Implementation of Mobile Solutions in Romania`s Education System

In the light of the technology development nowadays, the society and more specific, the education area is facing new challenges in meeting the learners’ demands. The continuously changing expectations and the ubiquity of the mobile devices in everyday life has led to the apparition of a new modern learning method, the m-learning, whose theoretical approaches will be further analysed, followed by an examination of the advantages and disadvantages for the mobile learners. This paper also investigates the implementation status of mobile solutions on the Romania`s education systems.


Introduction
The rapid growth of the telecommunication`s domain in the last 30 years had a great influence on the education area as well. In the recent period several alternative learning methods have arisen. In most of the countries, the technological development had a huge impact in the educational area. The learning process for students at any age has been eased by assimilation of the IT resources. Devices such as laptops, mobile phones or tablets become nowadays widely used technologies in education through the education oriented applications. Considering the massive coverage of the smartphones market (every third person worldwide owns a smartphone summing a total of 2.71 billion smartphone users, while 52.2% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones) [1], many educational institutions adapted their offering by providing new learning methods in their continuous effort of reaching the learners through their mobile devices [2]. The notion of mobile learning is widely used for a whole series of activities such as live lectures, broadcasts, learning materials, applications, registered presentations and others, all of these created with the purpose of offering learning content to the end-users, through life-streaming or offline via their mobile devices. The conventional type of education is now supplemented by alternative methods of learning. The main purpose of the e-learning and therefore of the m-learning is to transform the learning experience into an attractive, efficient and accessible one for all sort of students [3].

Educational Systems and Mobile Solutions 2.1 Educational Systems and E-Learning
Education represents the process of sharing wisdom, knowledge and skill from one generation to another [4]. Beside many other meaningful senses, the education can be considered the core investment in the human capital. In the literature the main types of education are often characterized as it follows: [5] a) Formal education organized/institutionalized education model, according to a given set of rules, with rigid curriculum and three parties: teacher, students and institution b) Informal educationlearning model encountered in the everyday life, through different informal channels c) Non-formal educationeducative process with a more flexible curriculum and methodology, outside the institutions or schools (e.g. distance education or alternative learning systems). In the present the most conventional types of education are not entirely suitable in terms of the technological progress and society demands. The development of the information technologies and devices registered a rapid 1 progress in educational field, which opened the field for a more adaptable education methodthe notion of e-learning [6]. The e-learning can be defined as a form of formal or non-formal education with established learning objectives, where the interaction between the actors is facilitated by the information and communication technology [7]. The e-learning is the most spread form of long-distance education, its evolution being in connected with the progress of information technology [8]. The e-learning concept was introduced in 1998 by Jay Cross, the founder of Internet Time Group and it soon become extremely popular [9]. The e-learning can be defined as an innovative method of providing education, training and instruction through electronic devices. An e-learning system is a planned training-learning experience, organized by an institution which provides educational resources on an electronic environment, in a logical order, in order to be assimilated by the learners in their own manner without any group constraints [10]. The components of e-learning could be defined as [11]: 1. multi-way communication amongst learners and between learners and experts; 2. hypertextual rather than linear presentation of material; 3. integrated access to resources both inside and outside the learning package; 4. multimedia forms of interaction and presentation of material. Nowadays the educational practice implements complementary methods of teaching-learning-evaluation, specific to the information society. In the last fifteen years, the e-learning became a viable alternative to the traditional education practices, being embraced by several educational institutions [9]. A successful example of e-learning implemented into an educational institution is UOC from Barcelona (Open University of Catalonia), representing a virtual university with a large academic community of over 55,000 students [12].

Mobile-Learning
The mobile-learning (m-learning or the usage of mobile solutions in the learning process) is a natural prolongation, a part of the wider elearning concept; the main difference is the higher availability and accessibility that can be reached by using the m-learning environment. It can be considered as a great factor of influence to the quality of education among the entire educational community (learners, trainers and other members) [13]. Anyway, there are several differences between the e-learning and the m-learning as there was described by Eteokleus and Laouris in table 1 [14]: The early definitions of the mobile learning concept outlined the phenomenon as any usage of a mobile device that might support the learning [15]. There are a few scholars that provide definitions of m-learning, one of the most influential being Mike Sharples. He defined in 2004 the m-learning as a taking place outside the normal learning environment or learning using a mobile device. There are also opinions that the mobile learning includes beside the support for learning component, also the entire interactions that might happen between teachers, learners, environment, or anything related to learning [16]. Some authors consider that any educational interaction that takes place through mobile technology can be considered a mobile learning experience [17]. In a simplistic approach the m-learning can be defined as ,, ability to access educational resources, tools and materials at any time, from anywhere, using a mobile device [18].
The mobile learning has its beginnings around early 2000s and it appeared as an inherent requirement of technology development and of the mobile devices popularity [19]. A comprehensive framework of the mobile learning has been presented in the Development Fund Report from 2010 (table  2):

Mobile Solutions Used in the Educational Systems
The mobile devices and technology benefits extended from communication and Internet access to learning and teaching and can be now considered an important tool for education preferred for its flexible and personalized approach of learning [20]. Students across the world are now using their smartphones to gain access to information useful in the educational process. The mobile learning applications market size registered a growing rate of 6.25% from 2936 million $ in 2014 to 3522 million $ in 2017 and the expectancies are to reach $4579 million by 2022 [21]. Its specific feature of providing continuous customized access conducts to limited sessions of 3-5 minutes spent in mobile learning [22].

