The Effectiveness of Implementing a Mobile Learning Solution in a Nationwide School Education Environment
Golnoush (Lia) Haddadian
Introduction
The influence of the internet on communication and information across the world cannot be disregarded (Banica, Burtescu , & Enescu, 2017). According to Dağtaş and Yıldırım (2015), the internet is an environment that influences people’s communication style. In this respect, Kolan (2021) emphasizes the widespread use of the internet, specifically via mobile devices claiming that with the widespread use of smartphones, applications provided by the internet such as instant communication, messaging, and entertainment have become a popular phenomenon. Scholars in the field employ new technologies as well as new educational strategies, methods, and applications in order to teach more effectively (Yalcinalp &Avci , 2019). Due to the evolution of technology, instructors seek to create learning environments for developing practical skills and simulating real work experiences. In this area, many researchers have highlighted the importance of exploring technology in teaching and learning (Mishra, Henriksen & Mehta, 2015; Yalcinalp & Avci Yucel, 2019).
Recently, mobile devices have been used worldwide, thanks to technology, and they have been considered as a powerful tool for pedagogical purposes (Gan & Balakrishnan, 2017). These little devices are not only used for having effective communication among people, but also they could be of great help for achieving educational purposes. Sattarov and Khaitova (2019) state that the effects of wireless technology and the development of mobile applications in education are impressive. In the past two years, though, the role of mobiles has been by far more highlighted because of pandemics and COVID-19. Schools and universities all around the world were greatly influenced by the virus, and this made them think more seriously about the use of technology in education. In their list, one of the most prominent tools was mobiles and mobile learning because of the advantages such small devices offered. Thus, for many educators using mobile technology in education became one of the most critical areas of research and application. According to Horton (2011), mobile training has modified the learning process; it has also altered the presentation of learning materials and the way of their access.
Traxler (2007) defines mobile learning as an educational service, which is the only predominant technical means and a portable or handheld device. Titova (2012) points out various purposes of using mobile and technology in the learning process. He states mobiles can be connected to the information system of the educational organization. They are also used for convenient implementation of joint work and projects and also group lessons. They can also be used for non-formal learning as multimedia devices – video and audio shooting, communication tools. Moreover, they can be used as a means of communication and interaction due to the remoteness of the student or teacher, and they can be used to organize, control, and administer the learning process.
Due to its importance, the present research has been conducted to see the effectiveness of using mobile learning in the school education context during the Covid-19 pandemic. In better terms, it tries to understand if a mobile solution implementation in a country like Iran has been successful or not. The discussion, in what follows, starts with the context in which this solution has been implemented and then continues by describing the solution, methodology, and the results of the interviews conducted.
Overview of the Case
Upon the appearance of COVID-19 in Iran, the education system at both the university and school levels was significantly negatively affected. At the university level, because many universities in the country had previously implemented online courses as an indispensable part of their academic program, the fundamental grounds for online education were available. However, unfortunately, the case was quite different regarding schools. The biggest nationwide challenge of the Ministry of Education had appeared. The Coronavirus crisis disrupted all school educational programs.
Throughout the country’s history, even in pervasive crises such as the revolution and war, the Ministry of Education had not suspended its educational activities so extensively and significantly. During the country’s revolution, classes were temporarily closed for only some weeks and only in some major cities, not the others. More substantially, during the eight years of war, the educational crisis was only limited to war-torn regions and provinces, not throughout the whole country. However, the Coronavirus crisis had an unprecedented effect because not only did it spread throughout the entire country, moving beyond the geographical limits, but also this virus did not let anybody take part in face-to-face classes because of the spread of the virus. Before Covid-19, school education was primarily based on face-to-face communication, and no one could see any significant trace of using technology in education at this level. Because of this lack of infrastructure, together with filtered websites and blocked cloud-based instant messaging applications like Telegram, WeChat, and Viber (because of government policy and restrictions), education in schools had to be inevitably continued from television networks for a while. However, a final decision was made to change and provide a proper solution to Covid-19’s restrictive situation. That solution was mobile learning.
