Chapter 1 The Potential of App Using for Interactive Smart Learning Environments
TON QUANG CUONG1*, PHAM KIM CHUNG1, and NGUYEN THI LINH YEN2
1VNU-University of Education, Hanoi, Vietnam
2VNU-University of Languages and International Studies
ABSTRACT
A “smart learning” environment requires a combination of both formal and informal learning experiences along with the involvement of immersive activities. Accordingly, contextualized learning resources can be formed instantly, including digital content, activities, and connection during the learning process. Applications (apps) developed on smartphones (or mobile devices), with their ultimate purposes, can assist the adaptive, personalized, and ubiquitous learning experience for students. However, creating algorithms for the learning process by apps remains a problem for both teachers and students. Apps can be integrated as both specific subject tools and smart learning activities for digital literacy in various education programs of higher education institutions.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
In recent years, mobile learning (M-learning) has become a popular trend in education, in general, and higher education in Vietnam, in particular. There are some viewpoints that M-learning is the developing step of E-learning. However, from the perspective of intervention and application into the learning process, M-learning can be considered as an emphasis on “mobility/instantly/ubiquitous” in adaptive and personalized learning, web app development priorities in education, and the mobile intersection of cloud computing and online education. Also, it is an open opportunity for bring your own devices (BYOD) perspective in education.
The population of Vietnam was about 97 million (April 2019), 70% of which were working age, 40% were under 25, and 24% were members of the millennial generational bracket, with 145.8 million mobile phone connection, 68.17 million Internet users, and 65 million active social users. In other words, Vietnam is large, young, and increasingly tech-savvy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in their mobile app market, which has already established itself as one of the most productive markets in Asia (https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-vietnam?rq=vietnam).
In the context of education (2020), with 22 million students across all grades and 1.5 million teachers and educators, educational managers make use of the apps in education, which promises to be a thriving application/ development field. This enforces higher education institutions to rethink their instructional leadership, management, and learning processes. Toward digital platforms for M-learning, blended and flipped learning prospective educational apps facilitate collaboration among online learning professionals, provide professional development opportunities, and advocate and educate policymakers and researchers in best practices. Educational apps are opening access to courses in higher education, providing a new learning network, and changing the status of qualified participants: teachers and students. The perspective of changes may be:
- The way of thinking about teaching and learning;
- The way of practice on teaching and learning (including the way of assessment and evaluation);
- The way of social interaction in the classroom (pre-duepost-class time) and learning environment; and
- The way of content and curriculum design and development.
Using apps in class has numerous benefits, including course content and time extensions, supporting customized, and personalized, adaptive learning opportunities, allowing struggling students to master a subject by themselves by pace, interest, and competencies, providing a rigorous, interactive learning model of data-rich and digital communication. Hence, learning using apps in learning is considered to be a new approach to the pedagogical principles, teaching/learning content, which defines the integration of digital tools and resources that now support portable, flexible, and M-learning.
1.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
When designing and developing education programs in M-learning mode, higher education institutions should take into consideration the technology solutions, digital pedagogy approaches, content knowledge, the constituents (teachers and administrators), as well as the learning environment and learner-specific factors.
There is currently a common question in educational technology (EdTech) studies: What can EdTech do, and how should it be done to advance the 21st-century learning platforms? Recent studies in Vietnam showed that digital transformation in education is a popular trend, taking place at a relatively fast pace. Within the process, there is an emphasis on one key point that it is possible to digitize teaching activities with its elements with current technologies. Educators should not only “digitize” and replace the teachers’ roles (digitalization activities in the learning process with all of its components but not replace teachers with their functional role). Besides, learning theories share one thing in common that people learn best when they are actively involved (minds-on), engaged with the learning materials and undistracted by peripheral elements, have meaningful experiences that relate to their lives, and socially interact with others in high-quality ways around new material, within a context that provides a clear learning goal (Kathy Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). Effective learning is facilitated in a flexible context that supports scaffolded exploration, questioning, and discovery as children work toward well-defined learning goals.
The relationship between some learning theories in light of technology integration have been shown in Table 1.1.
TABLE 1.1 The Relationship between Learning Theories and Technology Integration | Learning Theories | Technology Integration | Example |
| Behaviorism | Keep track of students’ effort, attitude, and behavior modification, immediacy and drill techniques | Immersive, simulation, digital environment, mobile apps |
| Constructivism | Evidence, data gathering, instant feedback, assessment | Multimedia tools, mobile apps for specific subjects |
| Experiential | Experiments, rich toolkits | Simulation, AR/VR/XR, mobile apps |
| Situated cognition | Contextual knowledge | GPS, simulation, 3D, mobile apps |
| Cognitivism | Linkage of knowledge | AI, Big data, search engine, network |
| Connectivism | Communication, portability, ubiquitous | Social media, the Internet, mobile apps |
| Multimedia learning | Processing and integrating information, digitalization | Digital tools, platform, mobile apps |
| Notes. AR = augmented reality; VR = virtual reality; XR = extended reality; GPS = Global Pos... |
