Paper Title
M- LEARNING: PARADIGM SHIFT IN EDUCATION
Abstract
‘’Knowledge is the food for man because in absence of knowledge
man cannot grow his food
“Education is the pond of knowledge”
To lay the ground for delivering 21st Century Skills to students, schools must first go beyond simply teaching students to “reproduce” what they are taught. Some might ask: how will it be possible to do so while still covering the syllabus? The solution is to re-focus the curriculum by emphasizing a focused set of knowledge and concepts that can then be taught in much greater depth. Around the world, most students today are still taught using the “Transmission” model of education. Teachers transmit factual knowledge to groups of pupils via lectures, utilizing textbooks and other sources for reference. The problem with this is that while students can memorize information, they don’t get much – or often any – scope to apply the knowledge. To be impressed into young minds, knowledge must be applied to new contexts, communicated in complex ways and used to solve problems.
Things are changing around us very dramatically, very quickly. The world is becoming more interconnected, the environment is becoming less stable, and technology is continuously altering our relationship to information. Changing global conditions demand that we rethink what, but even more important, how and where we learn. In response to the challenges we face in the digital age, schools are starting to do education differently.
Mobile learning, or “M-Learning”, offers modern ways to support learning process through mobile devices, such as handheld and tablet computers, MP3 players, smart phones and mobile phones. Present paper attempts to highlight the importance of mobile learning for education purposes. It examines what impact mobile devices have had on teaching and learning practices and goes on to look at the opportunities presented by the use of digital media on mobile devices. The main purpose of this paper is to describe the current state of mobile learning, benefits, challenges, and its barriers to support teaching and learning.
The schools that are taking this seriously are still in the minority. But across the world there is a growing global movement towards achieving the vision of 21st century education.
KeyWords: Mobile learning, 21st century, school education.