IMPLEMENTATION OF MOBILE PHONES IN EDUCATION
IMPLEMENTATION OF MOBILE PHONES IN EDUCATION

Summary/Abstract: According to a latest survey of UNESCO 6 milliard people use mobile phones every day. Such huge numbers might raise the question of what their influence is on education. In which direction would the methodology of education evolve? Such an enormous developmental change was noticeable 10-15 years ago when the Internet arrived to virtually every single school. In those times, this rapid technological improvement left a great impact with positive and negative effects and still prevails in today's classrooms. Nowadays, we clearly know that the reason behind this developmental shift lies in our unpreparedness for a paradigm shift in front of our eyes. The educational system in our region looks upon pedagogy through mobile phones (M-learning) as a notion delving in the realms of utopia. However, such inadequacy could be transformed into advantage through learning from mistakes and keeping a pace ahead immediate and expected revolutionary changes in education.It is well-known that mobile phone usage during lessons is, according to social standards, unwanted not only in several countries worldwide but also in Serbia. The Ministry of Education cannot handle effectively mobile phones, tablets, and other potential alternative educational methods or supplements. Thus, the easiest solution has become widespread; namely, to ban phones entirely out of classrooms. However, scratching the surface would not eliminate problems; it would just delay them given the fact that educational experts in the north treat this issue in a more liberal way. A good example would be Denmark that introduced the BYOT program (Bring Your Own Technology) and is determined to pin down that each school provide Wi-Fi coverage.Our research aims at finding out how teachers and learners treat this issue on the territory of Vojvodina. We would attempt to justify our presuppositions according to which teachers feel certain scepticism about mobile phones in the classrooms, especially those teachers who are not owners of a smart phone. Data were collected through an on-line questionnaire with 455 young participants and 49 teachers from 9 municipalities in Vojvodina.

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