From Bring Your Own Device to Students' Use My Own Device Attitude: A Long Way to Go

Bikanga Ada, M. (2014) From Bring Your Own Device to Students' Use My Own Device Attitude: A Long Way to Go. European Conference in the Applications of Enabling Technologies (ECAET 2014), Glasgow, UK, 20-21 Nov 2014.

Abstract

The ubiquitous access to technology is forcing educational institutions to look at ways of using students-owned mobile technology for learning gains. Moreover, the technologies that these mobile devices embody, particularly social networking media have become the power of connectivity and communication. Despite the potential advantages of Bring Your Own Device, scalable and sustainable mobile learning using student-owned mobile device is still in its infancy. This paper presents the issues encountered during an effort to implement mobile learning initiatives that are scalable, sustainable at a Scottish university. The learning activities were related to summative feedback and feedback on teaching (n=197), peer feedback (n=60) and formative feedback (n=70). One of the issues was the lack of the compulsory aspect of the mobile learning activities, which created more workload issues and resulted in low student participation. However, any compulsory curricular aspect of the mobile learning initiative may still lose its potential because the institution does not supply the devices. Furthermore, the lecturers' lack of motivation and time management issues impacted on the case studies. These resulted in short-lived implementations, which did not allow participants to get used to the technology. Other issues included the lack of a clear link between the learning activity and students' learning achievement, the novelty of the module being taught and wireless connection issues. The outcomes show that the move from BYOD to students' Use My Own Device attitude is still a long way to go as such opportunities require a pedagogical shift, which is a very slow process. Ownership of mobile handheld devices does not necessarily imply high participation in mobile learning. Educators should be more resilient and perseverant in order to achieve their objectives.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Bikanga Ada, Dr Mireilla
• Authors: Bikanga Ada, M.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science