Abilene Christian University 2010-11 Mobile-Learning Report
Connecting with Woz
Apple Inc. co-founder and computer pioneer Steve Wozniak (right) shared his thoughts about the future of technology and education Feb. 28, 2011, at ACU’s Connected Summit. Dr. William Rankin (left), director of educational innovation and associate professor of English, engaged Wozniak in a wide-ranging discussion attended by more than 2,000 in Moody Coliseum. See pages 26-27 for more coverage.
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s you consider the accomplishments and activities of ACU’s faculty and students in the following pages, you’ll see the incredible diversity characterizing the third year of ACU’s mobile-learning program. Faculty are implementing new teaching methods; students are discovering, creating and applying learning in powerful new ways; and researchers are continuing to find meaningful patterns in ongoing explorations of mobility. Yet for all of this diversity, a common theme is emerging. Our efforts are increasingly breaking down the walls of the classroom, removing barriers so teachers and students can engage more fully with and take their learning more easily into the world around them. We’re discovering that the power of mobility comes not only from the ability to access information, but also from the ability to create it, and the creative opportunities during this third year of our initiative have been staggering. Perhaps nothing epitomizes this new emphasis better than the Learning Studio, which opened in early 2011. This next-generation facility, funded in part by a contribution from AT&T, offers collaborative meeting and studio spaces where students and faculty can create the high-quality media increasingly essential to higher education. Similarly, ACU’s collaboration with Cambridge University Press and Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs to explore the future of publishing is offering faculty and students the opportunity not only to explore the role that digital books will play in the future, but also to create the research and technologies to drive and enrich this emerging medium. What’s exciting is that in all of these efforts, teachers and
students are collaborating to realize the future of education. Motivated by the opportunities they’ve seen mobility bring to ACU, students from the Department of Teacher Education are likewise working to extend the tools available to educators. This year, student-teachers began integrating mobile devices into their work at area schools. As you’ll see from the story inside, these tools are changing students’ perceptions of how their classes should – and will – work in the future. And they’re gaining an advantage they’re eager to share. To that end, our first K-12 Digital Learning Institute brought faculty from across the nation to ACU to learn how mobile devices can help create a richer learning environment for primary and secondary students. Finally, this year marked our second biannual Connected Summit. We were pleased to welcome delegates from 126 schools in nine countries and to continue discovering opportunities for collaboration. One of these opportunities, led by pioneering mobile-learning researcher Dr. Cynthia Powell, engages faculty from two other colleges to understand how mobile devices can help students work more effectively and self-sufficiently. It’s a promising study, and we were pleased that it received a Next Generation Learning Challenges grant. What have we learned this year? We’ve learned that our initial vision for mobility – one focused primarily on the delivery and consumption of information – was just the beginning. A horizon of opportunities stretches before us, and we can’t wait to discover what’s next. n
Dr. William Rankin Director of Educational Innovation Associate Professor of English
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Student Experiences
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My mobile-learning experience at ACU had everything to do with me getting this job. As editor of The Optimist newspaper at ACU, I managed people, made decisions on the fly and was forced to collaborate. Combine that experience with developing the iPad app when a developer’s kit did not exist; no one had done that before. We had grand ideas and then were forced to make it happen. It’s exactly what I am doing now, but on a much bigger scale, so it has not been a hard transition.”
Colter Hettich (’10)
Design Technician The Daily, New York, N.Y.
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I did not really have to engage in a job search. USAA came looking for me, I believe partly due to the success of The Optimist application. In fact, I brought an iPad with The Optimist app to my interview. So, yes, the mobile learning experience was not just a plus in my getting hired, it was a key component.”
Rich Tanner (’10) Level 2 Software Developer USAA San Antonio, Texas
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It became clear early in my job search that ACU’s mobile-learning initiative was a conversation starter with prospective employers who always wanted to know more about it. The mobile development knowledge I gained at ACU gave me a distinct edge over other candidates when networking with these companies. My experience has definitely paid dividends.”
