Academics' Perspectives on the Challenges and Opportunities for Student-Generated Mobile Content in Malaysia

Abstract

In Malaysian universities, there is a scarcity of local content to support student learning. Mobile content is predominantly supplied by the United States and the United Kingdom. This research aims to understand the situation from the academic perspective, particularly in the field of local cultural studies. Student-generated multimedia is presented as a solution to the critical lack of local content whilst also providing an innovative learning approach to better engage students. Academics were exposed to the concepts of mobile learning and student-generated content by allowing their students to create multimedia for assignments using mobile devices. Before and after, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the academics. The main themes that emerged in Stage 1 were challenges, while Stage 2 successfully demonstrated student-generated content activity. Technical challenges were overcome and students encouraged to use their own mobile devices, although a minority of academics thought that having a standardised device would be better.