Open AccessSmartphone + Teaching: Delivery of an Undergraduate Surveying Course Using Rain Classroom
Author(s) -
Weifang Yang,
Yan Haowen
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1948-5476
DOI - 10.5296/ije.v12i4.18252
Subject(s) - popularity , blackboard (design pattern) , class (philosophy) , computer science , course (navigation) , the internet , teaching method , multimedia , flipped classroom , online teaching , subject matter , microteaching , mathematics education , curriculum , world wide web , engineering , psychology , pedagogy , artificial intelligence , social psychology , programming language , aerospace engineering
Traditional teaching methods using a blackboard, PowerPoint presentations and resources available through the Internet still play a leading role in university education. The popularity of smartphones and the use of We-Media and other information communication technologies have introduced the possibility of new teaching methods. This new technology combined with a constant endeavor at institutions of higher education to find more efficient teaching and learning tools brings us to a new teaching mode named "smartphone+". This represents an integration of traditional teaching tools and smartphones and can be realized using currently-available smartphone-based APPs. A practical application of the smartphone+ teaching mode has been implemented using the Rain Classroom APP in a surveying course for undergraduates majoring in Geomatics at Lanzhou Jiaotong University. The experiment has shown that the Rain Classroom-based smartphone+ teaching mode is an efficient method of conveying subject matter and is a valuable supplement to traditional teaching modes. It has a number of advantages over traditional teaching methods including online quizzes and tests, real time assessments, fast interaction, before-class preview and after-class online assessments.