Gippsland Medical School, Monash University, Gippsland Campus, Northways Road, Churchill, Victoria, Australia.
BMC Med Educ. 2010 Aug 11;10:57. doi: 10.1186/1472-6920-10-57.
Mobile learning (ML) is an emerging educational method with success dependent on many factors including the ML device, physical infrastructure and user characteristics. At Gippsland Medical School (GMS), students are given a laptop at the commencement of their four-year degree. We evaluated the educational impact of the ML program from students' perspectives.
Questionnaires and individual interviews explored students' experiences of ML. All students were invited to complete questionnaires. Convenience sampling was used for interviews. Quantitative data was entered to SPSS 17.0 and descriptive statistics computed. Free text comments from questionnaires and transcriptions of interviews were thematically analysed.
Fifty students completed the questionnaire (response rate 88%). Six students participated in interviews. More than half the students owned a laptop prior to commencing studies, would recommend the laptop and took the laptop to GMS daily. Modal daily use of laptops was four hours. Most frequent use was for access to the internet and email while the most frequently used applications were Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Students appreciated the laptops for several reasons. The reduced financial burden was valued. Students were largely satisfied with the laptop specifications. Design elements of teaching spaces limited functionality. Although students valued aspects of the virtual learning environment (VLE), they also made many suggestions for improvement.
Students reported many educational benefits from school provision of laptops. In particular, the quick and easy access to electronic educational resources as and when they were needed. Improved design of physical facilities would enhance laptop use together with a more logical layout of the VLE, new computer-based resources and activities promoting interaction.
移动学习（ML）是一种新兴的教育方法，其成功取决于许多因素，包括 ML 设备、物理基础设施和用户特征。在吉普斯兰医学院（GMS），学生在开始四年制学位时会获得一台笔记本电脑。我们从学生的角度评估了 ML 计划的教育影响。
问卷调查和个人访谈探讨了学生对 ML 的体验。邀请所有学生完成问卷调查。访谈采用方便抽样。将定量数据输入 SPSS 17.0 并计算描述性统计数据。对问卷的自由文本评论和访谈的转录进行主题分析。
五十名学生完成了问卷（应答率为 88%）。六名学生参加了访谈。超过一半的学生在开始学习前拥有笔记本电脑，会推荐笔记本电脑，并每天将笔记本电脑带到 GMS。笔记本电脑的日常使用时间平均为四小时。最常用的是访问互联网和电子邮件，而最常用的应用程序是 Microsoft Word 和 PowerPoint。学生出于多种原因欣赏笔记本电脑。减少经济负担受到重视。学生对笔记本电脑的规格基本满意。教学空间的设计元素限制了功能。尽管学生重视虚拟学习环境（VLE）的某些方面，但他们也提出了许多改进建议。
学生报告说，学校提供笔记本电脑为他们带来了许多教育收益。特别是，他们可以快速方便地访问所需的电子教育资源。改进物理设施的设计将增强笔记本电脑的使用，并使 VLE 的布局更合理，增加基于计算机的新资源和促进互动的活动。
