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.

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

Seton Hill scales the ed-tech integration summit

Colleges have followed Seton Hill's lead in iPad adoption.

Realizing that students today “interact with the world in radically different ways than previous generations,” Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pa., was one of the first schools in the country to give its students iPads after Apple introduced its iconic tablet computer last year.

But it was Seton Hill’s vision for transforming education through the use of technology, and its focus on staff development to achieve this goal, that led to its selection as our “eCampus of the Month” for October.

Here, Vice President for Information Technology Phil Komarny describes the university’s ed-tech vision and its keys to success.…Read More

Campus survives the ‘iPad jitters’

Two-thirds of Seton Hill faculty members say they frequently use the iPad in class.

Putting Apple iPads in the hands of every student and professor on a PC-based campus required some convincing, but a year later, Seton Hill University officials said the tablet program has changed the way classes are taught.

Seton Hill in Greensburg, Pa., a small campus of about 2,400 students, drew international attention in 2009 when officials there said every student and educator would receive an iPad just after the tablet was announced.

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

Early iPad adopter to use art application this fall

Art Authority will be used in two Seton Hill art courses this fall.
Art Authority will be used in two Seton Hill art courses this fall.

Seton Hill University, one of the first campuses to board the Apple iPad bandwagon before the device was released in April, announced Aug. 23 that its art history students will use an iPad application that allows access to more than 40,000 sculptures and paintings.

The university’s art faculty and instructors will use the iPad application known as Art Authority in the campus’s Modern Art and Italian Renaissance Art courses.

University officials said the iPad app would offer students a way to review classic and modern artworks outside of class without relying on static images in textbooks.…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

iPad App Store has wide selection of education options

Some educational iPad applications are availabe at no cost in the Apple store.
Some educational iPad applications are available at no cost in the Apple store.

Technology experts say Apple’s latest gizmo, the iPad, won’t replace students’ laptops, but a menu of applications will help teach the periodic table, a range of languages, and a host of other K-12 and higher-education subjects.

More than 300,000 iPads were sold April 3 in Apple Stores and through pre-orders, Apple announced April 5, and education technology enthusiasts finally got to experiment with the device that Apple CEO Steve Jobs describes as a “game changer.”

The iPad App Store is stocked with more than 150,000 downloadable programs, including some that might catch educators’ attention.…Read More