Abstract:

Smartphones have become the most spread media in the world, transforming into a massive multifunctional product.

Due to its wide circulation and relevance in nowadays society, the possibility of including this device actively in education makes it a high motivating factor in students who suffer from attention deficit and absence of motivation in lecture rooms.

By using this tool arises the opportunity to make the learning experience more dynamic, flexible, useful and adapted to the new university education era marked by Bolonia process.

The progress that employing this technology may suppose in pedagogy, whether inside or outside lecture rooms, as a part of distance learning, face-to-face or as a supporting tool which captivates students, would be essential in Spanish education where the school dropout rate is high.

Taking into account the quick development in Smartphones technology, its importance and utility, we contemplate the possibility of making the learning process more dynamic, funnier, useful and adapted to these new generations. However, faculty does not know the educative potential of Smartphones, considering them as distractive pieces in lecture rooms. The presence of Smartphones in lecture rooms has divided the teaching community: those who demand its prohibition and other ones who begin to see it as a pedagogy tool. In this way, the teacher must be the one who guides students in their learning process with the m-learning because these are no aware of using the Smartphones with educative purposes, something that must be changed by faculty, parents and educative institutions.

Spanish college students are characterised by living with their parents (70%); most of them do not work; they consider family as the main source of incomes to pay for college, they study less hours than students from other european countries and they attend more lecture hours, valuing the practical formation in spanish colleges with 5.4 points over 10, believing that university does not prepare properly for career and not being in agreement with the three cycles system: degree, master and doctorate. Keeping in mind that this displeased population usually employs Internet resources in order to search for study materials, it is indispensable to use m-learning so as to improve their vision of university.

In this communication it is exposed an analysis about contacts, ways of employing and how often students of social sciences degree in the University of Almeria (Social Work, Law, Public Administration, Economics and Business Administration) use Smartphones.
The main objective is to analyse the inclination of students to use this technology in their education, as well as the potential of this tool to face attention deficit and discouragement. Also, it will ease the learning process to teachers, providing them with new opportunities and strategies, becoming a support tool for them.

The central aspects of this work are:
1. Type of Smartphone that is available.
2. Methods of communication employed, use of Internet in Smartphones, comparisons between computers and Smartphones, most used ways of accessing social networks.
3. Usage of Smartphones in pedagogy and learning process.
4. Frequency of use and dependency on Smartphones.

According to the results it is recommended the development of new educative strategies that uses Smartphones as a support tool to ease the learning process of college students and integrate knowledge in their quotidian life.

Keywords:

Smartphones, e-learning, Virtual Learning Environments (VLE).