THE CHALLENGE OF USE OF MOBILE WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMME WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO DISTANCE MODE PROGRAMMES

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Abstract

The present era of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has widened the scope of new technological innovations in the field of teacher education. Mobile is one such cheapest tool in the present globalised society, which has become quite effective in teaching and learning. All most all of the teacher educators and most of the teacher trainees do have this facility before entering the field of teacher education. This makes us to plan new strategies of learning in a proper way. The add-on services of camera, internet etc. bring forward new ways of learning. The present paper tries to discuss the mobile as a tool, a technology, compares it with landline connection. Further, the role of mobile phone is discussed in the context of teacher education from the point of view of teacher trainee i.e. before, after admissions, during examinations and after the result declaration. The authors try to present various trend of research by use of mobile in teacher education.

Keywords: Mobile Wireless Technology, Teacher Education Programme, Distance Mode Programmes

Introduction

Invention of mobile

Dr. Martin Cooper (1973), the General Manager in Motorola Company has privilege of invention of mobile phone prototype which is used for communication among different person.

Definition of mobile phone

The business dictionary defines mobile as, “An electronic telecommunications device, often referred to as a cellular phone or cellphone. Mobile phones connect to a wireless communications network through radio wave or satellite transmissions. Most mobile phones provide voice communications, Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), and newer phones may also provide Internet services such as Web browsing and e-mail.”

The present mobiles available in the market have distinct features like Blue tooth, Internet browser with HTML, Email applications, 3G (WCDMA), FM radio, Music Player (MP3), Video / Voice Recorder. The advanced features, which are available in new mobile includes Internet over WLAN, Speaker Phone, Video Playback, Push email support, GPS migration, Global roaming support. The mobiles are available in various designs such as Classic, Fold, Slide, Touch Screen, Large Screen, Full QWERTY Key board. Although, the mobiles have added services of storing data, pictures, music, but their major role is to provide oral communication among different persons.

How does a mobile phone work?

Mobile facilitates oral communication among persons. When a person talks over a telephone his voice (sound) gets converted into a radio wave (radio frequency). These radio waves are transmitted to locally available base stations. The signal then gets transmitted to the receiver’s base station through telephone networks. This mobile phone network operates on the basis of a series of cells. Each cell requires a radio base station to enable it to function. The signal, which travelled through networks reaches the receivers through the based station and then further gets transmitted as radio signal. Thus, this radio signal then gets converted into speech at the receiver’s mobile phone. This network is graphically shown below,










Fig. Graphical representation of Cellular Network

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COASI – 2009) lists about 13 service providers on its website. The major operators in alphabetical order includes, Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Reliance, Tata Indicom, Vodaphone etc. There are more than twenty five mobile phone handset manufacturers in India. The key players include Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Ericsson etc.

Newer practices in use of mobile

Priyanka has found various uses of mobile in Urban Indian mobile subscribers. Although the percentages are too small, but the mobiles are being used for Social Networking, Search Engines, Instant Messages, SMS Service, Mobile Quiz Contests.

The statistical data available on the Cellular Operators Association of India (2009) indicates that 172 million subscribers were using GSM in 2007. The projected telephone connection given by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) indicates that around 650 million users will use of telephones by 2012. This speaks of the scope for prepared young Indians to make use of mobile for communication in future in India. If this is properly exploited then mobile can be a best used as teaching and learning tool in higher education sector.

IGNOU has already taken up a project along with Ericsson to build 3G Environment to Download Course Content (2009). It is also planned to prepare a base for SMS communication to learners.

Government of Karnataka has networked all its administrative officials of education department in the state through website. The major orders, circulars, information is sent to all the officers by use of click of a button from mobile.

Landlines versus Mobiles

For a long time the landline phones were grounded firmly through cabling system in India. This has limited mobility in isolation and even after attachment of cordless phone connections. Now, the firm roots of these landlines are uprooted by onslaught of mobiles because of its very nature of being mobile. Mobiles provide wide range of additional services ranging from SMS to internet surfing. It is not a surprise to note that today many of the households do not have land connections and rely only on mobile. The onslaught of mobile has influenced the entire society and its educational system.

