The utilisation of a Mobile Phone Forum on the Winksite application in the teaching and learning of History: a case study of Pre-service Teachers at Makerere University

Abstract

The teaching and learning process is becoming a big challenge at Higher Education Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is mainly due to the constraints created by the liberalisation of university education and the implied surge in student numbers. In the area of History education particularly, the challenge of large student numbers has forced lecturers to predominantly use behaviourist teaching methods such as lecture and recitation. These methods are characterised by constrained dialogical conversations between lecturers and students, memorising of History facts, dates and limit students' capacity to think historically, which in turn compromises the quality of learning about the past. This article argues for the use of Mobile phone forums as lenses from the present that afford dialogical construction of meanings about the past. A qualitative approach with a case study design was used limited to pre-service teachers (students) at the Makerere University, Uganda. A Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data obtained from the students' engagement on the Mobile phone forum by means of the winksite application. The key research findings demonstrated that mobile phone forums enhance interactions between lecturers-students, students-students as a helpful precondition for collaborative learning and reflection about the human past. Conclusions was drawn with a recommendation for History educators to embrace mobile phone forums as a sustainable innovation at the African higher educational context with a potential to enhance dialogical conversations between the past the present and the anticipated future.

Modelling the Influencing Factors on Mobile Learning Tools

“…However, every factor in the impact model has very similar correlation values and they all are closed to one. Results of this study align with related results in previous studies immerged significance for ease of use in ML tools such as ease of use for operating steps in educational mobile apps (Gan & Balakrishnan, 2016), simple navigation (Seraj & Wong, 2014), easiness in electronic ML application (Hyman, Moser, & Segala, 2014), ease of use in mobile forums (Sebbowa & Muyinda, 2018), and easiness in message-based language learning (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi, 2013). But other factors remaining in the impact model also can be considered as very effective for ML tools integration in ML.…”

“…User expectations depend on the level of ease of use in MLAs and the ease of use factor should be integrated into MLA for satisfied user expectations (Hyman, Moser, & Segala, 2014). Collaborative ML tools with their ease of use nature in guiding learner's success have a great recommendation for teachers (Sebbowa & Muyinda, 2018). To be a most successful learning mode MLA need to facilitate learners to carry on studies enthusiasm with ease of use features (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi, 2013).…”

A Case Study of ESL Students’ Remote Speaking Class Learning Experiences in a Canada University During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The typologies of interactions, namely student-student, studentteacher, student-content, teacher-content, content-content, teacher-teacher interactions, serve as the basis of the instructional process of online learning. Within this learning community, teachers organize and initiate cooperative activities, promote dialogues among learners, and provide learning guidance (Cohen & Holstein, 2018;Esteves et al, 2011;Minocha et al, 2011;Moradi et al, 2018;Sebbowa & Muyinda, 2018;Wei, 2014), thus engaging community members in the meaningful learning process and accomplishing academic goals.…”

Teaching History in Ways C21st Students Learn – A Design-Based Research Perspective

“…Subsequently, Sebbowa and Muyinda (2018) found that, mobile phone technologies enhance interactions between lecturers and students, students and students and provide a helpful precondition for collaborative learning and reflection about the human past. Consistently, Miguel-Rerilla, Martinaz-Ferreira and Agusti (2020) carried out a study aimed at examining whether the TPACK model, and specifically a version based on 21st century competences, is a coherent and useful assessment tool for analyzing the acquisition of digital competence in social studies prior teacher training.…”

“…However, the current state of History education around the world, particularly in Africa, consistently indicate a predominant use of traditional methods of instructional approaches (Barbosa, 2018: Rifin, Awang, Ahmad & Dahalan, 2019. This is reflected in narrations, constrained dialogue between students and educators, wide-content coverage drawn primarily from textbooks and focused on passing examinations (Sebbowa & Muyinda, 2018;Bentrovato & Wassermann, 2018). History education is continuously threatened, as it does not always relate to the C21 st (21 st century) students, who often find learning history pointless with limited importance to the present day job skills and demands.…”