STUDENTS want to use their smart devices to learn, but many of their teachers don't have the smarts to teach them.
A doctorate thesis by New Zealand student Kathryn MacCallum found tertiary students were very comfortable using smartphones and tablets and found them to be great learning tools.
But she says many teachers felt out of depth when adopting the technology for use in the classroom.
"There is a clear generational shift with some teachers not comfortable using mobile technology at all, while many others are comfortable using it in their personal lives but not as a teaching tool."
For her study, Ms MacCallum used questionnaires filled out by 446 undergraduate business students and 196 tertiary education teachers.
The two groups were not far apart in their skills with PCs and laptops but students were much more skilled with smartphones and tablets, not surprising as the educators "were more likely to have a low end mobile device".
She said tertiary teachers were unlikely to use them for teaching if they weren't comfortable with them as they didn't want to feel like their students knew more than them.
"There's not a lot of concrete research saying it's going to enhance anything, but from what I've seen it's more of an engagement method," she said.
"A lot of the feedback I got from students was saying 'I want to be able to do this, and I can't do it'."
She said the best thing for the tertiary teachers was to give them smart devices to get used to and give them support.
Ms MacCallum is beginning a similar study at primary school level and though she has no empirical data, anecdotally she's finding the teachers are more eager to teach using mobile devices and the children just as keen to use them.
"The technology grabs them a lot more."