Solutions Implemented
After several months of using television as a dependable source of learning, the Ministry of Education concluded that teaching could not be done productively via television programs covering all degrees and classes. Thus, multiple decisions were made to use other alternative ways to compensate for school closures, but the last and perhaps the most practical way was to design programs for mobile phones to keep the educational communication between teachers and students going. At the beginning of production, this mobile solution had many concerns about network security and its technological infrastructure, which delayed the implementation of this educational, mobile solution. However, the necessity of creating a virtual safe space under serious and rigid supervision of the Ministry of Education finally resulted in the implementation of the “Shad” application, which was specific to the discussion of education, available to teachers, parents, and students all over the country (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Main page in Shad Application
Shad application is a system designed and implemented by the Ministry of Education to organize virtual and remote classes in Iran. After its initial development, the Ministry of Education urged students, teachers, and administrators to act as quickly as possible to install this application. Using this system, students can learn the lesson virtually and regularly. In preschool classes, the training duration was between 45 to 60 minutes per day. The first and second grade’s training was 75 to 90 minutes, divided into four periods of 15 to 20 minutes. The third and fourth grades had 100 to 120-minute training that was performed in four periods with a duration between 20 to 25 minutes. The 5th and 6th grades had 120 to150 minutes classes divided into four periods of 25 to 30 minutes. All the levels have a rest time of 5 to10 minutes. In order to help schools perform more effectively, some educational, as well as troubleshooting videos, were provided by the Ministry of Education to all the schools so that they could better benefit from this application in those particular conditions. There is a list of major components that have made this application acceptable as a proper solution. Text messaging features, groups, channels, checking attendance are among the prominent features of this application. First of all, it is designed to be used by parents, teachers, and students (figure 2). Each role has his/her own individual portal. Registration is done by the government ID information.
Figure 2. Login Page in Shad Application
Translation: Please choose your role to log in
One-way synchronous class and live class broadcasting, or two-way synchronous class, are the other features of this application (figure 3).
Figure 3. One Way and Two-Way Communication in Shad
In-app voice calls, which use free internet calling, have made this application attractive since teachers can have communication with their students, have oral exams, and hold question and answer sessions. Students can also enjoy this feature because they can call their teacher and ask questions (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Two Way Voice and Video Calls in Shad
The capabilities of this application do not finish here. There is also a list of other features, which is briefly listed below:
- Student Portfolio System
- Assignment and Feedback Portal
- Question and Answer Forum
- Classroom student follow-up (Figure 5)
- “Shadino” Virtual Student Society
- “Shadnama” Internet TV, a TV channel specific to Education; accessible through Shad application
- “Shad Test Maker System”, to provide a comprehensive test design feature for both subjective and objective tests
- “Shad Ticketing System”, for troubleshooting regarding application failures or other possible problems
Figure 5. Classroom student follow-up plans in Shad
With the establishment of Shad, distance education for the country’s students entered a new phase with its own challenges. All teachers and students at different schools must use this mobile application to teach and learn. About 17 million students and teachers across the country installed Shad, and 10 million are active in the system, according to the administrators of the country’s Education Organization.
Aim of the study
Although mobile education is in its early stages in this country, it has attracted a lot of attention and has the potential to be replaced by traditional approaches of teaching and learning in some fields. However, it has its own deficiencies and a lot of limitations when applied to this specific context. As teachers, principals, students, and even the government all have a lot of varied controversial ideas about this mobile solution, to the extent that its value has remained undecided, this mini-study put attempts toward understanding whether or not Shad’s implementation as a mobile solution to a national problem in Iran has been successful. To reach this aim, interviews will be conducted to see the perspectives of teachers, parents, and students who have worked with Shad to further investigate its efficiency and its performance improvements (if there are any). Furthermore, this study tries to investigate if shad has confronted any unpredicted failures with its user experience. This would have valuable implications and lessons for using mobile learning in this country.
