The study of mobile learning readiness in rural area: Case of North-Eastern of Thailand

Abstract

Thai government is now encouraging each rural sub-district (Tambon) to be able to gain the income from selling their One Tambon One Product (OTOP) through the ecommerce. To be able to do that, local community members should have a knowledge of e-commerce. The easiest way would be learning from a mobile phone (mobile learning). In this paper, we study the readiness of mobile learning in the rural sub-district area. We collected data from 164 participants from the OTOP seminar in the Northeastern of Thailand. From the statistical data shows that 88.4% of the Thais in rural subdistrict have smart phones that connect to an internet most of the time. Most of them use mobile phones to call, do social network and also sending pictures or videos on daily routine. Even they do not use mobile phones for learning, but 89.5% show that they are willing and intending to learn through mobile phones. The mobile learning is more flexible and can be used anytime and anywhere which is appropriate to their life style. The study of the mobile learning readiness let us know that Thais in rural sub-district should learn e-commerce content from mobile phones. The next challenge would be how to design the content for Thais in the rural sub-district.