Soon after announcing plans for the mobile-learning initiative 18 months ago, faculty, administrators and technology leaders at ACU committed themselves to an empirical evaluation of the program’s impact. We envisioned how pervasive mobility would transform college classrooms and campus life and were determined to pursue and support research that would help us understand this transformation.
Now, one year after distributing devices to full-time, entering freshmen, we are able to report on a number of such projects. Ranging from surveys of student and faculty attitudes, perceptions and usage patterns to an experimental comparison of mobile device usage as a substitute for in-class lectures in a chemistry lab, these studies collectively show that:
We named five Mobile-Learning Fellows for 2008-09, each faculty member was chosen through a competitive, peer-review process. These Fellows partnered with the mobile-learning leadership team to examine a topic or issue relevant to this initiative.
What have we learned so far?
Having a device in the hands of every student in the classroom is a prerequisite to broad academic adoption. This is partly why iPhones outperform iPod touches: iPhones are more likely to be carried in and out of the classroom, and those using them report significantly higher levels of utilization and satisfaction.
Pre-class podcasts and autonomous student review of information can effectively replace laboratory-based lectures with absolutely no decrease in student performance.
The majority of students in specific courses where mobile devices have been routinely used rate themselves as having improved their academic performance (grades and organization) and engagement (active learning, contact with professors and teaching assistants, involvement and attention).
