On January 27th, 2010, a group of ACU students gathered together to watch President Barack Obama deliver the State of the Union address. Under the leadership of Dr. Mel Hailey in Political Science and Dr. Cheryl Bacon in Journalism and Mass Communication, this event was designed to go beyond just a normal viewing process. The goal for this event was to gauge student reactions to the address through the mobile device platform. With ACU in its second year of its Mobile Learning Initiative, nearly half of the students on campus have been provided with either an iPod touch or an iPhone.
Using the iPhone application, Responseware, by Turning Technologies, students were given a variety of questions related directly to the topics the President was covering. A realtime graph was then projected so students could see how their peers were responding. The data was saved to be used in class discussions in the future. ACU has deployed Responseware campus-wide as an option for faculty to formally and informally engage students in the classroom.
The power of this interactive event was that it provided students with an anonymous, yet personal way, to interact with their peers throughout the State of the Union. Students worked seamlessly with the technology throughout the address, a tribute to ACU faculty and their efforts to create environments where the mobile device platform becomes a natural way to engage in learning.
Some of the data that was collected from this event is listed below:
