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.

Students want more class assignments available on mobile devices

Eighty-eight percent of students say they have used a mobile device to study for a test at the last minute.

“Who completed the reading?”

It’s a question some instructors likely ask every week. If students are being honest, only 10 percent of the class would raise their hands, according to a new survey. But a majority of students believe that response would be very different if the material was available on mobile devices.

The survey, conducted by Wakefield Research and digital course materials company CourseSmart, asked 500 American college students about their dependence on devices, their opinions on eTextbooks and their views toward the rising price of a college education.…Read More

College students can’t go long without checking their smartphones, laptops

Almost every student surveyed said they owned a digital device.

The Facebook tidbits, the Twitter updates, the eMails and instant messages and Craigslist postings – they’re all so tempting. Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) student Sarah Barnes says she can ignore them for hours at a time, while many students say they can’t, even for 10 minutes.

Prying herself away from her smartphone and laptop during professors’ lectures isn’t easy, said Barnes, 20, a child development major at SNHU. When she’s not in class though, she’s on her Blackberry or laptop or iPod Touch, sending about 900 text messages every month, playing games, and checking eMail and class websites.

Nearly four in 10 college students said they could not go 10 minutes without checking one of their mobile devices, “about the same amount of time it takes to walk to class,” according to a study released last week by CourseSmart, a leading eTextbook company based in California.…Read More