How mobile interaction motivates students in a class?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to show a way that students can become more active in the classroom. We tried to use a mobile phone as a teaching and learning tool. A mobile phone is a familiar device to Japanese students. Most of them have one and use it everyday. They write many e-mails, browse web pages, take pictures and make calls. This study showed statistically how the use of mobile phones as a teaching and learning tool affected motivation of students. As the result, we found that students' communication-charge plan did not affect the evaluation of this method. The most effective factors were "The effect on checking attendance" and "Remembering what students learned at the end of lecture". Thus, it is helps a teacher with two things - this method allows better use of lecture time by shortening attendance checking and allowing students to write comments during the lecture on their mobile phones. This saves time, as the teacher doesn't have to use lecture time for feedback. So not only traditional paper and pencil should be regarded as a school tool, but also a mobile phone. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.