USING MOBILE DEVICES IN HIGHER EDUCATION - EXAMPLES AND TECHNICAL CHALLENGES

Recently, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets became more and more widespread. Especially, most students are owner of such a device. As a consequence, the use of these devices in lectures is a logical step to shape modern learning environments.

In this contribution, we describe different scenarios where and how to use mobile devices, e.g.:
- Use as front end component for LMS (Learning Management Systems) to reach time- and location-independence
- Use during the lecture as a notepad to write down annotations to the lecture’s slides
- Use within a lecture by applicating clicker systems to get feedback from the students and starting discussions

We describe each scenario, state the advantages but also mention the limits and possible drawbacks.

After covering the examples we derive consequences for the technical infrastructure and the development of tools. For example, we discuss the support of different platforms and face the problem of supporting devices of different size and with different features.

Moreover, we show ways for lecturers to redesign their courses by considering the use of mobile devices. Here we follow a balanced approach of reusing and enhancing of existing material on the one hand and constructing new components one the other hand.

The paper concludes with a summary and an outlook to future tasks.