Methodology
This research was qualitative in terms of methodology and was conducted using the experiences of school students, schoolteachers, and parents all around Iran. The information obtained from this study has been collected through telephone and video interviews as well as recorded voices. This was done because not all the participants for the interview were accessible in person. For its implementation, an announcement was made online on the Instagram platform to invite people. Then, a website link was provided to the interviewees asking them to read the questions and record their voice about each question. If in some conditions, there were obscurities in their answers or they were not complete, some follow-up questions were sent to them to make the task complete. In some cases, because of the interviewees’ preference to have a meeting rather than recording a voice, we conducted online video and voice call sessions asking the interview questions. All the participants were compensated (10 $ per person) for their effort to participate in this study.
After the interviews were done and the voices were all collected, the gathered information was classified and categorized based on the similarity of conceptual relationships and common characteristics. First, the answers presented by the interviewees were transcribed and parsed into smaller units for each question. Then, after reviewing the transcripts of the interviews at the sentence level, repetitive concepts were removed, and similar concepts were merged for final evaluation.
Participants
The interviewees were the participants of this study who were students, parents, and teachers. They all had prior experience with shad for at least one year. The participants were from different cities in Iran. Table 1 provides the name and frequency of participants’ locations.
Figure 6 provides the bar chart of the participants’ locations. As it is clear, most participants were from Tehran, the capital of Iran. Then, Bijar and Mahabad had the most interviewees. This information would be critical since our judgment would be highly dependent on this. The reason is that in some locations like capitals, the financial situation of people is different from those who live in smaller cities or even rural areas. This will affect the conclusion of the study.
In this population, the number of students, parents, and teachers was different. Thus, Figure 7 illustrates the bar chart of the participants’ roles. As it is vivid, the number of students who were interviewed was higher than the other two groups. Thus, the result of this study is mainly based on students’ experiences and ideas than the other two groups.
Moreover, the level at which students studied or teachers taught was different, starting from preschool students to 12th degree in high school. The dispersion of the levels is provided in Table 2. As it is vivid, the majority of the interviewees were in 10th and 9th grade of high school, respectively.
Outcomes and Discussion
The interview results for Shad application are divided into two parts. The first part describes Shad’s advantages. Then, in the second part, Shad’s challenges are elaborated and discussed.
Shad’s Advantages
As a mobile learning solution to continue learning in the pandemic, Shad can be considered a logical way to continue education. The results of interviews showed that it had provided many benefits for its users, helping them never stop learning and teaching during the pandemic. Table 3 has summarized its advantages. In this regard, most of the participants stated that Shad has been very successful because of the facilities it has provided. These facilities include fun features, channels, lives- voices- video calls, health section, family section, sports section, etc. The participants were very pleased with having sample tutoring lessons in the form of videos because they had the chance of viewing the class videos more than one time, and this would help them learn more effectively. All these features are accessible in an instant with just one click, and this has made the software a valuable mobile learning solution for the users. Some others believed that Shad was a very wise choice because students have freedom and flexibility regarding when and where to study. They can learn in whatever context they are more relaxed whenever they like throughout the day without being in the school borders. This would help them learn better. Also, this solution seems to be very successful in keeping the price of using the application very low, providing free internet for the users while using the application. Finally, Shad has been very successful in helping some introverted students express themselves more vividly.
Shad’s Challenges
The results of all interviews were first transcribed and then studied sentence by sentence. Their major ideas were extracted and written in a separate table for each group, i.e., teachers, parents, and students. Then, the sentences in each table were categorized based on some major ideas and were put together based on the similarity of the concepts. Finally, all the three groups were compared with each other. This comparison indicated that all the three groups had a number of shared ideas or, better to say, challenges. We merged those challenges and summarized them in the first part of this chapter. Then, in the next part, those ideas which were not shared among the groups are indicated and elaborated.