Brittany Kight (’11) Level 1 Software Developer Rackspace Managed Hosting San Antonio, Texas
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The ACU mobile-learning initiative has dramatically improved the connection time between my professors and me. The instant feedback and endless supply of information that is available through the technology makes learning more efficient and fun!”
Caitlyn McCoy Senior Major: Political Science Granbury, Texas
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No more boring text books or annoying pages. Mobile learning is learning made easy. Working on a mobile device actually puts the fun back in learning.”
Prentice Ashford
Sophomore, Major: Family Studies, Abilene, Texas
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My iPhone is always with me and I find myself using it often. I use it to warm up for class and once there, I use it to take in-class polls. I wouldn’t write a term paper on my iPhone but I can easily read class material and documents. So the bulky laptop stays in my dorm room while all I need for class stays in my pocket.”
Drew Boles Freshman Major: Physics Hewitt, Texas
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The iPod touch becomes a learning tool for kindergarten students with the help of ACU’s teacher education department.
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Passing the Torch ACU teacher education students team up with local schools to share mobile-learning technology
By Robin Saylor Adapted from ACU Today Magazine, Summer 2011
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obile learning is headed to kindergarten, and ACU students are paving the way for this new kid on the block. Kindergartners are no strangers to playing with Dad’s iPhone. And using mobile technology in the classroom has become second nature to ACU students since the university first began distributing iPhones to freshmen in 2008. So it was a natural partnership for teacher candidates at ACU to help a local kindergarten teacher integrate mobile learning into her classroom. Three students in ACU’s Department of Teacher Education teamed up with Taylor Elementary teacher Jody Reese to help her young learners develop digital stories using mobile devices. Research gleaned from the project was presented by students and faculty mentors at international educational technology conferences this year.
From the familiar to the unfamiliar “We started by interviewing each child individually to determine their experience with the device and their knowledge of vocabulary related to the device,” said ACU senior Tiffany Siegel. “We talked about words such as icons, apps and upload.” She and the other teacher candidates – seniors Kendra Kleine and Paul Sims – then worked with small groups of kindergartners to create a digital story about the Native Americans in the desert Southwest. “We had the kids record themselves, record each other, and practice uploading and transferring data from the iPod touch to the Macbook,” said Siegel. The students used iMovie to create a short film.
Real-world experience
Win/win partnership “It was an exciting time, and we all learned a lot about how quickly young children learn and become comfortable navigating with technology,” Reese said. “We quickly realized that most, if not all, of the children viewed the iPod touch as just a way to play games. As they worked with their ACU students, they began to realize there is technology available beyond just these games.” The transition from play to learning was easy, said Rogers. “These 5- and 6-year-olds don’t play with projectors and Promethean Boards at home; they play with their Dad’s iPhone. Most of these children are savvy, to say the least, with these devices, and we can only hope to give them the opportunity to apply their ‘street’ knowledge toward an educational goal.” Dr. Dana Pemberton, professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education, agreed. “It was pretty amazing to watch how easily the kindergarten children learned to navigate the touch technology of mobile devices,” she said.
Jenn Rogers
Instructor, Early Childhood Education
“Our candidates learned that while there are kinks to be worked out, technology integration with young children is not something to shy away from,” Pemberton said. “We want our graduates to be willing to try new things and to trust that children can rise to their expectations. This includes technology.”
Plunging into research The project was a great opportunity for the ACU students to participate in research as undergraduates as they prepare for their future careers. “This experience has already taught me so much,” Siegel said. “My ideas of how my future classroom should operate have changed due to the data we have collected. I have seen firsthand the impact that integrating technology can have on a young learner. It allows each student to explore, create, question, and so many other higher-level thinking skills. “This experience has also given me confidence and a greater passion for my field of study,” she added. “As I research and collect data, I am realizing how important it is that we, as educators, stay in tune to
what our students need. We must constantly be striving to make our classrooms a place where every student, with individual needs, is challenged, encouraged and inspired to explore.” Kleine said she, too, gained a new respect for research. “I have learned that by collecting and gathering data, I am not only discovering how technology can be integrated into the classroom, but also how I will be using it in my future classroom,” she said. Senior physics eduation major Stacie McConnell was one of the students who presented research at two international conferences this year, talking about her experience creating a project-based physics course at Abilene Christian High School supported by iPads and iPod touches.
