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.

Jobs resigns as Apple CEO; educators ponder his ed-tech legacy

Jobs' presentations became famous as he rolled out Apple's newest mobile technology.

Though Steve Jobs wasn’t at Apple’s helm during the twelve years the company established itself as the leader in educational technology in the 1980s and 90s, it was his vision that brought computing into the education mainstream, ed-tech leaders say.

“For those of us who began our careers in education in the mid-70s, Steve Jobs, along with Steve Wozniak, brought to life the first glimpses of what would become educational technology,” said Jim Hirsch, associate superintendent for academic and technology services at the Plano, Texas, Independent School District. “From the first Apple IIs that came with 4K of memory and stored programs on cassette tapes, the promise of what could be illuminated the glimmer of our teachers’ imagination.”

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College IT officials: Show us the money … please

Funding topped the list of IT officials' concerns as college budgets stagnate.
Funding topped the list of IT officials' concerns as college budgets stagnate.

Technology funding in higher education will remain flat or decrease for the “foreseeable future,” according to an annual education technology report released June 10, as campus IT officials said funding was their top concern over the past year.

The survey of 424 campus technology decision makers shows that administrative systems, computer security, teaching and learning with technology, identity and access management, and disaster recovery also were among the top 10 most pressing issues.

EDUCAUSE, a higher-education technology advocacy group, conducted the survey, which was sent to nearly 2,000 college IT officials. The survey had a 22-percent response rate, according to EDUCAUSE.…Read More

Ahead of the bell: Apple’s iPhone on T-Mobile?

The Associated Press reports that the iPhone will be available on other cell phone networks as early as this fall and will likely come first to T-Mobile USA, one analyst who follows Apple Inc. closely said June 10. In a note to investors, Shaw Wu, of Kaufman Bros., said his checks with Apple suppliers and others suggest AT&T Inc. will lose its exclusive place as the iPhone carrier no later than the first half of next year. One reason T-Mobile is a likely candidate is because the company’s wireless technology is similar to AT&T’s. Sprint and Verizon Wireless use a different wireless standard, so converting the iPhone to run on their networks would presumably involve more technical hurdles. Wu said T-Mobile also sees the iPhone as key to winning back lost customers, meaning the company will be more likely to settle for Apple’s terms…

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Next iPhone has clearer screen, video chat capability

The next iPhone comes out June 24 and will have a higher-resolution screen, longer battery life, and thinner design, as well as a camera on the front that can be used for video conferencing, reports the Associated Press. CEO Steve Jobs opened Apple Inc.’s annual conference for software developers June 7 by revealing the iPhone 4, which will cost $199 or $299 in the U.S. with a two-year AT&T contract, depending on the capacity. The iPhone 3GS, which debuted last year, will still be available, for $99. The iPhone 4 is about three-eighths of an inch thick; the previous iPhone was nearly half an inch. It is getting a camera on the front that could be used for video conferencing, in addition to a five-megapixel camera and a flash on the back. It can shoot high-definition video, catching up to some other smart phones. The display on the new iPhone remains 3.5 inches diagonally, but Jobs said it can show four times as many pixels—the individual colored dots that make up an image—as the previous screen…

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Not everyone ready for the digital textbook revolution

Nine out of 10 students said they would recommend the Kindle as a "personal reading device."
Nine out of 10 Darden School of Business students said they would recommend the Kindle as a "personal reading device," though only 2 of 10 would recommend it for class readings.

Don’t let the iPhones and BlackBerries fool you: Research and a recent pilot program that put eReaders in college students’ hands suggest that most students aren’t ready to read their textbooks electronically, despite the proliferation of internet-ready mobile devices on campuses nationwide.

In fact, 74 percent of students surveyed by the National Association of College Stores (NACS), a nonprofit trade organization representing 3,000 campus retailers, preferred printed textbooks for their college classes.