Shared Ideas between All Three Groups
Table 4 has summarized the shared challenges between all the three groups regarding this mobile solution. As it can be seen, with the implementation of this mobile solution in this specific context, there have been technical, mental, physical, financial, behavioral, and learning/teaching quality challenges. Technical problems can gradually be eradicated as the software is developing every day. Although participants have reported that technical problems have wasted their time significantly, the government has promised to solve its performance problems and fix its bugs. In this regard, only one issue remains unsolved, which is some teachers’ inability to use the mobile solution. This problem might happen in any other context where mobile is implemented as an educational solution. Thus, it would be better if mobile learning providers plan for some training sessions for the instructors before the actual initiation of the mobile solution.
In contrast to technical problems, mental stress and physical problems are not the ones that can be easily solved. It seems that a high level of stress is seen because of diverse reasons. First, it seems that users are being ridiculed because of their performance. In this specific context, there have been many previous instances of some student and teacher video/text messages being negatively viral and extensively ridiculed on the worldwide web. That is why it seems that it is to a great degree embarrassing and fearful for the users so, making them less confident about what they want to send.
Second, there are many students who expressed a great degree of stress because of technical problems like their inability to download class materials on time, or upload their assignments before the due date, or even be present on time. All these problems are highly dependent on the context where the mobile solution is implemented. For instance, in this context, internet speed is a major problem making many routine works impossible. Thus, when deciding to use a mobile solution, one needs to carefully consider the culture of that society and the technical limitations of the setting, in which the solution is implemented.
Third, a high level of stress has been seen in students because of not having access to mobile phones. They reported that many students had to wait until their parents came from work so that they could use their parents’ phones. This is because of financial problems families have in this context. In the previous year, an 11-year-old student killed himself because of not having a mobile phone to be present in the class (Fazeli, 2020). Reports state that this child had a great level of stress because he had promised to be present for the class, but he could not. Table 5 indicates the frequency of people who had or did not have the mobile phone before Shad’s implementation. As it can be seen, overall, around 42% of the students and teachers did not have mobile phones. The data regarding parents are also included based on whether or not their children had mobile phones.
The bar chart of people who had mobiles phones in comparison with those who did not have one is presented in what follows (Figure 8). Although the majority had mobile phones, this does not mean that the implementation has been without difficulty. This shows that the rest 42% were forced to buy mobile phones. Some families had more than one child, and this made the situation more difficult for them. In this regard, although there were some reports that schools helped the families in buying new devices, this was not true for all families and in all locations.
This interview was taken from only 50 interviewees who most of them were from the capital of Iran. However, the situation could be different if our interviewees were from locations other than the capital of Iran.
All in all, it seems that when deciding whether or not a mobile solution is the best strategy, one needs to carefully consider its financial burdens because in some geographic locations, as is the case in our study, this might be a very critical issue because some families cannot afford mobiles for the parents let alone children, and in some locations, there is no proper internet access. In this regard, stress problem is more than simple routine stress and should be seriously taken into consideration to avoid further suicides and similar tragic problems.
The next concern which might happen not only in this context but in any other setting is the users’ health problems. Thus, when designing a mobile solution, one of the most important concerns one must have is ensuring that the solution is not detrimental to the users’ health. For instance, a limited time can be assigned for the users to use the application. Otherwise, the application will be locked. Although this solution might lead to many other problems, at least one can be sure that the users’ health is not affected. The list of challenges with mobile learning in this specific context is not limited to the aforementioned ideas. There are also two other critical issues of behavioral and learning quality problems. Insights into the former may teach us many important lessons as many users may learn some new negative behaviors they have never had before.