Mobile Technology and Teacher Education

A survey of enrolled student-teachers indicates that all most all are having mobile phone connection. It is more true in the case of in-service teachers who can purchase the mobile handsets easily. A survey of distance mode (DM) B.Ed. candidates of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) indicated that around 90% have mobile. The mobile are no more the white elephants and their maintenance is quite easy now. The phones can be recharged for as less as Rs. 10/- and calls are as cheap as one paisa per second. In addition to this free call, free SMS facilities are made available by few service providers. A whole lot of attractive facilities are also available. Further, the handset cost begins from as low as Rs. 1000/- per set. The technology is user friendly and layman can also dial any number of his choice, store it or send an SMS or receive these both. Thus, it has opened a lot of ways for connecting people from various sections of the society including the students. The would be teachers of different stages make use of the service as a desirable tool at various stages of their training programmes.

Mobile at Pre-admission Stage of Teacher Education

The mobile phones are generally used as a source of communication among the prospective teachers. They interact with fellow aspirants regarding various aspects of envisaged programme like duration, intake, selection criteria, syllabus, activities to be performed in the training programme, previous year’s question papers, reservation policy followed.

The learners also interact with the programme administrators, organisers. They interact by phone to the officers discussing various aspects of the programme. They try to know the availability of prospectus, its cost, sales counters, availability on the website, entrance test dates and venues etc. from the organisers or administrators of the programme. Mobile also serve to enquire specific requirements of candidates like direction to the candidates who do not receive hall tickets in case of the entrance test. Some of the candidates who do not belong to the disciplines like Arts, Science, Mathematics try to know from the organisation regarding the main subjects under which they can write entrance test. It is surprising to note here that few queries were also received by authors from Engineers and Doctors regarding the admission procedure in B.Ed. (DM) programme, although it is not targeted for skill development of teachers of this level. Hence, mobile calls are received to enquire various aspects of the programme. This is followed by Entrance test evaluation. The learners try to know the results, selection of candidates in various categories, likely dates and venue of admission counselling and various documents to be supplied on the day of admission. Interestingly, students launch complaints in case of discrepancies in case of preparation of merit list, results or seat allotment. The process of use of mobile as a tool of communication is quiet significant in pre-admission counselling of prospective student teachers.

The digitally well-off aspirants go further to make use of internet from their mobiles. The candidates access information pertaining to their respective professional programmes and prospective institutes. This gives them all the major and minor information about the programmes right from entry process to prospectus after the completion of this programme. The prospectus-cum-application form can be viewed in the web-browser, the result and selection list can also be seen in web pages in mobile. The internet facilities can also be used for email asynchronous interaction with other stakeholders.

Mobile at Post admission and during the Programme

The candidates who are admitted in B.Ed. (DM) programme have to communicate at four places with four different types of persons viz., Programme Centre, Regional Centre and Head Quarter, Resource Persons and Peer Trainees.

Firstly, the trainees contact their programme centre the most. They have to interact with the programme centre for knowing about the counselling classes, difficult content areas, dates of submission of various assignments, modes of writing assignments, improvements suggested, activities to be performed at the school, workshop requirements, pre and post workshop activities and follow up programmes. The guidance for conduct of teaching programme is also received from programme centre and programme incharges play an important role in dissemination of all these information. Mobile has become an evident mode of communication due to distance persisting among learner and teacher. The other persons associated with B.Ed. (DM) programme centres are the academic counsellors who are teacher educators and involved in training of teachers trainees counsel the academic issues of trainees in their respective areas. The mobile has bridged the gap among the counsellor and counselee and tries to minimise the effect of distance in distance education. Whatever, said and done, it is observed that the personal interaction has to be initiated always from the learner/trainee himself as the organisers do not provide extra remuneration for the counsellors for initiating academic counselling over the phone.

