The Impact of Using Mobile Phone on the Educational Discussions

Abstract

M-learning, which takes advantages of the mobile devises features to enhance the learning and teaching, is s a new trend in integrating technology in education. The current study attempted to investigate the impact of using mobile phone on the number of students' contributions in educational discussions and the quality of their contributions. Twenty-four students from the College of education at Al Baha University participated in the study. This experimental study compared between the number and the quality of the students’ contributions in two means, traditional classroom and virtual classroom on their mobile phones using WhatsApp application. The study found that there was significant difference between the number and the quality of the contributions students made in their traditional classroom and the contributions that they made in the mobile virtual mean in advantage to the last. The study recommended the educators to get benefits of the mobile devices in increasing the students’