IS STUDENTS' PERFORMANCE IN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS RELATED POSITIVELY WITH THE USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY AND MOBILE LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM?

The use of technology in the classroom and its integration into the curriculum in the form of Information and Communication Technologies has had a major impact on schools and the education system as a whole. It has yet to be shown by longitudinal studies over time that the use of technology and computers in the classroom has had a major impact on academic performance. One of these studies, Sigales, Monimo and Badia's (1) research on the integration of the internet in Spanish schools found indicators in their research that the use of technology in the classroom was scarce and limited in the schools they investigated. Their research concluded that there were a number of points that should be worked on by the educational community: To improve teacher's skills in ICT use. Adapt and improve resources and connectivity to the internet. Revise school curriculum. Too often, discussions of the role of digital technologies for learning skate over the wide variety of differences which exist between different groups of learners. Often, 'the learner' is presented as a single, unitary figure defined solely by age; as 'children', 'teenagers', 'adults' etc. And yet, there are clearly wide differences in the ways in which different groups of children respond to, benefit from, or are excluded by specific uses of mobile digital technologies. This study focuses specifically on the use of mobile digital technologies to enable children in primary and secondary school to learn effectively. Its goal is to move beyond some of the hype and marketing rhetoric that sometimes characterises this field and to ask nuanced questions about the evidence that exists of the role of mobile digital technologies in academic achievement. Sigales, Monimo, Maneses and Badia's (1) research on the integration of the Internet and ICT in Spanish schools has been a starting point for this project. They found indicators in their research that the use of technology in the classroom was scarce and limited for the majority of teachers and students that they investigated. They also found that just introducing technology in the classroom did not guarantee pedagogical innovation.