Assessing the Impact of Personal Mobile Device in Higher Educational Enviroment: The case of Sol Plaatjie University

Portable Mobile Device(PMD‘s) have the potential to elevate higher educational institutions(HEI), by the way in which students and lectures communicate using these devices thus presenting the students with perceptions of learning using these devices and also taking advantage of other platforms of social media for collaboration and self-directed learning. According to research studies on social media for learning, it has been found that new opportunities are created for innovative ideas and at the same time generating students of 21st Century. The emergence on the use of social platforms encourages active interaction of internet usage amongst students. However, opportunities for online networking and communities to facilitate multi-directional communication and knowledge exchange are offered by social media. Theories of social learning informs the design of participatory social interaction to support learning. In addition, the collection of data for this study was intended to be done through student focus group interviews. This was however not possible due to the recent decision of changing traditional learning(face-to-face) to online learning this current academic year, although this study was intentionally done to evaluate how mobile device will benefit on-line learning. It is argued in the reviewed literature that youth of the 21st century might have a tendency to resist traditional methods of teaching and learning. The usage of social platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Slack and others allows for interaction and sharing of experiences and interests on the web and are valuable for collaborative learning through constant internet connectivity. The findings of this study will be used to guide lecturing staff at SPU to identify social networking resources and other emerging technologies for the delivery of learning content that are freely and instantaneously available to students.