Technology and innovation isn’t the domain of sprawling campuses. eCampus News staff members have compiled a list of five small but technologically advanced campuses that have set an example of small schools looking for the best ways to use limited resources on the most effective educational technology.
Northwest Arkansas Community College (NWACC) is a public two-year college located in Bentonville, Ark. NWACC opened its doors to 1,200 students in August 1990 and now has more than 7,000 students, making it one of the largest and fastest growing two-year college in Arkansas. It serves another 7,000 students throughout the region with non-credit courses. Read about NWACC’s mobile efforts and web-based mapping of its campus.
Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., is a private, Christian liberal arts college with 1,300 undergraduate students. Westmont IT officials have implemented predictive modeling and cloud-computing programs to save money and spend budgets efficiently, becoming a model for small schools looking for ways to survive the slumping economy. Read more about the school’s money-saving technology.
Lone Star College, with more than 95,000 full-credit and continuing education students for fall 2011, is the largest and fastest-growing community college system in Texas. Lone Star College is recognized globally for its student success and innovation, with faculty grants that encourage ed-tech innovation and international programs for students among its many achievements. Here’s more on the college’s heavy use of virtualization across its campus.
Seton Hill University, which drew international attention after becoming one of the first institutions to offer its students Apple iPads, has continued it commitment to mobile technology in everyday education. Read about how Seton Hill IT decision makers have managed the mobile initiative.
Abilene Christian University (ACU), long a leading advocate for the use of web-ready mobile devices in higher education, took its tech savvy to K-12 schools, where students are becoming familiar with the ins and outs of tablets such as the Apple iPad. Students from ACU’s Teacher Education Department partnered with a local kindergarten teacher to introduce mobile devices to the class and document students’ familiarity with common mobile technology terminology such as “apps” and “upload.”
