THE USE OF GSM AS A MEDIUM FOR LEARNING

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The world is fast becoming a global village and a necessary tool for the process of communication, which the telecommunication is a key element.  The recent development in the Smartphone communication in Nigeria has entirely changed the attitudes of the people. Most especially, the educated elite in our society are very much interested in adapting to new innovations that will enable then utilize their potentials better.  As such, these group of elite in the society, are now more inclined towards mobile technology in learning and other activities. (Etukudo, 2009).

            The use of Smartphone for learning is not only restricted to students. Notwithstanding, Smartphone is used for exchanging ideas, currency conversion, as calculator, as dictionary, to play games; to communicate with family members, friends and well wishers. Smartphone is now use for social networking among others.

            In most urban centers in Africa and the world at large, Smartphone is used for money transfer from one financial institution to another on behalf of their customers. The benefits of Smartphone cannot be quantified. These Smartphone handsets use to come with additional capabilities in which the owner can add more facilities to suits his or her need. for instance, these Smartphone carries mobile Bible and Quran, facilities for internet linkage such as FaceBook, Yahoo, Goggle and even use to record, save and music and videos. All these facilities make Smartphone as one of the most formidable learning tool. Phone Users can talk with one another; record some spectacular moments of life’ listen to music, install games, applications, videos, transfer data and files to other compatible devices and visit world wide web (www). These are few basic qualities of the most modern Smartphone, which makes it (Smartphone) faster and easy for learning and surfing the net for academic materials. Its impact and uses can both be positive and negative, particularly in university environment. (Ofonime, 2009).

            However, since the world is fast growing in technologies, Smartphone has continued to be a necessary tool for Communication. Development in the telecommunication industry all over the world is very rapid, as one innovation replaces another. A major breakthrough is the telephone system, which comes in either fixed wireless lines or the Smartphone communication. Smartphone handset technologies have greatly increased the efficiency of communication to the extent that the process can send and receive messages around the world and within the Space with maximum speed and efficiency (Bittner 1989).

            In the year 2001, the Nigerian communication sector took a new dimension. The Smartphone was introduced and Nigerians embraced it.  Smartphone came, as a welcome development in Nigeria, because the world is now globalized and information technology is one factor that is responsible for that. With these, Nigeria has joined the league of  nations in the track of economic prosperity associated with communication technology. According to   NCC (2012) report release by National Communication Commission indicated that about 90 million Nigerians have access to mobile phones. No doubt this is a great impetus in the tele-communication industry. 

            In that same report, the percentage of mobile telecommunication subscribers in Nigeria is over 90% and this percentage clearly shows how much the country have accepted Smartphone as a tool for communication. The Smartphone communication has no doubt impacted positively on the lives of Nigerians considering the fact that it enables effective communication not only in cities but also in rural areas.  Nigerian Smartphone subscribers can now use their mobile phones to do many things including making voice calls, sending short messages services (Texts) and other high level services like transmitting (sending) and receiving still and line images, watching live events from any part of the world (Kazoh, 2008).

            Many scholars, presenters and writers like cook (2010), O’Dell (2009) have researched and discovered that people use Smartphone to communicate business, texts and relevant information. As such even institutions of learning had identified a lot of significance of the Smartphone communication to knowledge.  Hence, they use mobile phones to browse for assignments, communicate messages like fixed class and to chat as well as make new friends.