Use of Mobile Phone Technology in Education for Easy Accessibility of Information: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

Information and communication technology has opened up such tremendous vistas for modern societies that any failure to master it would mean a life of permanent subordination. The evolution of Mobile phone makes it possible to work with distance learning, achieve a closer collaboration among teachers and students and also pave way for a new pedagogical approach where there is unparalleled ability to spread knowledge and disseminate information. This research adopted a survey design which sought information from respondents on the Use of Mobile phone Technology in Education for Easy Accessibility of Information. Three research questions guided the study. The population comprised five thousand, eight hundred secondary school graduate teachers in 265 public secondary schools in Anambra State. Disproportionate stratified-random sampling technique was adopted in selecting one thousand three hundred and sixty-five teachers for the study. A questionnaire entitled “Use of Mobile Phone Technology in Education” was developed by the researcher, validated by experts and used for data collection. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient was used to obtain a reliability coefficient of 0.84. Data were collected and analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The findings revealed services obtained from the use of mobile phone ineducation to include making and receiving of voice calls, sending and receiving SMS, browsing the wireless application protocol sites, taking photos and recording videos, receiving local AM/FM stations, sharing and receiving multimedia messages/calls, connection to the internet & WWW etc. Challenges include lack of skilled ICT personnel, related infrastructure, reliable source of power supply, technologist for routine repairs among others. Based on the findings, recommendations include among others that government should organize workshops, seminars, and conferences for stakeholder and teachers to be trained on the use of mobile phone in education, adopt ICT international standard in Nigerian educational curriculum and provide reliable source of power and relevant infrastructures in the schools.

Key word: Mobile Phone, Technology, Education, Challenges & Prospects