Mobile phones ring changes in education

Teachers are used to asking their students to put away their mobile phones, but soon the ubiquitous 'mobile' could join the blackboard, video player and computer as an important tool for teaching and learning in the classroom. A number of projects taking place around the world are set to overturn the suspicion with which it has traditionally been viewed by school authorities.

One such project is a 4.5m euro, EU-backed initiative taking place in the UK, Sweden and Italy. Those involved hope to use mobile phones and handheld computers to teach basic literacy and numeracy skills to a generation of youngsters turned off by traditional education.

It has been found that mobile learning has an element of privacy which can help those embarrassed by their numeracy or literacy skills. They can text in answers and get instant feedback privately.

Meanwhile, the Philippines have already turned to mobile phones to extend science education to poorer areas, in a pilot project backed by the UN Development Programme.

Under the system, teachers in some 40 elementary schools in the poorer areas of the Philippines will be able to use the text-messaging functions of Nokia-supplied cellular phones to order science videos from an electronic library.

The videos are downloaded to a digital satellite television receiver with a recorder function, and connected to a television in the classrooms. Students can then view the video as often as they want to supplement their class lessons.

The stated purpose is not to supplant textbooks as a primary source of information but rather to supplement these traditional modes of learning with innovative tools that aid in the retention of knowledge among the children and youth.

In New Zealand, a distance learning project is giving every student a free mobile phone - and this has dramatically reduced drop-out rates.

Around 15,000 phones have been given away to students taking the Mahi Ora work skills course. The completion rate is now 91 per cent, whereas it has been as low as 25 per cent in the past. The phones are cut off when a student drops out.

In Ireland, two schools in Dublin are testing a scheme that will inform parents about absent pupils - through a text alert.

From the start of the school year in September, all students who skip lessons at Portmarnock Community School or Manor House will appear on a computerised database of absentees who qualify for an automatic standardised text message.

Although, some have yet to supply parents' mobile numbers. Portmarnock principal David Sweeney said: "If the absenteeism is legitimate, parents can ignore the message. If not, they can ring the school."

Schools can notify 100 people with half a dozen clicks of a mouse.

Other innovative ideas for putting mobile phones at the service of education abound. And why not? Mobile handsets are pocketable, so they can be used almost anywhere; they offer sound, text and now pictures; and in the future there will be video. They offer two-way interaction, an essential element in learning and teaching, and they're fashionable and fun to use. And nowadays, almost everyone has one.

One experiment in the UK will have students picking up the phone to hear a computerised voice asking questions about the ICT skills they have recently acquired. The students answer the questions and then put away their phones... a great new way to assess the student.

Another potential use could be on field trips and outdoor activities. Someone out in the field could take a picture and then send it to a friend working back at the lab, for example.

Picture phones could be useful for foreign languages, giving the ability to hear and see a student in a school in another country. While this can already be done through a computer, a phone brings a new dimension to it.