Abilene Christian University’s two-year experiment distributing iPhones and iPod Touches to all incoming students is getting a lot of press right now. This is a topic close to my heart, as I’ve been working on a smaller-scale, but similar, experiment on my own campus. (Longtime [hah!] ProfHacker readers might remember a preliminary post about this experiment from our early days.)
I think that the jury is still out on their experiment. We can probably all agree that the PR firm’s video about the experiment is embarrassing. (The grammar queen in me smiles at the title: The hyphen in “Mobile-Learning Report” seems . . . we’ll call it anxious.) Long on buzzwords and student satisfaction, but short on actual academic examples, it’s just a bad idea all the way ’round.
We can probably also all agree that data and commentary like this is close to useless:
Students in last year’s class reported using the devices for academic purposes nearly once a day. Student approval of the project stayed fairly steady over the course of the year.
“If this didn’t have a whole lot of substance, you’d see initial positive response and then a fall-off,” said Phil Schubert, executive vice president at Abilene Christian, in an interview. “But the survey showed just the opposite. It showed a high level of positive feeling towards the experience.”
I’m simply shocked that students report being satisfied with the most popular smartphone or media device on the market. What will the studies show next? And “nearly once a day” is hardly transformative–in fact, it’s a little pathetic–especially given the example cited in the Chronicle article, of a student looking up information quickly on Wikipedia during class.
Having said that, the university’s website is considerably more interesting, as they’ve identified several faculty-led research projects that may well yield useful results.
So, a query, ProfHacker readers: What would convince you that your university should hand out iPhones/iPod Touches/[politically-correct open-source wireless handheld device of your choice] to all students? What evidence would you like to see? Assume, for the sake of argument, that cost to the university is manageable.
To be totally above-board about this: Right now I’m teaching two sections of the same course: same texts, same syllabus, similar students, but with one section having iPods and the other not. And, in general, I think handheld wireless-networked computers ought to be a powerful device in education. Skeptics, though: What would win you over?
Image by flickr user Johan Larsson / CC licensed
Comments
1. Beth Kuebler-Wolf - October 15, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I'm not against the idea at all...just not sure how exactly I would use mobile devices in class from a pedagaogical point of view, or what it would give students that a laptop in a wireless equipped wouldn't. I was at an 'executive briefing' last summer where the [big computer company] salespeople talked a lot about how much students LURVED using their mobile devices in class but didn't give any real examples of how they were used. Also they spent a lot of time insisting that students are already using their mobile devices in all sorts of sophisticated ways, but in the real world I don't find that students in general (with a few geeky exceptions of course) are particularly tech savvy- if you exclude the skills of being able to text quickly and play Halo or whatever. But again, not against the idea, just not sure of how I would implement it in my classroom or if the effort/reward ratio would work out in my favor.
2. Julie Meloni - October 15, 2009 at 11:30 pm
In my prof/tech writing course during summer session, a group of students did a project in which they were pitching a WSU version of the ACU program. What they focused on were organizational/management things--scheduling, registration, aggregated course reminders, centralized systems along those lines. They also emphasized the desire to work with dictionaries and encyclopedias during class, and ways profs could use apps to take the place of clicker-type functionality. What I see is the desire to streamline and leverage tools -- sure, they can bring a laptop but if they have a phone that does everything, that's 7 pounds they don't have to carry around. I think students are a heck of a lot more phone-savvy than they are computer-savvy -- and there's a big difference b/t the two. I don't like saying tech-savvy, really, because technologies and their various literacies are so different.
3. Knitting Clio - October 16, 2009 at 07:38 am
If someone would give me a device to try out I would certainly consider using it. Whom do I contact on our campus?
4. Robert Wolff - October 16, 2009 at 01:26 pm
What would it take to persuade me? Not much. I've been giving this some thought, after talking to Jason about his own experiences. Here are a couple of ways that handheld devices would improve two, very different classes of mine. In one class, I require students to conduct a professional oral history, using small Olympus digital recorders with built-in USB. But there are a lot of inconveniences here. My department couldn't afford to buy enough for everyone in the class, so we have to rotate their use. Plus I have to threaten all kinds of dire (but actually improbable) consequences if they are not returned. If everyone had an iPod touch, problems solved. In a seminar-style history class, I require all students to complete a set of common readings for a week, and frequently break the class into small groups for purposes of discussion. With handhelds, they could quickly upload their version of the key points into a wiki or some such so that I could then project the different groups' conclusions on to the larger projection screen, fostering discussion but also guaranteeing that students have "notes" from class. There are lots of other ways they could be used, but handhelds would enhance the learning experience.
