Guests eager to see if ACU Mobile Learning Initiative is a success

Daniel Johnson-Kim
Editor in Chief

More than 400 people from four different continents, eight different countries and more than 30 U.S. states convened at Abilene Christian University for the ConnectEd Summit, but not everyone made the trek to West Texas for the same reason or to represent an educational institution.

In all, 146 organizations — universities, primary and secondary school districts and corporations — compose the list of attendees at ACU’s conference devoted to exploring, collaborating and discussing the growth of mobile technology and how to apply it to education.

Priya Nihalani, a graduate student studying educational psychology at the University of Texas, made the more than 200 mile drive to Abilene to see firsthand the implementation of ACU Mobile Learning Initiative — a state-of-the-art program in which the private Church of Christ university dished out more than 950 Apple iPhones or iPod touches to its incoming freshman class and a host of faculty, staff and administrators in August 2008.

Nihalani’s field of study is not focused on taking notes, while a client sits on a couch; she said her research interweaves with her work with a private company called GetYa Learn On. Nihalani said the company draws from its owners’ expertise in educational psychology, instructional technology, evaluation and assessment and software development to build applications and games for touch-screen devices like Apple’s iPhone. The applications GetYa Learn On strives to design are meant to tap into the well of touch-screen computers and cell phones' educational potential for interactivity, experimental learning and engagement.

And she said the ConnectEd Summit is the perfect place for her to explore and gather ideas and offer her insight.

“You’ve got this great technology and a lot of research shows it is not being used as well as it could be…but it looks cool,” she said jokingly.

Ken Thothero, coordinator of external and special projects at the University of Texas, said he is impressed by the portability of mobile devices, but is not sure its users are limited by the lack of creativity provided by the devices' operating capabilities that other technology has.

“What [the iPhone] is allowing students to do in the classroom you couldn’t do before,” Thothero said. “If you go out to a UT size lecture hall and say how many people have laptop, maybe four people raise their hand? But if you say how many have a cell phone, how many raise their hand then?”

“Like 100,” Nihalani said. “Probably everyone in the room.”

Tothero has witnessed and helped orchestrate successful initiatives where a university gave laptops to its students. But as for the effectiveness of ACU's Mobile Learning Initiative, and their dissemination of the hand-held Apple products, he does not know if it actually is affective in an educational environment.

"That's what I'm here to see," Tothero said. "That's what I'm going to find out tomorrow."