In our case, the majority of students reported that they have learned from each other to cheat and ask for help from parents. Some parents even recall this system as the “parents are students” system. Teachers also confess that the continuation of this mobile learning tool is impossible without the help of parents. More importantly, this great dependency on parents is problematic as many students might live with their grandparents who are not literate to help or single-parent families that the parent does not have enough time to spend on class materials. These concerns should be considered very seriously because mobile learning might easily strengthen the roots of laziness in students, making them be less serious about school assignments and exams. One student further added that “we had to cheat even if we knew this is not good because if we don’t, then our friends become top students and we become the lazy ones. We must tell a lie, and we must cheat to continue with this system”. This is a very serious danger alarm for the education system in which this solution is implemented.
Parents and teachers also expressed their serious concerns about open-book exams, dependency on the internet, and note-taking problems. Most of them believed that this method is not proper for the younger learners and makes them by far “passive learners and active book scanners” as they just copy and paste what is asked from the internet or their books, and never try to take note because all the class materials are always accessible through videos. Motivation is another problem. Both teachers and parents reported that students’ motivation was high in the beginning, but it gradually decreased as Shad failed to be as effective as it was expected. This is true, especially in lower levels who do not have any shaped perspective about school. “They cannot feel the joys of going to school and friendship”, one parent adds.
The last shared concern for all the three groups regarding this mobile learning solution is the learning quality problem. Aside from lack of concentration and having no effective repetition and review of classroom materials, expressed by the majority of parents, teachers and parents complained about the lack of teacher observation in the classroom. This is to some degree due to teachers’ unfamiliarity with the system, but more importantly, it can be ascribed to the solution itself, which does not permit more classroom observation like what happens in face-to-face classrooms.
In line with this problem, no serious rules and regulations could be implemented effectively. Moreover, teachers expressed their inability to implement group work. They, together with parents, expressed their concerns about students’ social skills development. This skill would significantly be shaped in school ages through communication with other students and teachers. However, it seems that the mobile learning solution could not be successful in this regard. One student adds, “we do not know each other very well. We are not like friends. At school, we had break times, and we could be friends with each other. We could talk about our problems; we could share ideas and help each other. Here, our teacher assigns us to groups or pairs, but it is not effective. We don’t enjoy it. We just want to finish the assignment.” As a result, one can conclude that it is better to consider quality problems when deciding about having a mobile learning solution. In what follows, we continue our discussion by describing some concerns expressed by one or two of the groups, not the other/s.
Challenges Expressed by One or Two Groups
Apart from those ideas which were shared among all the three groups, there were some ideas that were expressed by either one or two of the groups and not all the three groups. These ideas were related to behavioral and learning/teaching problems. Tables 6 and 7 have summarized these ideas, respectively.
As it can be seen, parents have concerns about inappropriate website access. This concern was more evident in those parents whose students were at younger ages. One parent adds, “I do not know if my son is studying or playing or surfing the internet. They are not mature enough to distinguish right from wrong. I am worried that the internet teaches him wrong ideas and inappropriate behaviors. I am worried that he is guided to some inappropriate websites and Telegram channels because I, myself, had the same experience of being guided to an inapposite channel subconsciously. I try to control him to some degree, but I cannot do it every time. This makes him sensitive and angry. I don’t know what to do. But I know this is a very serious problem”. Some other families interestingly stated that when their children go to school, all the family members have order and everyday routine. But with this application as the education system, there is no routine and no order in their lives. As it can be seen, these issues should be clearly investigated before implementing any type of mobile learning solution, especially if that solution’s target is early-stage students.
Table 7 provides the learning quality problems expressed by the groups separately. As it can be seen, parents are worried about the lack of active learning as their children are not engaged with the content effectively. This might be due to parents’ engagement and cheating expressed earlier. They are worried about the fact that students just enter the class to show their attendance but are not really in the class. As one parent states, “I don’t know how this system ensures students’ active attendance. My daughter marks her attendance in the class and then sleeps with her phone and class page open. Then, her teacher thinks she is in the class learning the lesson. Is this called mobile learning? If this is mobile learning, then we hate this system.” Another parent adds, “what is this fake scoring when all the scores are gathered from cheating, the internet, and parents”. It seems that parents believe that the students are only “busy doing something” not necessarily learning something, and because they are not in the classroom environment, they lose the chance of learning from other classmates.
