Parijata Gurdayal
SUVA (The Fiji Times/Pacific Media Watch): The University of the South Pacific, which has the region's main journalism school, will soon have its own mobile network to promote the inclusive classroom concept at its Laucala Campus in Fiji.
This was revealed by the associate dean teaching and learning of the Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment, Dr Bibhya Nand Sharma, yesterday.
"Through the use of code division multiple access (CDMA) technology the plans are for USP to have its own mobile network system," said Dr Sharma.
"There will be no subscriber identity module (SIM) cards to ensure it's an internal network within the campus for educational purposes," he said.
Through an internal mobile network, students and lecturers can have a two-way communication and will greatly promote group work, he said.
"The main aim of this is to encourage more discussion between the lecturers and the students and with this service being free the students won't hesitate to have as much discussion as they like," said Dr Sharma.
"There are six phrases of development that we are looking at and at present we have already started with the Short Message Service (SMS) alerts and notification services," Dr Sharma said.
He said the university through surveys and test trials found students were more attentive when approached through mobile learning (m-learning) and as a result USP planned to further develop m-learning with the initial focus at its Laucala Campus.
"The second phase of development is to expand student services via the university's online learning management system, Moodle, and to make course databases accessible through the mobile web and use of SMS," he said.
USP also plans to conduct quiz assessments through SMS and will also allow students to access the internet using their smartphones, using USP internet quotas.
"So really these services will benefit the students and capture their attention because they are so accustomed to the use of mobile phones rather than emails as our surveys have found."
Pacific Media Watch
