Emerging Technologies

What is a Blog
A blog originally was a personal website meant to be like a diary or journal. If you are familiar with Face book or MySpace, these sites and their user pages are a derivative of blogs. The word blog is the shortened version of the word weblog. A person would usually create a blog as a hobby to share their information and experience on a particular subject.
The Usefulness of Blogs in Education
Like Podcast, wiki and other types of new technology, blogs can be use in classroom environment for diary entry; it also can be a useful tool to link communication between study groups within a class or other classes or even schools. If use effectively, blogs can create a learning environment that extend beyond the schoolyard.
Why should we use blogs in the classroom?
 Highly motivating to students, especially those who otherwise might not become participants in classrooms.
 Excellent opportunities for students to read and write.
 Effective forums for collaboration and discussion.
 Powerful tools to enable scaffolding learning or mentoring to occur


Blogs can serve at least four basic functions.

1. Classroom Management
2. Collaboration
3. Discussions
4. Student Portfolios





What Is mobile learning?
This is any activity that allows individuals to be more productive when consuming, interacting with, or creating information, mediated through a compact digital portable device that the individual carries on a regular basis, has reliable connectivity, and fits in a pocket or purse.
Mobile learning Usefulness in Eduction
Most mobile devices are useful in education as
 administration
 organisation and teaching aids for practitioners,
 also as learning support tools for learners.
Mobile learning allows students to read from a customized interactive interface for the mobile devices and it allows Instructors , who does not have programming abilities , to improve and develop their own training courses , Learning material, quizzes and surveys by using the Learning Mobile Author, LMA.


Mobile Learning Usefulness in the Classroom
 Students using handheld computers, PDAs, smartphones or handheld voting systems in a classroom or lecture room (Tremblay 2010).
 Students use mobile devices in the classroom to enhance group collaboration among students and instructors. It will be more light weight device compare to books, PCs, etc.
 Mobile learning could be utilised as part of a learning approach which uses different types of activities.
 Mobile learning needs to be used appropriately, according to the groups of students involved.
 Mobile learning can be a useful add-on tool for students with special needs. However, for SMS and MMS this might be dependent on the students’ specific disabilities or difficulties involved.











Reference

Vitaro, Frank, Larocque, Denis, Janosz, Michel and Tremblay, Richard E., Negative Social Experiences and Dropping Out of School (2001), in: Educational Psychology, 21:4(401--415)
Sharples, M. (2000). The design of personal mobile technologies for lifelong learning. Computers and Education, 34,
177–193.

Steinfield, C. (2003). The development of location based services in mobile commerce. Michigan State University
Report. Available from http://www.msu.edu/~steinfie/elifelbschap.pdf (accessed Sep, 2004).

Stone, A., Briggs, J., & Smith, C. (2002). SMS and interactivity – some results from the field, and its implications on
effective uses of mobile technologies in education. In IEEE international workshop on wireless and mobile technologiesin education (WMTE_02) (pp. 104–108).