Teachers also state their concerns about the absence of competition between students compared with face-to-face classes. Competition is one factor that improves performance and leads to effective learning. Moreover, some teachers believe that Shad is more like a game and distraction, not a learning solution. Shad also has claimed to be an online mobile solution; however, because students are not actively learning and participating, and teachers are only posting some asynchronous videos, it seems that it should be called an offline mobile solution. Finally, Shad appears to work well on some lessons but does not work effectively with other lessons. This can be an essential factor in deciding where and on which lessons we had better implement a mobile solution.
Finally, from the students’ perspective, again, the ideas of fake participation and attendance are expressed. Students seem to be aware that they are cheating and not paying attention to the classroom lessons. They confessed, “We just wake up early in the morning, open Shad application, mark our presence, then put our mobile phones beside our face and continue sleeping”. Regarding cheating, one student stated that “all my friends cheat, but I don’t like to cheat. They get higher scores. It is not fair”. Regarding time limit and problem-solving, another student stated, “I don’t know whether others can understand class materials or not because I don’t know my friends very well, but I don’t understand, and I cannot ask because the class time is limited, and teacher should teach. I must ask frequent questions after the class, and this makes me really embarrassed. Face to face was by far better. I could ask my questions”. In the end, it seems that in higher levels, there are more problems with this system, and some lessons are not taught effectively.
Final overall evaluation of Shad
The final evaluation of Shad application is indicated in Figure 9. As it can be seen, 80% of the interviewees do not recommend Shad and this mobile solution in education. This lack of recommendation has diverse reasons. Apart from the challenges stated earlier, there are also other reasons why Shad could not be considered as a successful solution. First and foremost, Shad was not presented as an option for learning but as the only way to learn in the pandemic. Thus, the application had to be designed and implemented very quickly, and so, full of challenges and technical problems in its initial implementation. Had this application been implemented in normal situations, it could have had other results.
Moreover, it is true that this lack of recommendation is ascribed to Shad. However, it might be not Shad but the mobile learning solution that is problematic. In better terms, in Iran’s context, people’s familiarity with the internet and its use in education is not at advanced levels. Some students, for example, had even trouble working with mobile phones. They were from very deprived locations and rural areas. This means that any other system rather than Shad could also have the same outcome. The bar chart of the overall evaluation is also presented in Figure 9.
All In all, with all advantages and disadvantages, interviewees believed that Shad is considered as a valuable effort in providing a solution to a major country-wide problem. This application could be a way for teaching and learning but not necessarily the most effective way. Shad, if used with face-to-face classes, can be considered as an effective way to enhance learning, but it would not be successful as a stand-alone system. It is believed that this is better than nothing but cannot be considered as an ultimate solution. As age range is an essential issue in this regard, care should be taken when deciding about the best solution to an education problem. Many families, in many cultures, are not eager to buy mobile phones for their children from the early stages of going to school. When considering mobile learning as a solution, one should consider the target audience’s age range, culture, geographic location, and context as fundamental factors to help the decision be successful. In its current form, Shad needs a lot of improvement. If it improves, maybe it could be considered as an effective way in the future. I will finish the discussion with two quotes from students. “School is better even if it is only one day a week”; “Schooling is a big change in life – mobile is never a change.”
Conclusion and Implications
All in all, implementing a mobile learning application would be a proper solution in many educational contexts. However, it would be of paramount importance to look at different influencing components carefully before deciding to design and implement a new mobile system in an education environment. The present study tried to investigate Shad as a mobile learning application. It attempted to see whether this new solution has been successful during the pandemic situation in Iran or not.
