Google Play, Boundless increase eTextbook options

eTextbooks can be rented from Google Play for as much as 80 percent off the purchase price

Textbook prices over the past decade have increased by more than 80 percent, and some students and faculty have begun turning to alternate, cheaper online means for their class materials.

Forty-seven percent of students recently surveyed by Educause said they wish their instructors used more eTextbooks.

A study conducted earlier this summer by Wakefield Research and CourseSmart determined that more than half of students think they would be more likely to complete required reading if it was available digitally and accessible by a mobile device.…Read More

PCs still more prevalent than tablets on college campuses

The price of tablets could be a barrier in higher education adoption.

The future in which every college student is armed with a state-of-the-art tablet computer is seemingly still a long way out.

Eight in 10 students, in a survey conducted by professional services firm Deloitte, said they owned a laptop or desktop computer, while just 18 percent owned a tablet.

The overwhelming preference for what has become traditional campus technology shouldn’t come as a shock to educational technologists, said Brent Schoenbaum, a partner in the retail practice at Deloitte.…Read More

Google Glass given to college students to explore filmmaking

Students will use Glass for documentary filmmaking, character development, and location-based storytelling.

Beauty is in the eye of the Google Glass wearer.

At least that’s what the internet search giant hopes a handful of young filmmakers will discover. Google is enlisting film students from five colleges to help it explore how its wearable computing device can be used to make movies.

The $1,500 Google Glass headset is already being used by 10,000 so-called explorers. The device resembles a pair of glasses and allows users to take pictures, shoot video, search the Internet, compose email and check schedules.…Read More

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

Why students should be more careful with ‘confidential’ apps

Mobile applications such as Snapchat and Whisper, popular among college students, have raised widespread concerns about user privacy since their creation, USA Today reports. The recent exposure of surveillance tactics by the National Security Agency raises even more questions about what privacy really means — and that college students should potentially be more careful about what they’re sharing on these “confidential” apps. A Google search for “Snapchat” leads to the app’s website and app stores, as well as a few news stories. However, click over to the “Images” tab and it’s a different story. Screenshots of supposedly private “snaps” have been uploaded to Facebook pages with titles like “Snapchat Adults Only,” “Snapchat Unseen” and “Snapchat Leaked,” which has an accompanying website.

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College requiring students to go digital

It’s handy, efficient, and, according to a local university professor, the latest trend in higher education. The Apple iPad may be coming to a classroom near you, bringing a halt to college students sharpening their pencils and stocking up on notebooks, the Shelby Star reports. Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs is the latest to jump on the iPad bandwagon, and is requiring some students to purchase the tablet by the first day of classes in August. Students studying for major or minor concentrations in communications, those enrolled in the two-year nursing program, along with second-year nursing students working toward earning bachelor of science degrees, will be required to purchase an iPad, said Dr. Bob Carey, chairman of the Department of Communication Studies. For more than a year, he and fellow educators met as a Mobile Learning Task Force at the university, studying to determine if iPads should be required for students.

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Boston University sues Apple over 1997 patent

Boston University is asking a court to stop the sales of the iPhone 5, iPad, and MacBook Air, claiming that all those products infringe on a patent filed by one of its professors back in 1997, USA Today reports. The patent covers a method of generating blue lasers in a cheap, compact fashion using gallium nitride film semiconductors. The school wants a cut of all the profits Apple has made on all those devices, plus interest, which an expert tells CNET could amount to $75 million. But don’t worry Apple junkies, the court probably won’t take those devices off the market, nor will BU really pressure it to do so; the request is pro forma, the Verge explains, included in almost all such lawsuits. And if BU seems like an unlikely litigant, you should know it has tried to enforce this same patent before, suing both Amazon and Samsung over it in just the past year.

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Survey: most Americans don’t want wearable tech like iWatch, Google Glass

Apple’s anticipated iWatch and Google Glass have provoked plenty of headlines, but a recent poll shows that a majority of well-heeled Americans with college degrees wouldn’t consider buying or wearing such devices, Macworld reports. The April telephone poll of 1011 Americans 18 and older found that only 34 percent of those polled who make $100,000 or more a year would consider buying or wearing a consumer-grade smartwatch or smart glasses. For those with a significantly smaller income, US$35,000 annually, the percentage of those interested in the technology increases to 47 percent. College graduates are also least likely to buy wearable technology, according to the survey.

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The rise of mobile technology in higher ed

Between the ever-expanding popularity of tablets and the continued rise of smartphone ownership, all evidence points to an unabated focus on the adoption of new mobile devices and innovative technologies, The Huffington Post reports. According to a study by the Online Publishers Association, smartphone owners have increased by 44 percent between 2011 and 2012 and that figure is expected to increase to 57 percent during 2013. As mobile device adoption has increased, so, too, have the number of new applications. From mobile banking to real-time entertainment, there’s seemingly no end to what Americans have come to expect from their mobile lifestyles. And, higher education is a market where mobile technology is playing an especially prominent role. Today’s digital natives are no longer confined to their desktops as the mobile revolution spreads across higher education. Florida Lynn University, for example, is requiring all freshmen enrolled in fall 2013 semester to purchase an iPad mini in order to guarantee a “truly modern college experience.” Seton Hill is providing all new, full-time students with iPads, while the Illinois Institute of Technology is providing the popular devices to all first-year undergraduates.

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1 in 5 college students use smartphones and tablets to study

Tablet usage tripled among students between 2011 and 2012.

The presence of mobile devices has exploded on college campuses over the past five years, though just 19 percent of students say they use tablets and ubiquitous smartphones for educational purposes.

Those findings and others detailing digital trends in higher education were found in a recent survey conducted by Internships.com and Millennial Branding.

The report, “The Future of Education,” found that 84 percent of student respondents said they use a computer to study, while just one in five students regularly studied on their Apple iPads, iPhones, and myriad other mobile devices.…Read More

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