In the mobile computing digital era has many roles in improving the quality in world of education. Because it could help and facilitate the day-to-day learning. The capabilities and characteristics of mobile computing also allows the distance learning process to be more effective and efficient and get better result. Even according to M. Mukhopadhay M., 1992 “Globalization has triggered a shift in education from to-face education conventional to more open education.
Many developed countries already implementing mobile computing technology in teaching and learning process. For example, mobile computing in developed countries is learning together in their education, or called collaborative learning, has been proven to improve test score and reduce dropouts by 22%. Mobile technology has found a way to be able to perform collaborative learning, in wich various students can discuss in the web forum to make database together, about anything based their location each other. In France, the project “Flexible Learning” has been applied to the system of education. It is reminiscent of Ivan Illich forecast early 70s on “Education without school (Deschooling Socieiy)”. Meanwhile in developing countries like Malaysia, “Problem Based Learning” with mobile learning technology or M-Learning is said still new in terms of its implementation. For Harvard Medical School project, ArcStream Solutions was hired to develop solutions based on the Palm OS mobile platform that facilitates communication between students and faculty, and which provide detailed program information. Florida State University College of Medicine is used to develop a solution ArcStream Clinical Data Collection System ( CDC ) which allows students to take and edit patient reports . But development continued in order to obtain good results for the quality of education in Indonesia .
The advantages of mobile computing:
- The use of e-books to be efficient in the learning process.
- Being less expensive because of the lack of accommodation for buildings, school supplies, and transportation.
- Academic students can be controlled by the parents.
Disadvantages of mobile computing:
- The storage capacity of mobile computing technology becomes a problem
- Depending on the sophistication of the Internet and mobile devices
- In terms of psychology, socialization or interaction of neighbor will be reduced this will result in people tend to be apathetic.
