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Higher education is all about imagination and sharing. This is the nucleus of education we can impart into youth. High-quality and relevant higher education is able to train learners with the knowledge, skills, and integrated transferable competencies they need to succeed after higher education, with a skyscraping quality of learning environment which recognizes and supports excellent teaching. The European Commission supports EU countries and higher education institutions in modernizing education programs to provide graduates with high-level, employable skills, as well as the market. The new digital technologies have infused economy markets, politics, our workplaces, the ways we communicate with each other, our home activities, as well as operation of all levels of education from kindergarten to doctoral studies. The new technologies challenge higher education institutions worldwide to redefine their student constituencies, their partners, and competitors and to redesign their research infrastructures and teaching practices. The development of innovation and technology in higher education to meet the world’s rapidly changing needs emerged as the main focus of higher education.

There is a desperate need for flexible, innovative learning approaches and delivery methods to improve quality and relevance while expanding student numbers. Millions of student that give up school every year are heading toward individual crisis, by restricting their personal ability to get ahead in their careers; their experiences writ large have the potential to impact the economy as a whole. In this regard, technology can be an excellent alternative for making pedagogy more relevant to the lives of students and reaching those dropouts who want to go back and continue the further education that they previously abandoned. Technology offers unprecedented opportunities to improve quality, access, and equity in education and training. It is a key lever for more effective learning and to reducing barriers to education, in particular social barriers. Individuals can learn anywhere, at any time, following flexible and individualized pathways. New ways of learning, characterized by personalization, engagement, use of digital media, collaboration, and bottom-up practices, where the learner or trainer is a creator of learning content are emerging, facilitated by the exponential growth in OER available via the Internet.

The expectations of students and the demands of the education community are changing radically in the twenty-first century. Necessarily, the role of the teacher is changing along with those. At present, more and more introduction of technological tools has renovated the way teachers deliver instructions to students. Teachers promote “safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology,” promote manners, and work to foster a global perspective in students. According to the latest data of Speak Up Survey from Project Tomorrow, Evans (2014, Speak Up Research Project, speakup@tomorrow.org) revealed three major trends: video for homework is on the rise; mobile computing is “beyond the tipping point”; and most kids don’t use traditional computers to connect to the Internet at home. Students overwhelmingly have access to personal mobile devices. For Evans, this was an interesting set of statistics showing the ways students generally connect to the Internet when at home. According to the study, 64 % of students enabled 3G or 4G devices as their primary means of connecting to the Internet, with another 23 % stating that they connected through an Internet-enabled TV or Wii console. Video is another tool that has been on the rise in recent years. While her presentation focused on students, Evans noted that 46 % of teachers are using video in the classroom.

Nowadays, students are leveraging mobile devices both to be more efficient in their day-to-day tasks and to transform their own learning processes. Majority of students are using mobile devices for anytime research, some for educational games and collaboration with their peers. The students also use mobile devices for reminders and alerts related to their academic lives, taking photos of their assignments, and in-class polling. Surprisingly, they use mobile devices to text questions to their instructors while in the classroom. We witness that they use video, social media, and cell phones for communications; they use e-readers for reading texts and articles; they write, take notes, and do research on laptops. Tablets are also the preference device for completing many of the academic tasks for students.

In this epoch of social media, our networks are bigger than ever as we have many ways to stay connected. The sphere of communication has expanded significantly. The perception of the social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are not good as schoolteachers believe these are platforms for time wasted in meaningless conversations, but there are many ways in which schools and teachers can harness the power of these free resources to improve communications and hence improve overall effectiveness. It is trustworthy that the explosion of so many tools, it isn’t astonishing students are designing “best-fit” solutions for their very specific needs. Rather than using one or even a few ventures for various tasks, students are increasingly savvy about taking advantage of the tools available. But students are more focused on using the right tool for the task at hand,” and many times, mobile phones seem to fit.

