The Development and Evaluation of a Mobile Simulation Tool for Reflective Learning

Abstract

This paper presents the development, implementation, and evaluation of a mobile simulation tool to facilitate students’ reflective thinking. Through the pedagogical underpinning of “reflection-in-action” and short messages services (SMS) of cellular phones, the study explored the use of a mobile device as a learning tool to enhance novice learners’ knowledge construct and sharing on the problem-solving of the Linux Fedora installation. The learning difficulties of novices and the challenges involved in the development of the system will be duly described. Based on self-reports and questionnaires, the students’feedbacks are investigated and examined. The results revealed that learners show positive attitudes toward using the mobile learning device to enhance IT learning. Finally, for these implementations to be successful in further studies, several emerging patterns are discussed.