Abstract:

Mobile learning has been wide spread in some field which mainly concerns with technology for the last decade. And its popularity is increasing day by day. It is still, however, an emerging area for the fields in which educational technology less implemented. For those to develop better understanding about mobile learning, it is crucial to be aware of what it means and what can be done in mobile learning in educational context. The importance of the research is to guide to those who are new in mobile learning and improve themselves for better mobile learning experiences. With this in mind, it is important to understand corresponding literature to mobile learning as well as views of experts in the area. Thus, this study aims to describe mobile learning field in a more basic concept with the views of academics and graduate students, who work in the departments of Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) of the universities in Turkey. Qualitative research was employed in order to understand the views of the academics and the graduate students. As sampling method, criterion and maximum variation were used to gather the participants of the study. Main criteria for the participants were determined as to have research interests and published paper about mobile learning. Participants - who were volunteer and accepted to be interviewed - were determined in every level of academic title such as Prof., Assoc. Prof. Assist. Prof., Research Assist., PhD student to ensure maximum variation. Thus, the study group was consisted of 6 academics and 3 graduate students in the departments of CEIT. Data were collected with semi-structured interview form and interviews were tape-recorded. In order to analyze the data, the records transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis method with the help of a computer software program (NVivo® 9). To ensure the validity, data were analyzed by two researchers separately, and codes and themes were discussed together. Results indicated that according to the views of the participants, mobile learning has two dimensions, “theoretical awareness of mobile learning” and “awareness of mobile learning implementations.” Moreover, participants uttered mobile learning definition, pros and cons, mobile devices, mobile connection technologies, mobile contents, mobile content delivery types corresponding to theoretical awareness. On the other hand, they expressed their thoughts regarding to what implementation fields of mobile learning are and how to implement it in educational context in the dimension of awareness of mobile learning implementations.

Keywords:

Mobile learning, awareness of mobile learning, views of academics and graduate students.