It was clear from these results that while students are extremely competent at using the complex features their phones offer, and would like greater mobile access to institutional services such as grades and feedback, they are not keen to use these devices in a formal classroom setting. In both the 2010 and 2011 surveys the majority of students ticked a box that said they “did not want to use my mobile device in class as part of my education”, many students left additional comments stating that this could be distracting, and they didn’t think it was appropriate.

This paper explores a two year study conducted into current trends in student mobile device ownership and attitudes in a UK HE Institution. In February 2010 after the first year of our study, we reported on the finding that 99.8% of City University London students owned a mobile device, however our student body had clear ideas as to how they would like to utilise these devices for their Education.
This paper presents the findings of our 2010 and 2011 student mobile surveys. The survey results overwhelmingly indicate that even a year on from our original survey, our students still want to use their mobile devices for accessing teaching-related activities, learning content, and administrative tools. However after implementing a new wireless infrastructure at the University, based on the results from last year’s survey, the majority of students are still not positive about using their personal devices for interacting in class. The paper explores what CUL are doing to respond to the request for more access to information via mobile devices, while questioning why students are not willing to use their mobile devices in a more formal classroom setting, and examines what happened when we piloted in class use of mobile devices.