Uniqueness in mobile teaching environment design methodology: A case analysis on Nan Tien Institute

Abstract

This is a theoretical methodology, aiming to provide practical guidance by establishing a series of consolidated frameworks for designing a mobile teaching environment (MTE) tailored to a specific institution's settings. This paper also tries to apply the proposed theory to reality by providing a case study on Nan Tien Institute (NTI) so that a practical guidance will be given to NTI for its MTE's implementation. It is the authors' understanding that by no means there would be a standardized designing method in MTE, which is usually sought after by MTE designers as their convincing reference. As a matter of fact, under the magic of age of standardization, MTE designers tend to follow the empirical experience, rendering one of the critical points ignored - uniqueness that their institution holds, which will be incarnated in this paper as the major benchmark. The intention of the framework is to help MTE development methodology designers to reorganize and reexamine the institution's information regarding MTE for the precaution and proactivity. The frameworks are constructed based on their uniqueness in various dimensions; however, this does not deny any other form of methodology in this regard. It is well advised that any other form of methodology should take a close consideration of the uniqueness for its validation. Upon the placements on frameworks, a concept of "weight" is introduced to leverage the varied importance of the proposed uniqueness. This is used to quantify the result of placement as a whole. An application on NTI was provided to exemplify the ideas. It should be noticed that this paper aims to provide quantitative solution, yet it is based on qualitative data due to the insufficiency of validated data. Therefore, the further follow-up researches are welcome to contribute to this database establishment.