In this section, we have a variety of approaches to enhancement of teaching and learning with digital devices. Out of all digital learning devices, a mobile phone has more possibility for easy and effective learning. Mobile technology has a potential to access education for all. Empirical studies, chronological evolution of technological learning devices, graphical presentation of technological evolution, mapping case studies, and emerging trends with technology have made this section more relevant. Recommendations of emerging technology like SmartLab are an imperative approach that may accomplish the future expectations of higher education. These various approaches must be a landmark for educators, learners, administrators, as well as policymakers.

Chapter 53, “Advanced Image Retrieval Technology in Future Mobile Teaching and Learning” by Wang and Aimee Zhang has introduced an emerging concept in advanced retrieval technology in mobile teaching and learning. The image retrieval technology can improve learning efficiency, improve memory by providing similar learning contents, and engage students in learning. In this chapter, an effort is made to exhibit the operations and functioning process of retrieval technology. And also illustrated is an image retrieval system based on the bag-of-features model. They suggested that various advance features of mobile phones support learning in various disciplines, i.e., content-based image retrieval has been used in outdoor ecology learning, MedSearch Mobile is one of the good examples in medical teaching and training. At the end of the chapter, authors have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of image retrieval technology in education. The study has recommended that the advance of image retrieval technology will not only expand the scope of its applications to mobile teaching and learning but also help to boost the quality of these applications to a new level.

Dr. Cardoso, Coimbra, and Dr. Mateus have examined the importance of three-dimensional contents by Chap. 54, “Augmented Reality and 3D Technologies: Mapping Case Studies in Education”. They have enumerated the evolution of 3D technology, particularly in the application of AR and 3D contents to teaching, and presented a synthesis of practical cases. This study has also presented a chronological perspective of technological evolution of equipment and software, which currently translated into unique conditions for the effective implementation of three-dimensional technologies supported by AR and ICT in the field of education. For justifying their work, they have given related studies and applications from the last 20 years. This chronological-historical mapping has suggested that AR, as well as mobile learning, is a breeding ground for education. Study recommended that this technology will be beneficial for mathematics in higher education.

Chapter 55, “Expectations from Future Technologies and E-Learning in Higher Education in Albania” by Nikaj has expressed some developments and characteristics of digital changes into the Albanian Higher Education today and intended a better future for Albanian students in the framework of this perspective. The study was based on the survey of a group of students from Faculties, Economics, and Education. This study has revealed that there is amazing growth of ICT users in Albania. It also concerned some future challenges for Albanian Higher Education, i.e., institutional autonomy and good governance of Higher Education institutions; the curriculum reformation in accordance with strategy of Higher Education and national priority; assuring quality assurance and a fair accreditation system as a guarantee to the service rendered to the society; integration of the teaching process via scientific research; preparing the conditions for lifelong learning; increasing student mobility and participation; and providing the higher education system a better dimension through new technology and e-learning.

Chapter 56, “How Irish Postgraduate Students Use Mobile Devices to Access Learning Resources” by Marcus-Quinn and Cleary is an endeavor to explore the background of m-learning, focus on its advantages and potential disadvantages, its use in online and distance courses, and its use with a VLE. In the review of literature; authors examined the advantages and disadvantages of m-learning, discussed its use in online and distance education, and explored m-learning in the context of a university VLE. The objective of this chapter was to explore how postgraduate students are taking technical communication courses through a mix of on-campus and distance delivery modes exploiting mobile technologies in their learning. The results of this study indicated that there is a gap between students using mobile devices and instructors requiring students to use mobile devices. It suggested if instructors are more aware of the devices and mobile applications that students are currently using to engage in mobile learning, then perhaps mobile learning could be exploited to a greater degree.

Kayode, Alabi, Sofoluwe, and Oduwaiye explained the concept of mobile teaching and learning and features and benefits of mobile learning in the university system in Chap. 61, “Implementation of Mobile Teaching and Learning in University Education in Nigeria: Issues and Challenges”. Further, they discussed the issues and challenges toward a successful implementation of mobile teaching and learning in universities in Nigeria. Some recommendations were also focused on issues and challenges which include the training of both the students and the academic staffs on the benefits of some of the networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. to enhance teaching and learning in higher education.

