Mobile technology in the teaching and learning of basic skills mathematics

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to show how mobile technology may help in the teaching and learning of basic skills mathematics. Mobile Technology is rapidly infiltrating almost every sector of our society. Handheld devices, like Cellular Phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and portable music players are very popular amongst young people, and can therefore become very attractive educational resources. They are also effective teaching aids, irrispective of the students' academic background and competencies. In an educational context which stimulates the students' creativity, mobile phones enable learning through play and discovery learning. Another advantage of mobile technology is accessibility, since most or the students may have a mobile phone. Besides, compared to desktop computers, mobile phones are relatively cheap. However, developing applications for handheld devices may be more complicated. Small devices have hardware limitations when compared to standard desk. top computers or server computers. Every mobile has different specifications and hardware configurations. This creates a problem since one program which works on one hand held device may not work on the other. For this reason this application was developed using Java ME, since a large number of mobile phones are Java enabled. The application consists of four educational activities. In the Addition/Subtraction activity, two random numbers are generated and a student is presented with either an addition or subtraction which he/she has to curry out. In the Multiplication activity two dice are thrown randomly and the student has to work out the numbers shown. In the Solid Shapes activity the student has to guess the shape being shown on the application. Besides the application also consists of notes about common Logo functions, and also additional notes about solid shapes. The activities were carefully selected after discussions with basic skills mathematics teachers and evaluated by the students.