Abstract
Traditional teaching methods using a blackboard, PowerPoint presentations and resources available through the Internet still play a leading role in university education. The popularity of smartphones and the use of We-Media and other information communication technologies have introduced the possibility of new teaching methods. This new technology combined with a constant endeavor at institutions of higher education to find more efficient teaching and learning tools brings us to a new teaching mode named "smartphone+". This represents an integration of traditional teaching tools and smartphones and can be realized using currently-available smartphone-based APPs. A practical application of the smartphone+ teaching mode has been implemented using the Rain Classroom APP in a surveying course for undergraduates majoring in Geomatics at Lanzhou Jiaotong University. The experiment has shown that the Rain Classroom-based smartphone+ teaching mode is an efficient method of conveying subject matter and is a valuable supplement to traditional teaching modes. It has a number of advantages over traditional teaching methods including online quizzes and tests, real time assessments, fast interaction, before-class preview and after-class online assessments.
Highlights
Surveying is a mandatory course for undergraduates majoring in Geomatics
A practical application of the smartphone+ teaching mode has been implemented using the Rain Classroom APP in a surveying course for undergraduates majoring in Geomatics at Lanzhou Jiaotong University
The smartphone+ teaching mode has been implemented in surveying for the undergraduates majoring in Geomatics at Lanzhou Jiaotong University in China using an APP called "Rain Classroom"
Summary
Surveying is a mandatory course for undergraduates majoring in Geomatics. In some universities in China, it is a required course for the undergraduates majoring in transportation engineering, environment engineering, hydrology engineering and civil engineering (Guo, Bai, Cheng et al, 2020). (2) In the early 1990s, computers became popular, and professors began to use the Microsoft’s PowerPoint (PPT) to organize their teaching materials and deliver courses using the slides During this stage, blackboards were still used; this kind of teaching method is called "blackboard + slide" mode. (3) Starting from the middle of the 1990s, the Internet became integrated in classroom instruction at universities (Geng, 2020) During this period, PowerPoint slides and blackboards were still used in teaching leading to course delivery at this stage being called the "blackboard + slides + the Internet" mode (Li, Bai, 2020; Xie, 2020). This section will introduce WeChat before a discussion of Rain Classroom
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