Kshama Pandey in Chap. 58, “M-Learning: Visible Approach for Invisible World” made an effort to reveal the neglected Indian population deprived from education. The people are as abandoned as they are invisible to the mainstream. She has discussed the educational status of higher education. Even though India has achieved almost 100 % access to school for its children at the primary level, still it has a high 40 % dropout rate at the elementary level, according to a new study released here in 2014. These students belong to jobless population, but majority of them access mobile phones. The chapter suggested how m-learning could be beneficial to enhancement of their education as well as survival. The chapter also suggested how these people can access education and improve their well-being and quality of life.

Chapter 57, “M-Learning and U-Learning Environments to Enhance EFL Communicative Competence” has expressed the work of EFL learners at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Mobile and wireless technologies have produced new ways of interacting with the world, away from the limitations of desktop computers. Authors Soraya García-Sánchez and Carmen Luján-García have suggested an innovative approach to enhance learning with the combination of technology. If m-learning and u-learning approaches are intertwined, the skills of a foreign language can be positively enhanced. The outcomes revealed that the communicative competence and the foreign language skills have been improved by using the appropriate technology, content, and tasks that were especially adapted to today’s digital students.

In Chap. 60, “Mobile Technologies and Learning: Expectations, Myths, and Reality,” Lina Petrakieva discussed the myths and real expectations of mobile learning. Now technology is increasing as the rate of new learners. With the ubiquitous access to mobile devices now, most institutions are also keen to implement a BYOD (bring your own device) strategy, as this is usually seen as a very cost-effective way to reduce the money spent on technology. Most of the universities and colleges have included the notion of creating digitally literate graduates in their policies, mostly with emphasis on employability, but the strategy to achieve that is usually simply relying on the teaching staff to be able to do that as part of their subject teaching and not recognizing the need for specialists on digital literacy to teach both the educators and the learners. However, a lot of them are still struggling to understand and utilize the potential of true mobile learning, not just mobile access or mobile services. What is usually lacking is a proper m-learning and m-teaching strategy, with support for both educators and learners to fully benefit from m-learning. The chapter also focused on the real background of advancement of mobile technology and its practical uses and effectiveness in the teaching and learning. The author strongly advocated the paradigms of m-learning. The chapter recommended that the vigorous learning with mobile devices required a more developmental pedagogical approach from the educators’ perspective and more engagement and positive attitude from the learners.

Stoller-Schai has started Chap. 59, “Mobile Learning Beyond Tablets and Smartphones: How Mobile and Networked Devices Enable New Mobile Learning Scenarios” by presenting the decadal evolution of mobile and networked devices, which can be used to design, develop, and implement mobile learning scenarios in schools, enterprises, and public institutions such a museums and libraries. The chapter has also illustrated the paradigm shift of m-learning. In this chapter, mobile learning technology has been assumed beyond smartphones and tablets. To implement this learning possibility here, pedagogy for m-learning has been discussed. To expand learning possibilities, he has presented various concrete examples. The chapter was concluded with concrete and fruitful suggestions for future possibilities of smart learning with and beyond mobile learning.

Chapter 62, “Smart Lab Technologies” was introduced by Hu Yin. She started her chapter with the need and importance of Smart Lab for students, teachers, as well as administrators. The author suggested that this emerging concept is imperative for those students who would like to become a professional software developer; he/she needs to take enough practice within the life in University. In this chapter, we can expect vast possibilities for quality higher education. A smart laboratory will provide more types of IOT nodes and development platforms to students than any traditional network laboratories. With a certain set of communication protocols, a university could build a smart environment campus; therefore, it may need UI utilities to access and control smart devices. It was suggested that a mobile phone would be the best equipment to run UI software. Smart Lab design was also introduced in this section. Most of the applications of this Smart Lab would be developed on mobile platforms such as iOS and Android. Thereafter, benefits of Smart Lab were recommended, and lastly were discussed the prospects of a Smart Lab system in this chapter.