Advanced mobile communication and media devices and applications in the base of higher education

Abstract

The incorporation of mobile devices and social media content into everyday life has radically changed the acquisition of information, reading, and learning mechanisms. As a consequence, a part of the users today form a demand for rapid acquisition of knowledge. It is now well known that users find information no longer only in printed, but in online sources and libraries, and search mostly on the world wide web. Today social networking sites have become a part of students' every day. Online social networking is now so deeply embedded in the lifestyles of students that it rivals television for their attention, according to a new study from Grunwald Associates LLC conducted in cooperation with the National School Boards Association. These sites and services are both independent of time and space and give students access to information as well as provide opportunity to become members of virtual groups. At the same time, the information boom has radically altered the teachers' roles. Teachers can no longer be a source of information, but are now meant to provide methodological assistance to students. There has never been such close links between the online collaborative working and learning environment. Both Hungarian and international practice shows many attempts and sets examples of direct or indirect use of the latest ICT-s (Information and Communication Technologies) in the teaching-learning processes. Due to the flexible nature of time and space management in the digital age, the “raison d'etre” of electronic and mobile learning is changing the environments and that is no longer question. The modern learning environment supported by ICT, latest mobile devices and online services is both effective and efficient. This modern communication services in addition to both traditional, narrative and verbal elements are built on new media elements where visuality and image sharing is a priority. Many foreign (Lev Manovich) and Hungarian (Sándor Forgó) empirical analysis deal with this issue. The new type of teaching-learning can addressed as connectivism and connective knowledge, which is adapted to 21st century man dynamic way of life. The central question to be examined in this paper is the use of advanced mobile communication services and applications (social media sites, virtual worlds, video sharing sites) in the base of higher education.