A Trial of a Bidirectional Learning Management Tool for Promoting Learning by Mobile Phone

Abstract

Education outside of the traditional classroom environment is growing more widespread, particularly opportunities presented by distance learning. In Japan, students today are frequently seen using the mail function of the WWW from their mobile phone. With this in mind, we tried making a bidirectional learning management tool accessible by mobile phone. To promote competitive behavior between students, and to maintain interest and motivation, we created a function to display relative student progress in graph form on the WWW. We can access this bidirectional learning management tool by Internet from a mobile phone and a personal computer. Students can access their common schedule, and correspond in a mutually beneficial manner. They can help one another by registering questions and exchanging important information. They can easily engage in discussion using a mail list. We observed that this system generated student interest. Distance learning through mail exchange by mobile phone raises motivation, and will soon become an effective learning tool.