Does mobile technology really click in the classroom?

                                                                                               More and                                                                                                                                      more educators nationwide are accepting and even                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        encouraging the use of portable electronic devices in classrooms.

 Wander into any large lecture at Vanderbilt, and you'll be surrounded by the bright screens of tablets, smartphones and laptops. Wander into an online app store, and you can download clicker software instead of paying fifty dollars for a tangible clicker.    

Dr. Derek Bruff, director at the Center for Teaching and a senior lecturer in Vanderbilt's math department, estimates that this shift, nicknamed the Bring Your Own Device movement, really began to take off three to four years ago.  

Before that, he said, “you couldn't teach this way because only around 50 percent of students even had things like smartphones.”

So Vanderbilt students can expect to use iPhones in class all the time now, right? Not so fast. Here, the BYOD movement is not as pronounced, because many professors are concerned about the distraction potential of mobile devices, according to Bruff.  

Freshman Andrew Wilkison, when asked if his professors allowed students to use mobile devices in class, shook his head, saying, “Generally speaking, no — except maybe to check the time or take notes.”

On the other hand, some professors have found mobile apps helpful as interactive tools.  

Freshman Disa Yu said that her Chinese professor showed students a convenient dictionary program for the iPad and iPhone on which one can look up a word by drawing the Chinese character using the touch screen; the program finds the word’s definition instantly.

"We can use it whenever we want to, and it's really cool!" Yu said.  

The fact that other professors here are still reserved about mobile technology use is not necessarily a bad thing, though.

Bruff points out that many instructors elsewhere miss the point of BYOD because while they have implemented it, they have done so only for the purpose of content delivery or note-taking, which does not push students to stay interested and to participate.  

So, are more educators realizing the full potential of the BYOD movement?

“No, I don't think so," Bruff said, adding that at least the idea of the traditional, straightforward lecture is rapidly losing ground to that of actively engaging students, which he finds encouraging.  

One unique method he has witnessed is the use of clickers in history, philosophy and english courses to answer multiple-choice questions- ones without wrong answer choices but instead with choices reflecting what and how students think about an abstract topic. Then, students can discuss why different individuals in the class chose specific answers.

Of course, BYOD has its drawbacks. The distraction factor mentioned earlier is a key problem.  There comes a point in most lectures when checking Facebook is torturously tempting, and this action could distract not just the culprit but also his classmates.  

Another issue is what Dr. Bruff calls a “digital divide,” which occurs because not everyone has or can afford to have a Smartphone or tablet.  

All things considered, will this trend expand and last?  

“It would be a shame for it not to last somehow," Dr. Bruff said, adding that for professors to truly be able to enrich the classroom learning experience using these devices, “It does take some creativity. It really does.”