M-learning patterns in the virtual classroom

Fernando A. López, María Magdalena Silva

Abstract


Mobile devices are everywhere to be found on university campuses. This has changed the nature of higher education and led to a new mobile form of e-learning known as m-learning. The aim of this article is to assess the penetration of mobile devices for learning purposes in higher education and to identify the main usage patterns. To that end, the study used two complementary methodologies: web usage mining and a questionnaire survey. Web usage mining was performed to collect data from the university’s learning management system (LMS) in order to explore this new technology’s usage trends in the past four academic years and to identify the main patterns of behaviour. A questionnaire survey of 460 university students was conducted to find out about the student-declared level of m-learning penetration. The results are conclusive: 25% of accesses to the LMS were made from mobile devices and 75% of the students used these devices for learning purposes. The findings of this study have significant implications not only for researchers and lecturers, but also for institutions intending to implement this teaching/learning methodology. 


Keywords


m-learning; mobile devices; web usage mining; Moodle; learning management systems

References


AGUDO J.E., HÉCTOR M. R. Y VALOR M. (2011) Registro de Aprendizaje Móvil en Moodle mediante Servicios Web IEEE-RITA. 6(3), 95-102.

ARJONA, J.E., Y SÁNCHEZ, V. (2013). Revisión de opciones para el uso de la plataforma Moodle en dispositivos Móviles. RED. Revista de Educación a Distancia, (37), 1-15.

Blackboard, http://www.blackboard.com

CASANY, M. J., ALIER, M., MAYOL, E., GALANIS, N., y PIGUILLEM, J. (2012). Analyzing Moodle/LMS Logs to Measure Mobile Access. In UBICOMM 2012, The Sixth International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, Systems, Services and Technologies (pp. 35-40).

CASTRO, F., VELLIDO, A., NEBOT, A., Y MUGICA, F. (2007). “Applying data mining techniques to e-learning problems”. En L. C. Jain, T. Raymond, y D. Tedman (Eds.), Evolution of Teaching and Learning Paradigms in Intelligent Environment, Vol 62. (pp. 183−221) Berlin: Springer-Verlag

CONTRERAS, R.S. Y EGUIA J.L. (2009) Contenidos de aprendizaje para estudiantes de diseño en podcast. Cuadernos de documentacion multimedia 20 139-148

FURIÓ, D., GONZALEZ S., SEGUÍ. J.M. Y COSTA M (2013). The effects of the size and weight of a mobile device on an educational game. Computers & Education. 64, 24-41.

HERSHKOVITZ, A., Y NACHMIAS, R. (2011). Online persistence in higher education web-supported courses. The Internet and Higher Education, 14(2), 98-106.

HESTELO (2013). Encuesta de Hábitos de Estudio y Movilidad 2012. Cátedra Movilidad y Educación. Universidad de Valladolid.

HOMAN, S., Y WOOD, K. (2003). Taming the mega-lecture: wireless quizzing. Syllabus Magazine, 17(3), 23-27.

HUNG, J. L., Y ZHANG, K. (2012). Examining mobile learning trends 2003–2008: A categorical meta-trend analysis using text mining techniques. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 24(1), 1-17.

HWANG, G.J., Y TSAI, C.C. (2011). Research trends in mobile and ubiquitous learning: A review of publications in selected journals from 2001 to 2010. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(4), E65-E70.

KOOLE, M., MCQUILKIN, J.L., y ALLY, M. (2010). Mobile learning in distance education: Utility or futility. The Journal of Distance Education/Revue de l'Éducation à Distance, 24(2) 59-82.

MOBILLA, M.D.C.M. (2011). Experiencias de inclusión educativa en Colombia: hacia el conocimiento útil. RUSC. Revista de Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento, 8(1).

MÖDRITSCHER, F., NEUMANN, G. AND BRAUER, C. (2012). Comparing LMS Usage Behavior of Mobile and Web Users. 2012 IEEE 12th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), 650 –651.

Moodle http://moodle.org

MOSTOW, J., BECK, J., CEN, H., CUNEO, A., GOUVEA, E., y HEINER, C., (2005) “An educational data mining tool to brouse tutor-student interactions: Time will tell!” En Proceeding of the Worshop on Educational Data Mining, Pittsburgh, USA (pp. 15-22)

ORTEGA, M., PLATA R.B., JIMÉNEZ M.L., et al. (2011). Using M-learning on nursing courses to improve learning. Computers, Informatics, Nursing 29 (6) 1538-29-31

PACHLER, N., RANIERI, M., MANCA, S., y COOK, J. (2012). Editorial: Social Networking and Mobile Learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(5), 707-710.

PAHL, C. (2004). Data mining technology for the evaluation of learning content interaction. International Journal of e-Learning, 3(4), 47−55

PRENDES, M.P. (2009). Plataformas de campus virtual de software libre: Análisis comparativo de la situación actual en las universidades españolas. Informe del Proyecto EA-2008-0257 de la Secretaría de estado de Universidades e Investigación. Disponible en http://www.um.es/campusvirtuales/informe.html. [Fecha de la consulta, 25 Junio 2013]

ROMERO, C., VENTURA, S., Y BRA, P.D. (2004). Knowledge discovery with genetic programming for providing feedback to courseware author. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research, 14(5), 425-464.

ROMERO, C., Y VENTURA, S. (2007). Educational data mining: A survey from 1995 to 2005. Expert Systems with Applications, 33(1), 135−146.

RUSHBY, N. (2012). Editorial: An agenda for mobile learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(3), 355-356.

Sakai (Mobile Sakai). (https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/MOBILE/Home)

SCOPEO, “m-learning en España, Portugal y América Latina” Noviembre de 2011

WU, W.H., JIM WU, Y.C., CHEN, C.Y., KAO, H.Y., LIN, C.H., Y HUANG, S. H. (2012). Review of trends from mobile learning studies: A meta-analysis. Computers & Education. 59(2), 817-827.

ZORRILLA, M.E., MENASALVAS, E., MARIN, D., MORA, E., Y SEGOVIA, J. (2005). “Web usage mining project for improving web-based learning sites”. En Computer Aided Systems Theory–EUROCAST 2005 (pp. 205-210). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7238/rusc.v11i1.1902

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




 Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. eLearn Center

RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal is an e-journal edited by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Barcelona).

Creative Commons
The texts published in this journal are – unless indicated otherwise – covered by the Creative Commons Spain Attribution 3.0 licence. You may copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work, provided you attribute it (authorship, journal name, publisher) in the manner specified by the author(s) or licensor(s). The full text of the licence can be consulted here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/deed.en.