The combination of digitization, mobile penetration and mobile apps is about to profoundly impact the delivery of education.
The small screen size of mobile phones may not be amenable for sustained learning, but it is emerging as a significant support tool.
Tavess believes this technology combination can make teaching and learning more engaging, and enable communications anytime and anywhere, asynchronously or in real-time.
Convergence has unleashed new opportunities for learning and collaborative interaction. It empowers students and instructors to be creative and enhances students’ interactivity and engagement not only in-classroom but also beyond.
With seamless connectivity among students and teachers, classroom discussions become on-going conversations, sometimes for months, where discussions are carried on social networking platforms.
Lessons are being augmented with images, audio and even video and can travel across time to bring more life to teaching and learning.
Another facet of Mobile apps for education is social and informal learning, where students can easily tweet questions and answers, conveniently take down notes and share online instantly. This ability brings a whole different dimension and paradigm to learning, and that the opportunities are virtually endless today for facilitating ubiquitous teaching and learning.
Apple alone offers more than 350,000 free course lectures, videos, readings and podcasts from universities and institutions worldwide. The “anytime-access” to a vast storehouse of knowledge right at the fingertips can enrich learning tremendously.