Understanding the use of smart mobile technologies for learning in higher education

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary exploration of the types of smart mobile technologies higher education students have access to and use to support their learning by comparing cohorts from two Australian universities with quite different profiles, the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) and the University of South Australia (UniSA). These results are briefly compared to those obtained in earlier studies in a broad attempt to identify trends in the use of mobile technologies to support learning over time. The results indicate that levels of smart phone ownership are rising rapidly with a corresponding drop in levels of feature phone ownership. Tablet computers such as iPads have emerged since the earlier studies were completed with high levels of adoption by students. Significantly, students are using these smart mobile devices to support their learning.