (e.g. [3]). In this work we show how smartphones can contribute to enhance the communication between teacher and learners. We studied how mobile and internet based student response system [4], improves the learning process.

We used the free software internet and mobile application Socrative©. This application enables creating a set of questions that can be deployed during the class. The students can respond using either their own laptops or their mobile phones or tablets (iOS and Android). The authors used this application in four different courses in three different academic colleges. The courses taught were exact sciences related (mathematics and physics). Every week at the beginning of the class the students were instructed to answer a quiz composed of three to five review questions. The quiz took about five minutes. The quizzes were evaluated on-line for correctness, however, they were neither mandatory nor taken into account in the final course grade evaluation. At some points the students were also asked to evaluate the contribution of this tool to their own learning process.
All the students in each course were able to participate in the weekly assessment using their mobile phone. No special hardware was needed or used. The percent of the students' participation in answering the questions was between 70% and 100%.

We collected data from the students about their experience. We found that introducing this tool increased participation and encouraged continuous learning. It also enabled a better feedback to the teacher about the class level. The full results of various parameters of the study will be reported in the presentation.

References:
[1] Smith A. Smartphone ownership - 2013 update. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project; 2013. Jun 5, [2013-11-27] http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/PIP_Smartphone_adoption_2013.pdf,
[2] Tindell D. R. & Bohlander R. W. (2012), The Use and Abuse of Cell Phones and Text Messaging in the Classroom: A Survey of College Students, College Teaching Volume 60, Issue 1.
[3] Ben-Av R.& Barchilon Ben-Av M. (2013), Physics Laboratory in Your Pocket, 5th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (EDULEARN13), Barcelona, Spain.
[4] April R. Trees & Michele H. Jackson 2007 The learning environment in clicker classrooms: student processes of learning and involvement in large university‐level courses using student response systems from Learning, Media and Technology Volume 32, Issue 1, 2007

Keywords:

Smartphone, student response systems, internet, college.