USING MOBILE COMMUNICATION DEVICES TO DEVELOP STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATIVE SKILLS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

[Tetiana Zubenko]

I am going to organize collaborative learning aimed at studying the contemporary and historic ethnic and cultural identity of peoples of the world, while fostering students’ cultural awareness, mutual respect, and foreign language acquisition by means of the latest advances in mobile-learning.

The rapid development of new technologies has radically changed both the ways that people interact and the people with whom they interact. The emergence of wireless and handheld digital devices has given rise to a new round of communication. Communication with the whole world has become easier and cheaper – people can talk with nearly anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. Researches claim, that 2013 saw an explosion of mobile devices in the learning field, with tablets in particular being in the forefront of this growth. [Maturity, T. (2013)]. Mobile devices are often ubiquitous as well as always connected so, they are ideal for learning in a variety of ways to fit a particular time and place [Malamed, C. (2012)]. Some American researchers indicate benefits of using mobile devices as educational tools, including increased student engagement and motivation, knowledge creation, language development and learning, collaborative learning, global awareness, effective cost and time management [Lahiri, M. & Moseley, J. L. (2012); Eckersley, N. (2014)]. As Julias Stodd (2012) says on his blog, “mobile is part of the shift from learning being abstract, discrete, single events, to being part of everyday reality, provoking a new mindset for learning design, …. a common platform for communication that uses different languages depending upon context” [Stodd, J. (2012)].

 

According to some researchers, collaborative learning is the acquisition of knowledge, skills or attitudes as a result of group interaction [Stacey, (2002)]. Unlike other techniques, collaborative learning encourages all involved to help support and motivate each other to achieve a learning goal. Because collaborative learning is student-centered, it often succeeds in engaging the learner. In this proposed project I speak about global collaboration that focuses on bringing students from different countries together for discussions and learning, to foster cultural awareness among them. In the words of two educators, one from Australia and the other from the U.S., "effective use of technology can build bridges between classrooms, nations, and humankind, and that 21st-century skills harness not only the power of technology but the power of people. We need this connection for the future of our planet. It is no longer an option. Students are the greatest textbook ever written for one another and will be travelers on this bridge." [Lindsay and Davis, (2013, p. 2)].

We began to make the first steps in our project and organized trilateral online meetings between students of Ukraine, U.S.A. and Liberia (cenincom.blogspot.com).

 

We invite all interested persons to participate in our project.

Trilateral meeting online 14.10.15

Trilateral meeting online 21.10.15