Just the beginning The Taylor Elementary project is only the beginning of a technology partnership between ACU and local elementary schools, said Pemberton. Every semester, teacher candidates will spend time in kindergarten classrooms to facilitate technology integration projects. ACU will provide this “kindergarten team” with a cart of iPads next year. Other elementary schools will benefit, as well. For example, Mitzi Adams, coordinator of field experiences and professional development for ACU’s teacher education department, has developed an app for math and has begun doing research at Reagan Elementary using iPads. “It is our hope that our students will become leaders for innovative practice on their future campuses,” Pemberton said. Taylor Elementary’s Reese would say that leadership has already begun. “I am so thankful that the education department at ACU continues to be innovative and challenging – not just to their students but also to teachers like me who have been in the classroom for many years and yet want to try new things and stay current,” Reese said. “It’s one more way ACU is changing the world.” n
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ACU’s Jenn Rogers, instructor in early childhood education, said the experience has been invaluable to her students. “We want our ACU students to see that they can take technology they are familiar with into the classroom,” Rogers said. “We want to give them the opportunity to apply this process in a real classroom setting. We can give them ideas all semester in our instruction, but until they have the moment to watch technology used effectively in a real-life setting, it is not relevant to them.” The project has been a boon for the young learners as well, said kindergarten teacher Reese.
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These 5- and 6-year-olds don’t play with projectors and Promethean Boards at home; they play with their parents’ iPhones. Most of these children are savvy, to say the least, with these devices, and we can only hope to give them the opportunity to apply their ‘street’ knowledge toward an educational goal.”
Student Experiences
After the project was finished, the ACU students had several other opportunities to take mobile devices to the school and watch the youngsters using them, Siegel says. “These observations allowed us to determine the device’s ability to create higher-level thinking and processing when linked with instruction,” she said.
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Dr. Houston Heflin
Assistant Professor of Bible, Missions and Ministry
Over the past three years, I have been using podcasts via mobile devices in chemistry labs to support students and help them work more independently. This year I am expanding into a course for pre-service elementary school teachers, using podcasts to teach them some of the techniques they’ll need in their elementary school lab settings. We’ve been doing some skills tests, and I think it improves their ability to perform the skill when they come back the second time.”
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Faculty Experiences
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What I am asking my students to do is train teachers in churches in a new way. As an assignment, my students record an audio podcast disseminated through iTunes U. As students create these podcasts and train teachers in churches, the students themselves are going to become better teachers. That will make it worth it to me.”
Helping prepare students for career success is second nature for ACU’s chemistry and biochemistry program. For years, Abilene Christian has had a sterling reputation for producing future physicians and scientists: ACU students are accepted into medical school at a rate double the national average.
Dr. Cynthia Powell Assistant Professor of Chemistry
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You can make a small change in the use of a tool and get a large effect. If I use the tool to take attendance, they get an email from me at 8:01 a.m. that says they are absent, and it changes their behavior. And I’ve noticed on Day One if the student believes I care about their attendance, they are there more often and they do better in the course. A small use of technology sets the tone and changes the level of engagement for students. I like that use of technology; that’s a win.”
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ACU graduates who study in the School of Information Technology and Computing benefit from outstanding instruction, excellent internship opportunities and plenty of hands-on experience writing programs and researching alongside faculty mentors.
