PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES OF UBIQUITOUS LEARNING IN GRADUATE EDUCATION IN NORTHERN PHILIPPINES

Abstract

This study explored the graduate school students’ experiences on ubiquitous learning with focus on eliciting from them their personal realizations, insights, challenges, and difficulties as adult learners exposed to a learning framework that is not constrained with the limits of time and space. The study utilized the descriptive phenomenological research design. Seventeen graduate school students enrolled in the doctoral programs in a University granted with autonomous status by the Commission on Higher Education in the northern part of the Philippines were involved as participants and data were gathered through a technologically mediated interview and use of Google Form. Students who had been taught using the Moodle, MS Teams, Facebook Messenger, or Edmodo learning management system platforms in the instructional delivery of their courses for at least three (3) trimesters were included as participants. The student-participants generally expressed growing excitement and interest in their new modality of learning. Students had come to terms with their role as responsible adult learners, taking responsibility of their own pace and depth of learning. Students expressed that u-learning has enhanced their learning engagement, heightened their inter-learner collaborative practice, pushed them further to hone their technological skills and had sharpened their critical problem-solving skills.