Concept of Supporting university Education by using Students' Personal devices

Thirty years ago, Internet was not widespread, twenty years ago, mobile phones were not available for everyone, ten years ago, smart devices were not present in our households. Today the situation is quite different. Nowadays students grow up surrounded by these devices, they are accustomed to them and they are fond of them. Their learning methods are quite different from the methods of the former generations. Therefore, the modernization of university teaching methods is inescapable. According to our surveys taken during the autumn of 2015, more than 95 % of university students have personal smart phone, tablet or laptop. The same survey measured that students use their mobiles for educational purposes as well, follow the homepages of subjects, take photos of the blackboard, search for information on the net etc. Our concept states that universities should use these personal mobile devices to activate students, to help the educational process. For instance giving lectures for hundreds of students always entails the difficulty of finding out whether they understand it or not - and if not, what the common problem is. The authors implemented a prototype of a web-based system which offers the students the possibility to sign the professor immediately (using their mobile devices) if they do not understand something and conversely in which the teacher may ask questions like in a voting system.