Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

5 of the smallest tech-savvy campuses

Small colleges have experimented for years with mobile technology.

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.…Read More

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Samsung tablet takes aim at iPad—with a pen

The stylus could be useful for those who need to draw or sketch on a tablet.

The tablet-computer market is like guerrilla warfare. One huge army—Apple—dominates the land, while a ragtag group of insurgents keeps raiding and probing, hoping to find some opening it can exploit.

With Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 10.1, the rebels have scored a small victory. It’s a tablet that does something that the iPad doesn’t do, and it does it well. This victory won’t win the war, though.

Available now in the U.S., the $499 tablet comes with a pen, or more precisely, a stylus. It doesn’t leave marks on paper, but the tablet’s screen responds to it. I found it a pleasure to use: It’s precise and responsive, and it glides easily across the screen.…Read More

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College students publish ed-tech textbook on Apple’s iBookstore

More than 600 school districts have iPad programs.

At Georgia College, educational technology could spawn more educational technology.

A group of graduate students at the Milledgeville, Ga.-based campus have used Apple’s iBookstore to publish a video-and-image-laden eTextbook filled with information and advice for educators hoping to better incorporate technology in their everyday classroom lessons.

The eBook, “Using Technology in Education,” is a student-created textbook available for the iPad and available for free in the iBookstore, which was introduced in January to much adulation from campus technologists.…Read More

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College only has eyes for iPads

Regis joins the ranks of schools using the iPad.

All students and faculty at Regis College in Weston, Mass., will get iPads when the fall semester begins, the latest in a growing number of educational institutions to take the digital leap to tablets.

What’s more, all students at the small campus will take Apple’s popular tablet with them upon graduation. The school purchased 1,250 iPads for all full-time students and its faculty. The iPad 2 models have 16 GB and are Wi-Fi only, for a price of $380 each, and the college says it will replace each device every two years.

Read more about the iPad in higher education……Read More

Apple iPad considered ‘in’ on 2 in 3 campuses

Ninety percent of SHU faculty members use the iPad

College students are buying Apple iPads at a faster rate than they bought laptops when that technology first hit the market, although student perception of the iPad’s popularity may be skewed, according to a market analysis.

Twelve percent of college students who answered a recent survey said they owned an iPad, the Apple product widely expected to mainstream the use of tablets in higher education.

Two in three student respondents said the iPad was “in” on their campus—an indication that the tablet’s popularity among twenty-somethings is much greater than ownership. In 2010, just after the first iPads were released in stores, 11 percent of students said the tablet was “in” at their school.…Read More

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Google unveils $199 tablet, challenges Kindle Fire

The Nexus 7 will ship in mid-July starting at $199

Google on June 27 said it will sell a 7-inch, $199 tablet computer bearing its brand in a challenge to Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

The Nexus 7 is designed specifically for Google Play, the online store that sells movies, music, books, apps, and other content—the things Amazon.com Inc. also sells for its tablet computer.

Google’s announcement that it’s putting its brand on a tablet comes a week after Microsoft Corp. said the same thing. Both moves risk alienating Google’s and Microsoft’s hardware partners. Those companies, in turn, could be less inclined to work closely with Google and Microsoft.…Read More

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College students: Tablets will replace textbooks by 2017

The Apple iPad still dominates among tablet owners on campus.

Interest in computer tablets has been consistently high on college campuses since the Apple iPad hit the market in April 2010, but not until this year did tablet ownership spike in higher education.

Only 7 percent of college students surveyed in 2011 owned a computer tablet. In 2012, that number has spiked to 25 percent, and students now see their sleek new tablets as the inevitable replacement for their bulky, pricey textbooks.

Six in 10 college students – and seven in 10 high school seniors – believe tablets will replace traditional textbooks within five years, according to findings from the Pearson Foundation’s Second Annual Survey on Students and Tablets, which was made public March 14.…Read More

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Campus tour now comes with an iPad

Campus maps are included on Bradley's iPads.

When a group of prospective students arrived at Bradley University’s recreation center at 10:30 a.m. one recent morning, the basketball court was empty, the rock climbing wall was unused and the track had just one runner. One of the campus’ top selling points looked pretty unimpressive.

“I do want to show you a lot of things that go on here that aren’t going on now,” tour guide and Bradley sophomore Nathan Russell said to the three students and their parents.

And with that, he held up an iPad to show a 52-second video of the Markin Family Student Recreation Center bustling with activity, with students lined up on cardio machines and filing onto the court for “Late Night BU” activities such as concerts and ice cream socials.…Read More

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Will Amazon’s $200 tablet spark interest among schools?

The Kindle Fire only has 8 MB of storage space, but Amazon is offering users free web-based storage for any digital content they buy from the company.

Amazon’s unveiling of the Kindle Fire, a tablet computer that costs a few hundred dollars less than Apple’s iPad, sends a bright-hot message: The online retailer is ready to rival Apple in an effort to be the world’s top provider of digital content.

It might sound odd coming from a company that pioneered online sales of physical books in 1995. But since it first entered the digital market in 2006 with its video download store, Amazon has bet consumers will pay for high-quality digital content.

Besides the millions of physical items it sells, Amazon’s trove of digital content now includes more than 1 million eBooks, 100,000 movies and TV shows, and 17 million songs. This is about 1 million fewer songs than iPad maker Apple Inc. sells, but more than twice as many eBooks and many thousands more TV shows and movies.…Read More

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Apple sues Samsung, says it copied iPad

Apple has sued Samsung for allegedly copying the iPad, iPod and iPhone with its Galaxy Tab and Galaxy handsets, Computerworld reports. Samsung copied Apple technologies, designs and even packaging with its Google Android-based products, according to a complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple is seeking a jury trial in the case…

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…Read More