Dr. Brent Reeves
Associate Professor of Information Systems
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One of the nice things about being able to do posts by email for a course blog is the ease of presenting information by students and professors. We saw deep interest in being able to access some of that material on the fly, wherever they are, and being able to have a large-scale conversation with 1,000 freshmen. A professor can look at it and pull out special information for a discussion. What was only a virtual space becomes both a virtual and an interactive space in the classroom.”
Dr. Greg Straughn Assistant Provost for General Education Associate Professor of Musicology
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An accomplished photographer as well as fine artist, Nil Santana has his ACU students experimenting with the one camera they all have – an iPhone. They’re sharing their images on flickr and Facebook, receiving immediate feedback from others. Students also are empowered to collaborate more with each other on class content, as well as with their professor.
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Chase Jarvis once said, ‘The best camera is the one that’s with you.’ With phonetography we have a wide range of camera apps and photo editing options, readily available anywhere and anytime, as cameras are incorporated into phones and other mobile devices. Because of its improved quality, phonetography is being used for photo-messaging and incorporated into news images. And the convenience allows me and my students to promptly share our world with others.”
Nil Santana Instructor of Art and Design
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ome of the earliest e-text research in the world is taking place at ACU, with the help of Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs and our students and faculty. In October 2010, a team of international experts who work at Bell Labs (alcatel-lucent.com/belllabs) near Paris, France, spent time in Abilene to engage ACU students and faculty in a study of e-textbooks. Dr. Robert McKelvain, professor of psychology and researcher-in-residence at the university’s Adams Center, led the experimentation on ACU’s behalf. Bell Labs, one of the world’s top research and development organizations, wanted to study how students – using iPads – engaged, retained and transferred information using prototypes of e-reader software. Designers and engineers are benefitting from the findings, which are part of a larger collaborative effort between ACU, Bell Labs and Cambridge University Press. That business and academic relationship was formed to help reinvent the future of books and book publishing, with ACU’s mobile-learning environment serving as an ideal place in which to test products and research usability. In April 2011, the master’s thesis of one of McKelvain’s graduate students, Ryan Gertner, contributed to the iPad studies being done at ACU. “The Effects of Multimedia Technology on Learning” provided further insight into how the iPad favorably increases reading comprehension and transfer learning in test groups of mobile device-savvy college students. Publishers and software developers are taking notice of the digital text research made possible through the university’s mobile-learning initiative. n
Learn more about ACU’s award-winning mobile-learning initiative and the research of our Mobile-Learning Fellows at acu.edu/connected
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Faculty Experiences
Bell Labs sends team to campus to research e-texts, learners
2010-11 ACU Mobile-Learning Fellows • Dr. Brian Burton, Assistant Professor of Information Technology; Dr. Susan Lewis, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication; Kenneth Pybus, J.D., Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication; and Mike Wiggins, Assistant Professor of Art and Design, “How Do Designing, Programming and Content Influence the Use of Media by Students in Mobile Computing?” • Dr. Brad Crisp, Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Management Sciences, “Longitudinal Evaluation of a University-Wide Mobile-Learning Initiative: (How) Does Ubiquity Matter?” • Dr. John Ehrke, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, “A Case Study on the Efficacy of Mobile Computing Platforms” • Dr. Jason Holland, Associate Professor of Mathematics, “Mobile Jumpstarts in a Calculus Course” • Kenny Jones, Associate Professor of Art, “Use of Augmented Reality Interfaces to Enhance Art Student Learning: An Experimental Comparison of Learning Platforms” • Dr. Mark Phillips, Assistant Professor of Management Sciences, “Student Creation of An Electronic Text: Is Learning Enhanced?” • Dr. Cynthia Powell, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Autumn Sutherlin, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, “Using iPhones/ iPod Touches in Biochemistry and General Science Laboratories to Support Student Learning”