The findings of the present study are in contrast with what Razeghi and Sabri (2016) concluded, stating that online education can be as effective as face-to-face education in students’ academic achievement, and in some cases, it can have more impact on some components like academic self-regulation. Moreover, they further added that considering the benefits of online education, this type of education could be used as an acceptable alternative. We agree that online education would be beneficial and might be a proper solution; however, the results of the current work indicated that mobile learning, as a derivative of online education, by no means can be considered as an acceptable alternative. Moreover, this research is in line with Khan’s research (2005) who believes that important factors in e-learning are educational factors, technology, design, management, resource support, human factors, and believes that online learning in small and medium organizations face many important obstacles like lack of training, technical support, inadequate technical infrastructure, lack of knowledge and skills of employees, low level of interaction, or their development and cultural problems.
As the results of the interviews in the present research indicated, although a mobile learning solution could be a valuable step toward helping students continue learning and never stop studying, this may also bring a wide array of challenges that should be investigated carefully. Otherwise, the implementation of a mobile solution would do more harm than good. In this regard, the results of the present interview taught us a number of valuable lessons. First and foremost, the solution provider’s support, which was the government in our case, has played an essential role in the success and further advancement of the mobile solution. Many major technical and performance problems were solved immediately, and Shad saw a great improvement in its performance. Having such powerful support from the solution provider organ, which could be a school or university in other cased, would greatly benefit the system, helping it boost up the quality of the education.
Second, for the success of any mobile learning solution, it is necessary to prepare instructors and users of the system earlier. The users need to know how the solution works effectively so that they can focus on the content rather than technical difficulties. This would not only be time-saving but also would definitely be a deciding factor in judging the success of a mobile solution. Third, one very critical aspect of including technology in education is the mental influences. If not properly thought and implemented, a mobile solution might become a major source of anxiety and stress for the users. In our case, although well designed, not having access to the high-speed internet and a normal mobile phone were two of the influential factors that made Shad a less favorable application.
Fourth, the setting and culture in which the mobile solution is implemented are very important. The reason is that in some contexts, many limitations might be applied that make the performance of that solution less effective. For instance, in our case, the lack of having internet access in many locations was a major problem. Not all people had mobile phones or could afford mobile phones. Moreover, not all families were eager to buy a cellphone for their children from a very early age. All such problems might be different from one location and culture to another. They should be carefully investigated; otherwise, although very well designed, mobile learning solutions cannot perform effectively. Fifth, the financial situation of the specific context in which mobile learning is implemented should also be taken into consideration. In our case, we suppose that because the majority of interviewees were from the capital of Iran, they did not face such a serious challenge with respect to buying a new phone or having access to the internet. What about if our interviewees were from rural or deprived areas of the country? Could we get the same results? Of course, the results would not be similar, and this is a vital concern.
Sixth, when deciding about having a mobile learning solution, one must think carefully about the health problems it might have in the long run, over a year or so. In the beginning, everything seems to work properly. But how about a year after implementation. Does everything work properly? Such preparations before using mobile as a solution are critical. Seventh, in implementing a mobile solution, we must be careful about maintaining student motivation in general and, more specifically, in lower-level students. Thus, the age range and the level for which the mobile solution is designed must be researched in advance carefully. Moreover, if the target audience is school-aged children, one must think earlier about the organization problems, classroom observation difficulties, and social relationship limitations. A great part of learning such skills will happen at school age. Thus, not paying attention to it might result in irrevocable outcomes.
Finally, the mobile solution is not always the best solution since some behavioral problems that have not been present before will be learned just because of the mobile learning solution. It seems that when deciding about using mobile learning, we need first to consider the ways we can decrease such behavioral problems. For instance, we need to think about various ways to observe students’ performance to prevent them from cheating or think about the ways we can downplay the role of parents in learning and doing assignments.
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