Construction and Evaluation of Digital Material Distribution Systems in Foreign Language Teaching

摘要

This paper is concerned with an evaluation of participants' use of two multimedia distribution systems: PC-based podcasting and mobile-based distribution. We carried out two experiments: (ⅰ) evaluation of user's impressions when using these distribution systems and (ⅱ) the relationship between download time and resulting frustration felt by users. The results of student questionnaires revealed that there is a statistical significance between these two systems and that mobile-based podcasting was observed to have more salient factors concerning operability, such as "easy to operate" and "friendliness," regardless of the difficulty of the content. Moreover, comparative study of the download time between the two systems showed that users did not feel less comfortable when downloading materials to mobile devices, even though mobiles took longer times to download materials than did a PC. These results lead us to the interesting idea that mobile devices have great potential to change the learning environment because they will play an important role in the so-called "blended instruction" classroom environment when used in a traditional classroom setting in the near future.