2011-12 ACU Mobile-Learning Fellows • Dr. Stephen Baldridge, LMSW, Associate Professor of Social Work, “Remote Teaching: Using Mobile Devices to Teach Outside of Classroom Walls” • Dr. Phyllis Bolin, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Director of Pursuit QEP, “Learning Mathematics – It’s at Your Fingertips” • Dr. Sheila Delony, Associate Professor of Education, “Assessing Video-assisted Teacher Reflection” • Kenny Jones, Associate Professor of Art, “Impact of Augmented Reality on an Art Student’s Perception of Design” • Dr. Ian Shepherd, Associate Professor of Management, and Dr. Brent Reeves, Associate Professor of Information Systems, “Mobile Data Mining: Beyond Mobile Computing Surveys” • Dr. Autumn Sutherlin, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, “Constructivist Techniques in a Biochemistry I Course”
(From left) Kenneth Pybus, J.D., and Dr. Susan Lewis (JMC), Mike Wiggins (art and design) and Dr. Brian Burton (SITC)
Optimist 2.0 on the iPad ACU’s award-winning Optimist was the first university newspaper to have an app for the iPad, just two months after Apple first announced the new product in 2010. The departments of journalism and mass communication (JMC), art and design, and the School of Information Technology and Computing (SITC) made ideal collaborators for the fast-track development of the app, led by talented students from all three academic units. Kenneth Pybus, J.D., and Dr. Susan Lewis (JMC), Mike Wiggins (art and design) and Dr. Brian Burton (SITC) were 2010-11 Mobile-Learning Fellows, working together on a project to develop the second-generation Optimist app. “Designing iPad apps for mobile devices has often shown weakness in content, design or functionality,” said Pybus. “We aim to show how necessary all three are to a well-designed app that is functional each day for students who are not programmers.” n 9
Faculty Experiences acu.edu /connected
Mobile learning isn’t just for students any more. When Dr. Jason Holland employed NANO tools and videos in his calculus courses, he learned as much as his students did. Using the NANO tools section of the myACU website, Holland sent a “jumpstart,” a daily mobile question, to an experimental group of students. He also published videos reinforcing the jumpstart question on iTunesU, making them available to participants, who were later tested on the material. (A control group of students also was taught the material in class, and subsequently tested on it.) While differences in test scores between the two groups were not statistically significant, Holland’s experiment proved successful in other ways. “I was able to get anonymous feedback from students regarding certain course objectives,” he explained. “This allowed me to better focus my class time.” He also enjoyed getting responses from all students. “When a teacher asks a question at the beginning of class and gets one or two hands, you can only be sure you have a couple of students thinking and engaged,” he said. “When you get a bar graph showing all 25 students’ responses, you can be sure everyone is engaged.”
In today’s hyperlinked, hypertext world, users create a customized experience on the Web by taking what they want from various resources and discarding the rest. Dr. Mark Phillips wondered: Could his students do the same with their textbook? And would it work? Using three existing textbooks, Phillips’ Fall 2010 students pulled relevant, non-copyrighted material (or rewrote it, where necessary) to develop an original, electronic textbook in a mobile-friendly format. Students in Phillips’ Spring 2011 course rated the textbook highly – so highly that Phillips’ Fall 2011 class is repeating the experiment, creating a new edition from scratch to be used by next spring’s students. “Textbooks as we know them will not exist 10 years from now,” Phillips said. “The big question is: What will take their place? Our work not only demonstrated that a student-created alternative is a viable option for intro-level courses – it also confirmed users were just as satisfied with our ‘home-grown’ product as with the retail option. My current students are expanding the scope of their project, adding study aids and extensive link libraries. There really is no limit to what our students can create.”