The study, released May 25, also found that more than half of college students surveyed on 19 campuses said they “were unsure about purchasing digital textbooks or would not consider buying them even if they were available.”…Read More

Higher education’s best mobile technology programs

The University of Missouri last fall required all incoming journalism students to have an iPhone or iPod Touch.
The University of Missouri last fall required all incoming journalism students to have an iPhone or iPod Touch.

With small private campuses and large research universities alike teeming with iPhones, iPod Touches, BlackBerries, and other mobile devices, a college counseling company has highlighted five institutions in particular as the best landing spots for students attached to their gadgets.

IvyWise, a New York-based counseling company that released a list of the most environmentally friendly colleges in April, recently unveiled another list to help college applicants, this time focusing on schools that leverage the power of mobile devices to store and deliver recorded lectures, syllabi, homework, tests, and a host of other information that can be accessed any time, anywhere on campus.

The list, compiled by IvyWise counselors and released May 12, includes Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pa., Stanford University, the University of Maryland’s College Park campus, Ohio State University, and the University of Missouri.…Read More

Class in 140 characters or less?

Only 14 percent of college faculty said they saw educational value in social media such as Twitter.
Only 14 percent of college faculty said they saw educational value in social media such as Twitter.

There are more than 20 million college students in America, and more than 50 percent will not graduate. The No. 1 reason contributing to student dropout rates is a lack of engagement. The billion-dollar question for our education system is: How do we motivate and stimulate students to take a more proactive role in their academic success?

An obvious starting point might be the environments in which we know today’s students are currently engaged, all day, every day—social networks. To date, a significant chasm has existed between students’ interactive, stimulating experiences with social media and the reality of their “low-tech” classrooms.

Of course, there are exceptions, but on the whole, the education system isn’t yet capitalizing on the social networking and Web 2.0 tools that keep today’s digital natives motivated. It’s time to unleash that potential.…Read More

Apple: Underage workers may have built your iPhone

That iPhone you adore may have been built by a child. Nearly a dozen underage teens were working for Apple-contracted facilities in 2009, the company has revealed, PCWorld reports. The news was posted to Apple’s web site under a section labeled “Supplier Responsibility.” The underage workers, Apple says, were at three different suppliers’ facilities. Though the specific locations aren’t disclosed, the report says inspectors visited facilities in China, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. The factories in question built iPhones, iPods, and various Apple computers. “Across the three facilities, our auditors found records of 11 workers who had been hired prior to reaching the legal age, although the workers were no longer underage or no longer in active employment at the time of our audit,” the report says. The legal age in the facilities’ countries, according to Apple’s report, is 16. The workers in question were only 15 when they were hired.

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Apple bans some apps for sex-tinged content

Apple has started banning many applications for its iPhone that feature sexually suggestive material, including photos of women in bikinis and lingerie, reports the New York Times—a move that came as an abrupt surprise to developers who had been profiting from such programs. The company’s decision to remove the applications from its App Store over the last few days indicates that it is not interested in giving up its tight control over the software available there, even as competitors like Google take a more hands-off approach. When asked about the change, Apple said it was responding to complaints from App Store users. Philip W. Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple, said in an interview that over the last few weeks a small number of developers had been submitting “an increasing number of apps containing very objectionable content. … It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.”

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Cornell students unveil iPhone app for campus library users

Students from a software engineering class at Cornell are releasing a new application Feb. 16 that will enable iPhone users to access the university library’s web site, reports the Cornell Daily Sun. “You can do catalog searches, look at your library account, check hours and maps of the libraries,” said Beth Brown ’10, who was a student in the class where the software was developed. “You can even access research databases if you want.” She added that users could text librarians with personalized questions. Computer Science 5150 is an upper-level software engineering class in which students develop programs that can be produced and used in the real world. The library regularly submits ideas to the class. Last year, it proposed an application that would give students easy access to the university’s library system when they could not get to a computer. “I consider myself a frequent library user, but I never go there,” said Prof. William Arms, who teaches Computer Science 5150. “So many people use their cell phones as computers, the library basically wants to be accessible to those people.”

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