The second interaction of trainee teachers takes place among the trainee and the regional centre and/or headquarters and this is more of administrative type. The trainees produce their documents and confirm it over the phone as and when required. They follow up their representation and requests like change of subject, address, name correction, correction in the marks memo, supply of Self Learning Material (SLM)/assignment etc. Thus, mobile is used for continuous official interaction among administrative set up and trainees.

The third type of interaction is among the trainees and resource persons and among the trainees themselves. This interaction is purely of academic interest. Each of the trainee identifies mentor of his/her choice, who guides him/her guidance in the preparation of lesson plans and its presentation in the classroom. The school based activities and workshop based activities are carried out under the guidance of resource persons and oral and face to face or feedback on mobile is obtained. The trainees keep themselves abreast of all the necessary information about the programme activities, while interacting with other peer trainees. This provides lot of feedback and fills in the enthusiasm for learning. The gap present in the distance education is filled by Mobile Technology by increasing communication.

The capacities of mobile phones are increasing every day. The teacher trainees record expert lectures through add-on service of audio recording by mobile phones. This is used later while learning. In the same way the mobile phones also help in recording of still or movie pictures of subject experts for viewing at leisure. The first hand visit of zoo, museum, plants can also be recorded in the form of pictures and details can be discussed in the classroom later. Interestingly, the FM radio service in mobile is also being utilised for hearing expert lessons, when it is aired by its nearby All India Radio Station or any of the gyanvanis. These programmes can also be recorded in memory sticks of mobile and heard later. The online audio-video programmes can be heard/viewed by the teachers in the web browsers of their mobiles based on the availability and capacity of their mobiles. The open resources such as gyankosh material can be downloaded from the website by use of mobile in teacher education programme. In small places where there is current and connectivity problems the pictures downloaded in mobile can be later printed and enlarged. This can help the teacher in preparation of charts and posters such as chart of solar cooker when preparing lesson on solar energy. This enhances teacher’s capacity by increasing number of visuals in the class. The data can be transformed by the memory sticks from mobile to computers and vice-versa. The trainee teachers can record the ongoing activities in his class, in general assembly, in time table preparation and use these pictures in presentation of their school based activity reports. Recording of micro teaching was a costly affair in its early days as it needed arrangements like Television, Video Cassette Player/Recorder (VCR), VCR cassettes, Camera. Now, Microteaching can be recorded, (re)viewed on mobile camera and screen easily, and teacher’s skills can be improved by discussion and feedback locally. There are other innumerable instances where mobile can be used by trainee teachers during the training programmes. Trainee can fix time of his classes; inform his mentor over SMS and record a reminder in his mobile regarding the class timings. This creates discipline among teachers and learners. Micro teaching or Macro teaching class can be scheduled for fixed time making use of stop watch facilities. Calculators in the mobiles can be used for calculations.

Mobile Technology During and Post Examination stages

The examination related information can be passed among trainees through SMS by mobile. The exam date sheet can be viewed on the web pages in mobile. Oral clarifications regarding subjects, exam venues can be had from administrators regarding reach or non-reach of filled/unfilled exam forms or result sheets can be ascertained by mobile usage.

Trends in Research on use of Mobile in Distance Mode Teacher Education

The mobile has enormous potentialities in the field of education in general and in teacher education in particular. However, the authors suggests following research areas for serious use of mobiles in teacher education in distance mode.

