Connecting school actors using mobile applications

• Autor(a) principal: Cunha, Carlos R.
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Gomes, João Pedro, Mendonça, Vítor
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/23029
• topic: Conceptual model; Mobile devices; Mobile applications; School ecosystem; Education

Communication between the different actors present in the school ecosystem is an essential issue. However, in a busy world where parents do not have much time to visit schools regularly, it is crucial to create mechanisms to better monitor student success and school demands. The current pandemic situation caused by the coronavirus has highlighted the role that technologies have in supporting the mission of schools and communication between the various school actors. The interaction between school, students and parents presents a growing and complex challenge. Technology has, in recent years, shaped the concepts of support and monitoring of learning - at school and outside it - as well as the way in which information flows between all actors in the school ecosystem. Emergently, the evolution of mobile applications, combined with the evolution of the capabilities of mobile devices, has enabled the creation of new and more effective intercommunication mechanisms, with ubiquitous approaches and in a predictable scenario of less willingness for physical interaction of the different actors. Based on these premises, this article reflects on the potential of mobile devices and their applications to support new models of intercommunication between parents or school sponsors, students and teachers. In this sense, a conceptual model is proposed that represents a work in progress that aims at creating and evaluating a prototype system capable of improving intercommunication and the overall success of the societal challenges of the school learning system.