Higher Ed Needs to Get Mobile Platforms Right

Mobile platforms are important new tools in engaging college students, so it stands to reason that higher education should have a vested interest in the subject. However, many schools have it wrong, according to Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO of education technology company Rafter.

The problem is a piecemeal approach to the issue. Too often, a school creates separate apps for various departments and organizations around campus that are developed on different operating systems. The end result is a disjointed experience that students simply won’t use. In his GigaOM article, Maghsoodnia suggests schools need to an all-inclusive approach that is easy to use and captivating for students. He also understands that will not be easy.

“Professors are a notoriously stubborn group and getting them to adopt mobile platforms isn’t simple,” he wrote. “Plenty of training, education, and practice are necessary. It’s also not cheap. And then there’s the daunting challenge of trying to keep 18- to 21-year-olds engaged for more than a few minutes.”

However, mobile apps also create opportunities to engage with students, who are often already on campus and looking online for easy ways to access information. They’re also more than willing to move on when they don’t or can’t find it.

The Pros of Mobile Learning

The web site Edudemic has been making its case for mobile learning for the last couple of months. The site started by pointing to a survey which found that 45% of students use their smartphones for learning, and then provided 10 real-world examples of schools putting the bring-your-own-technology idea to work in their classrooms.

The Edudemic argument for mobile learning continued with its four big reasons why instructors should give it a try.

First on the list is the accessibility of mobile learning content. Not only is it easy for students,  it’s also simple for teachers to update and review the content they upload. The article even provides a link to an app that allows teachers to make m-learning quizzes.

Edudemic says m-learning allows teachers to customize content to fit the needs of their students while providing an easy and time-saving way for instructors to follow a student’s progress online.

Finally, Edudemic views mobile learning as a way to give students variety when it comes to content. Online presentations, videos, discussions, and online exams are just a few of the options that are available, which should keep things interesting and fun for both students and teachers.

Abilene Christian University's Mobile Education Report Released

Abilene Christian University recently released its mobile education initiative report 2010-2011 that highlights its research projects and surveys on mobile learning on their campus.  In its fourth year of the initiative using iPads, IPhones and IPods, Abilene has attracted national attention during their Connected Open House that brought in people from many other schools.   They recently broke ground on three mobile research centers with a large grant from AT&T.  

"Our efforts are increasingly breaking down the walls of the classroom, removing barriers so teachers and students can engage more fully with and take their learning more easily into the world around them.  We're discovering that the power of mobility comes not only from the ability to access information, but also from the ability to create it, and the creative opportunities during this third year of our initiative have been staggering." says the Director of Educational Innovation Bill Rankin

According to the report, in a survey of 149 faculty members, 89% of faculty members bring mobile devices to class while 84% regularly use the devices in class and half of faculty report using the devices in every class.  Meanwhile, more than 80% of students responded that mobility device usage has improved collaboration in their academic experience, improved communication with teachers, and provided them with increased control of their learning environment.

Mobile learning and questioning the book metaphor

The current issue of EDUCAUSE Quarterly has an article of interest. The article asks why we should consider "pdf-equivalent" of the print book as the proper metaphor in creating digital course materials. Such close equivalents produce few, if any, notable improvements in student learning outcomes. The piece goes on to focus heavily on mobile pilot projects that have been going on at Abilene Christian University over the past three semesters.

The article's reported key takeaways were:

• Students have expectations for interactivity and connectedness when they use digital devices, yet these expectations are frequently unmet when using most digital textbooks, resulting in a lack of mass adoption.


• Visions of media-rich, cost-efficient educational texts available on a variety of digital devices seem frustratingly slow to solidify due to a wide range of factors, including failure to effectively exploit the pedagogical potential of mobile devices.


• Abilene Christian University and GYLO partnered to investigate student attitudes and perceptions of impact of using a mobile device app as a supplemental tool for teaching statistics.


• A series of pilot studies found a positive correlation between use of the app and perceptions of increased engagement and consequently higher grades in the course.

These findings mirror observations noted on this blog in the past, and noted in other studies. The focus and emphasis on mobile as an adoption factor in this particular study was interesting, in addition to its reinforcement of our already held beliefs as to why digital course materials fail to meet expectations on the sales side.

Phones Getting into Class, One Way or Another

During class, most college professors would prefer students refrained from even glancing at their phones. But some profs are beginning to find ways to incorporate smartphone apps into their instruction.

As this article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch describes, a faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University has created phone apps for local walking tours that take students right to the scene of the history they’re studying—Edgar Allan Poe’s haunts and Civil War sites, among others. Another VCU prof was taken aback when his students continued discussions via Twitter for two months after the course concluded.

According to the article, a VCU survey discovered 43% of students used mobile devices, not computers, as their chief means of accessing the Internet. When they need to check something online, they do it right where they are from their phone—no waiting until they get back to the dorm to fire up their laptop.

Another tidbit from the VCU survey: Almost two-thirds of VCU’s first-year students own smartphones. That percentage will almost certainly be much higher with next fall’s new freshman class.