  1. Technologies are growing fast, whether our teachers are adapting to these technologies is a matter of serious thought. The technology consists of software and hardware; we have to know adoptability of stakeholders to both these aspects. This matter has to be looked from the perspectives of teacher educators, teacher trainees, resource persons in the field and other administrative supporters of teacher education.
  2. When different technologies are being taught under educational technology course at B.Ed. level or any other teacher training programme, then why the aspect and potentialities of mobile phones are not being studied seriously. Mobile has to seen from the academic point of view rather than as an entertainment tool alone.
  3. The mobile services have reduced proper usage of language. The language is being bisected, trisected or major surgery is being done. This is a direct attack on the language and culture used in literature. Eg. Gud N8, CU are used in place of Good Night and See You. The grammar is not at all being followed in writing SMS. The Urdu Shayeri is being written in Roman Script and this has a direct attack on other Indian languages too.
  4. The 24x7 connectivity has lead to phone calls connectivity in and outside the classroom. This disturbs the teachers and learners and brings forward various ethical issues.
  5. If few teachers are sitting in social platform or in a programme, they appear to talk to their other colleagues over the phone. Thereby, the teachers who are nearer to them physically get ignored. This creates an issue of social contact among teachers and students. New, dimensions of study social contacts and socialisation process creep in.
  6. An investigation has to be made into the type of interaction, language spoken, appropriateness, approximate time of counselling over phone. The comparative effect of phone and face-to-face counselling has to be studied. The concepts like telephone conferencing can also be explored so that larger groups can be benefitted.
  7. Tools like calculator, converters are being used by teacher trainees. They prefer to multiply different dimension of a room in a particular unit using the calculator and convert it into other unit by using convert function in the mobile. Such facilities in mobiles definitely have an adverse impact on learning of mathematics.
  8. When in a travelling, picnic or citizenship training camp, few trainees prefer spending their leisure time playing mobile games. If this is the case then what type of citizenship training our B.Ed. training programmes are providing?
  9. How is the mobile technology helping in e-banking facilities usage for teacher education? The usage of e-banking, type of facilities used such as DD preparation, transfer of money, payment of fees etc. can be studied.
  10. New ways of imparting education has to be explored in mobile usage in teaching-learning. An advertisement of Film Actor Abhishek Bachan of idea phone connection shows that the teacher reaches remote village through mobile phone connection. Such other new interventions and innovations can be studied.
  11. The use of mobile in teaching and learning of various subjects have to be studied. The type of practical activities conducted will have to be discussed.
  12. There is an urgent need to investigate role of mobile before, during and after examinations. Mobile SMS were used in leaking of Entrance Test of MD examination is a matter of concern. It is also noticed that few students were caught taking pictures of question paper in B.Ed. (DM) Entrance Exam and this was caught by the one of the author.
  13. The adoption of Indian fonts such a Urdu in mobiles have to be studied to increase the pleasure of studying its rich literature in its real font and format.
  14. It is not the technology, which is mobile, but it is the person who is mobile. Hence, teacher trainee’s or learner’s changing role has to be studied according to requirements of technology.
  15. Studies are to be set up to discuss comparative effectiveness of various technological devices such as landlines phones and mobiles, mobiles and computers with internet etc.
  16. Studies are to be initiated to know the attitude of teachers and students while making use of these technological tools in teacher education. Different age groups social groups, gender, different levels of schooling disciplines may have their own preferences, which could be studied.
  17. Research can be conducted regarding whether mobile can be used as a research tool in educational research? How the information can be stored, data can be preserved can also be studied.
  18. Mobiles are having many adverse impacts i.e. disturbance in study, social relations, health hazards and all these are to be studied vis-à-vis there impact.

Conclusion

The advent of mobiles has increased the reach of teachers to remotest corners of the nation in various formats. The learner can access the teachers, resource persons very easily by using this tool 24x7. This has impact on personal life styles of both learner and teacher. Teaching learning strategies need to be modified in this context. Mere technology can not change the entire teaching learning, but it is the human mind set which needs to be changed. This will increase the proper use of this technology at various stages of teacher education programme. There is wide range of issues which needs to be studied, while discussing the scope and limitations of this technology in teacher education.

References

1. http://www.cameraphonesplaza.com/who-invented-the-cell-phone/ November, 2009

2. http://www.oxford.gov.uk/PageRender/decER/How_does_a_mobile_phone_work_occw.htm November, 2009

3. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/m/mobile_phone.html November, 2009

4. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/mobile-phone.html, November, 2009

5. http://www.trai.gov.in/traiannualreport.asp, November, 2009

6. http://beta.thehindu.com/education/article38794.ece Education New Delhi, October 26, 2009

7. http://www.mobiles.co.uk/mobile-phone-terms-glossary.html, November, 2009

8. http://priyankasblog.com/mobile-india-a-statistical-look-at-urban-indian-mobile-users/, November, 2009

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