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.

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

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

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

Google’s $12.5B deal for Motorola Mobility shakes up the mobile market

Google's latest move could help the company's standing in the tablet market.

School technology buyers will be watching to see how Google’s $12.5 billion deal to buy Motorola’s mobile technology unit affects the market for mobile devices.

If approved by federal regulators, the deal announced Aug. 15 gives Google control over a key manufacturer of devices that run on its open-source Android operating system.

But the big prize isn’t Motorola’s lineup of cell phones and computer tablets, analysts say: It’s Motorola’s more than 17,000 patents—a crucial weapon in an intellectual arms race with Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle to gain more control over the increasingly lucrative mobile device market.…Read More

Google tablets expected to challenge iPad

Android-based tablets will make up 39 percent of the market in 2015, Gartner predicts.

Apple’s iPad will maintain tablet supremacy for the next four years, but higher education soon could see an influx of tablets that operate with Google’s operating system (OS) during the same period, according to an April 11 report from IT research company Gartner.

After changing the tablet market the way the Apple iPhone “reinvented” the smart-phone market, the iPad and its iOS—Apple’s operating system—account for almost 70 percent of media tablets, while Android-based tablets account for 20 percent of the market, according to Gartner.

Google’s Android OS, however, will see steady growth over the next four years. By 2015, Google will own 39 percent of the tablet market, compared to the iPad’s 47 percent, Gartner predicts.…Read More

Hands-on review: Motorola Xoom tablet

Just think: a mere 12 months ago, many of us were still debating whether a consumer-friendly tablet like the iPad would make any sense. Today, the iPad is a certifiable hit, a new iPad is on the way, slates from the likes of HP, LG, Samsung, and RIM are in the pipeline, and come Thursday, a formidable new player in the budding tablet market—the Android-powered Motorola Xoom—will land in stores, Yahoo! News reports. Suddenly, it’s raining tablets, a welcome development for gadget lovers. The Xoom won’t be the first Android tablet to take on the iPad, but it does bear the distinction of being the first tablet running on “Honeycomb,” Google’s new, made-for-tablets version of the Android OS. And while the previous Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Dell Streak 7 arrived with smaller, seven-inch displays, the Xoom’s roomy 10.1-inch screen invites direct comparison to the similar-sized iPad…

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