5. Mary Ann Mahony - October 16, 2009 at 01:48 pm
A number of us who like technology also have concerns about student use of devices in the classroom, which ProfHacker might address (please!). First, how do we make sure that students are using the technology for our intended purpose and not for their own personal issues--for example, for surfing the net or texting their friends--which is distracting to the instructor and irritating to other students. I confess to reading Bram Stoker's Dracula in hard copy all the way through a Comp. Lit. course on Hesse decades ago, and that may be why I am particularly sensitive to my students working on other things, but I'm told that one of my colleagues actually caught a student looking at pornorgraphy on the web in class two years ago. ProfHacker's thoughts on the new technologies and discipline would be welcome.
6. Beth Kuebler-Wolf - October 16, 2009 at 02:04 pm
@Julie- I'd be interested in reading a post that discussed how mobile devices are qualitatively different from portable computers like laptops, particularly in an education context. It would be helpful --that's not a distinction I've ever thought about, truthfully.
@Robert- I can see where any device connected to the internet would facilitate that kind of interactive experience in the classroom, and yeah, those are great examples of how to actually use the technology for teaching purposes.
My concerns about adopting new technologies in the classroom center primarily around two issues: 1. the very real time investment on my part that will be devoted to learning, mastering, and managing the technology as opposed to the content it's meant to deliver and 2. whether the adoption of a technology will qualitatively improve student learning. Primarily though, it's issue #1 that is my sticking point. My main experience in this arena (and my concern) comes from having learned to teach web classes. I enjoy online teaching but at the same time find that the technological side of things can take up a great deal of time, more than the content I'm trying to deliver even. (Time I'd like to be spending on research! )
7. Jason B. Jones - October 16, 2009 at 02:10 pm
@Beth One advantage of giving everyone on campus the same device is that it should mitigate #1 a bit. It's a lot easier to manage once you can count on a certain base level of access.
8. Julie Meloni - October 16, 2009 at 02:53 pm
I swear, every time I leave a comment it results in more work for me. :) Beth, that's actually a really good idea. I'll work on that.
9. Jason B. Jones - October 16, 2009 at 04:01 pm
Look for a post on this early next week!
10. Derek - October 17, 2009 at 04:01 pm
I wonder if students using smart phones might pay more attention to what's going on the class than students using laptops. Students using laptops would have (a) larger screens and (b) an easier time running multiple applications than students using smart phones, I think. Students with smart phones might treat them more like my students treat their graphing calculators--as a tool to be used sporadically as needed, not an all-in-one entertainment device.
Smart phones also have the advantage of portability and battery life, at least in most cases.
11. Derek - October 17, 2009 at 04:08 pm
Back to Jason's question: What would it take to demonstrate the academic value of mobile learning? I would want to see evidence of improved student learning, but assessing the impact of mobile devices on student learning is a bit like assessing the impact of chalkboards on student learning--how the technology is used usually matters more than particular features of the technology. I think you would have run some carefully designed research studies on the use of mobile devices in the following ways:
1) As "super-clickers" allowing for multiple-choice as well as free-response questions during class,
2) As tools for student-to-student communication and collaboration during class (e.g. backchannel discussion),
3) As portals to the world outside of the class (e.g. Google jockeys),
4) As mobile platforms for delivering content (lecture notes, videos, texts, etc.) anywhere students happen to be, and
5) As tools for collecting and analyzing data (interviews, photos, scientific data, etc.) while out in the field.
Personally, I'm most interested in the in-class uses, #1-3 on the list above.
12. Knitting Clio - October 19, 2009 at 08:43 am
At Jason's suggestion, I contacted the head of our IT department. The cost for using the iPod touch in class is $250 per student (yikes!) So, while I'm convinced, I doubt I can persuade my chair to come up with that kind of money right now.
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