Implementation of Educational Mobile Solutions in Other Countries
There are already various m-learning solutions implemented in the educational system across the globe, with different features, depending from one country or region to another [18] [26] [27] [28].  3) that can provide all the school-related information to parents and students on curriculum, latest news, attendance, calendar and leave information [29].

Fig. 3. St. Xavier School mobile application [29]
The application also has a GPS integration of school transport. The school needed the application to provide the real-time location and a reminder to the parents before the arrival of the school bus [29]. The application has the following features:  Integrated artificial intelligence;  Smart attendance management system;  Localization system;  Online interface that can help to track the progress of the each student by integrating data analytics with the student records;  Solution for lost IDs;  Content displayed in multiple languages;

Implementation of the IT Technologies in Romania`s Education System
At European level, Romania occupies the last positions at most of the indicators analysed in the Education and Training Monitor, a report published in 2018 by the European Commission. Romania remains one of the few countries that have not yet reached any of the main 2020 targets, while the GDP allocations for education, although rising, remain below the EU average. Romania`s education system is facing the third highest rate of early school leaving (18.1% comparing to a EU average of 10.6%), low knowledge within the 15 years old children, the lowest EU rate of adult participation in the learning process and many other issues. [30].
In this context of poorly met indicators, more and more NGOs and private companies are getting involved in the development of the academic environment for students of all age. The adoption of new technologies in the Romanian educational environment is lower than in the business environment. New technologies are gradually being implemented in more and more educational units in the country through digital transformation projects with the involvement of large telecommunication and IT companies [31]. For instance, Telekom Romania, the largest local telecommunications group, together with Cisco and Webhit, has recently implemented such projects in 36 schools in Braşov, Tulcea, Constanţa, Iaşi, Brăila and Galați. Following the implementation of telepresence and interactive table solutions, over 10,000 pupils from the six counties have the opportunity to participate in interactive lessons held in other schools [31]. Mobile applications have grown a lot worldwide in the past few years, which have led to growth in mobile applications in Romania, as well lead to the emergence of different applications for all levels of education in the Romanian educational system. These mobile applications are available for all types of students, from pre-school to university. For example, for young children with age between 6-12 years old there are educational mobile applications (figure 4) for reading stories like Povesti, learning geometric shapes with Mobile Montessori Free, learning to make puzzles with Kids Education Puzzle, learning animals with Invatam animalele [32], and many others like EduPlus, Pengu Plus [33], etc. Also, for high school students there are different available mobile applications(figure 2) for learning like Duolingo which is an application for learning foreign languages, PhotoMath is a math application where you can just take a picture and the application can resolve your exercise, Forest is a mobile application that helps students stay away from the phone while learning and watches their progress reports, enrolment sheets and student cards. All users also benefit from the messaging module to ease their communication, can store unlimited files of any type in the app, upload photos and have access to the library and online library. The main issue is that although most of the applications discussed above are available on App Store for each type of mobile phone, the educational system of Romania is not willing to invest in them. In Romania, the share between classical and digital education in Romania is 95% classic and 5% digital while the dropout rate is 18% [37]. The Romania's education system is not yet ready to invest in IT or to promote the mobile learning application to create a performant learning environment.

Conclusion
Technological developments as the evolving mobile devices represent an expansion of the wider term of e-learning environment. This paper investigates the definitions attributed to the m-learning phenomena, its implication in the educational area and its benefits, the most important ones being the interactivity and extended availability. The review of literature highlighted the contribution of such modern learning methods to the quality of education, both in developing countries and modern societies. There are also limitation and barriers in the usage of the m-learning. The paper also provides a framework of the m-learning and examples of mobile applications used all over the world, including in Romania. Future research might allow a comparison of these methods and an adaptation to our national specific and needs. In conclusion, the education system of Romania should invest more in mobile educational applications, as they can be accessed from everywhere and they are the most interactive and constructive way to attract the students towards studies and enhance their productivity, especially given the young people increased preoccupation for technology. Mobile applications can bring crucial changes in the education environment that Romanian system can benefit of by taking the examples from other countries where the implementation of the m-learning has brought several enhancements in the quality of education and the reduced the rate of scholar abandon.