Abstract
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in integrating mobile technologies into the formal system in the field of formal education and, in particular, higher education. Furthermore, due to the circumstances caused by the pandemic panorama that extended to most countries in the world in 2020, various sectors, in which education is included, were forced to reinvent and transform themselves in order to adapt to emergency remote education. What the authors propose with this chapter is to make an analysis of the state of the art on the theme of informal communication in the educational context, and particularly in higher education, with the use of the available technology, namely mobile media. Through a literature review already initiated in previous studies, it is intended to know the national and international panorama about the use of mobile applications in the context of higher education and in what way the devices traditionally conceived for informal communication are being used and adapted to a formal context.
TopBackground
Traditionally, mobile learning has been more strongly developed in the field of informal education. However, in recent years there has been a growing interest in integrating these technologies into the formal system in the field of formal education and, in particular, Higher Education.
Furthermore, due to the circumstances caused by the pandemic panorama that extended to most countries in the world in 2020, various sectors, in which education is included, were forced to reinvent and transform themselves, in order to adapt to emergency remote education.
Among other dimensions, this transformation caused an augment in the use of technological means and of the internet, having reached, in Portugal, a 3.9% increase in relation to the previous year (INE, 2020).
What we propose with this chapter is to make an analysis of the State of the Art on the theme of informal communication in the educational context, and particularly in Higher Education, with the use of the available technology, namely mobile media. Through a literature review, already initiated in previous studies (Oliveira & Almeida, 2020), it is intended to know the national and international panorama about the use of mobile applications in the context of Higher Education, and in what way the devices traditionally conceived for informal communication are being used and adapted to a formal context.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digital Communication: The most effective form of communication these days via voice or video, with the possibility of screen sharing.
mLearning: mLearning is a learning methodology supported by mobile devices.
WhatsApp: WhatsApp is an application for smartphone/iPhone for text or video communication between people, through a message exchange between two people, or through the creation of groups.
Emergency Remote Learning: The way of teaching during the years 2020 and 2021 in most countries because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Informal Communication: The communication that takes place between teacher-student; student-student and student-teacher outside the formal context of a classroom.
Systematic Literature Review: The option for this type of method was intended to provide a synthesis of the literature on the use of WhatsApp as a teaching-learning and communication tool in Higher Education.
COVID-19: A pandemic that forced/facilitated a digital transformation of education.