Mobile Learning in the 21st century higher education classroom: Readiness experiences and challenges

Abstract

The University of the West Indies (UWI) has signalled its intention to use ICTs to fuel growth in its competitiveness and improvement in the quality and effectiveness of its delivery of higher education services to a wider audience. The university's Strategic Plan 2012-2017 spells out the path to this development and the priorities to achieve its vision. In an effort to be proactive in fulfilling the university's strategic objectives, the UWI School of Education, St. Augustine (UWISOESA) initiated the use of mobile learning technologies via a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiative with some of its students in the Bachelor of Education programme. The mobile technologies literature reports many issues that can impede their effective use during teaching and learning. These issues include the degree of readiness for implementation, safety, security, connectivity, and communication. This paper reports on a study done to determine how students involved in the BYOD initiative experienced the initiative at the UWISOESA. It reports on students' perceptions of the degree of readiness of UWISOESA for BYOD; their experiences and challenges; and how to improve the initiative. The study has implications for regional policy formulation.