Smartphone In and Outside Classroom

As we have seen in the previous chapter, students see their smartphones as absolutely essential for their social, recreational and personal lives and continue to use them in school or university settings. In this sense, teachers and instructors can try to use the mobile devices with students as bridge for a “seamless learning” between formal and informal contexts, so it is possible to increase students’ motivation to learn. Many teachers can struggle to conceive of approaches that differ from traditional practices, and thus replicate methods centred on the formal, physical classroom environment so they will need training not only in order to acquire technological skills in using specific software and apps, but above all in order to build the pedagogical and methodological competencies required to design integrated and effective learning environments. To do so, many frameworks and methods are available and are based on learning theories that differ from the traditional models and it is difficult to say which theory will best underpin any given mobile learning activity. Anyhow, it may be useful to adopt theories with the highest degree of involvement such as situated cognition and experiential learning in such way that curricular knowledge can be socially constructed.