Dr. Jason Holland
Dr. Mark Phillips
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
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Assistant Professor of Management
As mobile technologies continue to improve, their effects will be felt across all kinds of platforms – including graphing calculators. Dr. John Ehrke conducted a case study on the efficacy of mobile computing in a general education mathematics course, with one group of students using Texas Instruments graphing calculators, and the other using the SpaceTime mobile computing app on their iPhones. While the iPhone’s smaller keys made some tasks (such as data entry) difficult, Ehrke said the “key question” is whether students will use the calculators more often if they have access to the calculator functions on a mobile platform. “We have spoken with Texas Instruments on several occasions, and they have since reorganized their corporate structure to include a full mobile division,” Ehrke said. “We think this is a good sign of the appeal of the platform, and we hope to see more companies experienced in calculator design and pedagogy (such as Texas Instruments) exploring the mobile platform in the future.”
Dr. John Ehrke
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Chemistry profs lead mobility studies in labs
S As a third-year Mobile-Learning Fellow, Dr. Brad Crisp continued his longitudinal study on the use of mobile devices – measuring students’ attitudes, perception and experience of using the devices in class. Over time, Crisp says, his research has helped give ACU’s mobile-learning team “a broader view of student attitudes and usage patterns with mobile devices than what happens in a single classroom.” He also has studied the differences in students’ use of the iPhone and iPod touch, sparking conversation about the impact of different devices on student behavior. While Crisp’s research has proved useful to faculty and administrators, it also has allowed him to teach his students about the use of information technology in the workplace. “Since I teach in the field of information systems, I’ve enjoyed engaging my students in discussions about mobile learning, ranging from how they think students are reacting to these devices to how they think ACU should be deploying these devices to better engage students,” Crisp said. “My findings have been useful in initiating these discussions and allowing the students to help me reflect on the results, and consider what to do about them.”
Kenny Jones is intrigued by the unexpected element of research. “No matter what your theory is, it’s fascinating how the spinoffs – the stuff at the margins – can turn out to be the most interesting,” he said. Jones’ mobile-learning project involved two groups of art students, each charged with designing a piece to inform visitors about the award-winning Jacob’s Dream sculpture site on ACU’s campus. One group created an augmented reality interface, using digital content on the iPhone to guide visitors in an informational walking tour. The other group created a non-AR print pamphlet. Jones measured both groups’ knowledge of certain art and design terms twice – at midterm and at semester’s end – and while the AR group scored higher each time, he wondered if the AR project was the reason. “I started wondering about me,” Jones admitted. “Was I more excited about teaching the AR group? Or did they have a better grasp on this stuff to begin with? Or both?” He is repeating the experiment this fall, hoping to better understand how AR projects can affect engagement – both for his students and for their professors.
Dr. Brad Crisp
Kenny Jones
Director of the School of Information Technology and Computing Associate Professor of Information Systems
Professor of Art and Design
ince the beginning of ACU’s mobile-learning initiative in 2008, Dr. Cynthia Powell, assistant professor of chemistry, has sought to use iPhones and iPod touches in her labs in innovative ways. Dr. Autumn Sutherlin, associate professor of biochemistry, began her own experimentation in 2009. Last year, the two professors teamed to study the ways students learn the nuances of science with the help of mobile devices. They researched two distinctly different groups: Powell’s General Science class for education majors preparing to be elementary school science teachers, and Sutherlin’s upper-division biochemistry students. They found that both student groups were able to learn lab skills efficiently from a mobile device-enabled podcast, performing at or above the level achieved through more traditional methods. Podcasts describing laboratory techniques gave students on-demand access to instructions and Dr. Cynthia Powell course content and minimized the time spent lecturing in class. In addition, Powell’s own Mobile Enhanced Inquiry-Based Learning (MEIBL) program received a $250,000 grant this spring from Next Generation Learning Challenges, an organization dedicated to using technology to improve the quality of learning and education in the U.S. Powell and her Dr. Autumn Sutherlin collaborators will expand and scale the MEIBL program to implement it at two partner institutions, Del Mar College and California University of Pennsylvania. “MEIBL (meibl.org) has really changed the way we think about training our students in a laboratory setting,” Powell said. “One of the biggest problems we face is that students come in with uneven preparation. Some of them may be really well prepared and have lots of experience in the laboratory, and some of them may never have seen some of the equipment we use. “A resource available in the lab – just when students need it – has made a big difference in our laboratory curriculum,” Powell said. “Our research faculty say that students coming into their research labs are better prepared to work independently in a research setting because of the inquiry-based training they’ve received in their lower-level science classes.” n
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Mobile-Learning Innovation
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Beyond the Printed Page ACU uses its mobile-learning expertise to help the world’s brightest minds re-imagine the future of books
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rom my earliest days, cackling in my mother’s lap while she read A Fly Went By or snug in my bed while she read Brighty of the Grand Canyon, I’ve loved the way books open doorways in the imagination. Years later, poring over Brian Greene’s Elegant Universe or Simon Schama’s A History of Britain, I still have books opening doors for me. Some lead me into small rooms cluttered floor-to-ceiling with furniture and tchotchkes, and others into vast, airy suites where doorway leads to doorway. I’ve loved books so much that I’ve made a career out of reading and studying them, and even of making them – not just by writing or editing, but by designing them, setting their type, illustrating them, and helping to get them into readers’ hands. Yet, I have to say, until a few years ago when new sets of doors began to open for ACU, I never imagined I’d be at a place that would play a key role in deciding the future of books. As unlikely as it may sound, that’s precisely what’s happening right now at Abilene Christian University. Scholars, publishers, researchers and technologists from all over the world are making
their way to our West Texas campus, drawn by our ability not only to see the future of education but to make it real. That’s enabling us to stand at the threshold of a digital future where people will read, study, explore and discover in ways that are at the same time very new and very old. So although we never could have dreamed of it when we launched our Connected mobile-learning initiative three years ago, we now find ourselves peering in the doorway at what may well be the next Gutenberg. The view within is enticing and amazing.
By Dr. William Rankin Adapted from ACU Today Magazine, Spring 2011
The design of early books was driven in large part by early Christians’ desire for a richer informational experience. They wanted to access information “non-linearly,” holding a finger in one passage while consulting another, and they wanted portable access so they could carry the scriptures with them wherever they went. To accommodate these needs, early books were models of flexibility and customization. With patrons dictating the content of their books, deciding what texts and excerpts and ultimately even the kinds of
Looking back to see ahead As we’re discovering how mobility can change teaching and learning, it’s become increasingly clear to many of us that a major component is missing. While our students and teachers are discovering an increasingly open, flexible and customized learning environment, our textbooks remain closed and static, bound in the standardized paper that once liberated them but has gradually become a kind of prison over the past 560 years. When books first began to replace scrolls as the dominant informational medium in about the third century, they were very different from the books we have today.
For all of its blessings, “Gutenberg’s technology is beginning to show its age, and a host of new technologies are waiting at the door, ready to spark new opportunities and new revolutions that will transform the world.” 13
Mobile-Learning Innovation acu.edu /connected
decorations and images they wished to include, books became highly personalized expressions of their owners’ tastes, interests and economic status. Of course, that economic factor exposed the critical drawback of early books. They were ridiculously expensive to produce. Coming before the age of paper, a single book in this early period often meant the sacrifice of an entire herd of cattle or flock of sheep to supply the skins necessary to produce the book’s pages. And when one factored in the costs of the exotic and dangerous materials needed to produce a book’s decorations – lapis lazuli from Afghanistan or cinnabar, a bright red compound of mercury whose mining was so toxic that workers’ life expectancy was often only three years – along with the expense of hiring skilled copyists to write each word by hand, the costs easily became astronomical. In the heyday of hand-crafted book production in the 14th century, a fine book easily cost more than a luxury car would today. So while early books were technologically advanced marvels of personalization, the number of people who could actually afford them was painfully small. Consequently, most people were locked away from literacy and learning. When he popularized movable-type printing and (eventually) the use of paper starting in the mid-15th century, Johannes Gutenberg not only solved the problem of cost, he also ushered in an entirely new information age that has shaped our own world profoundly. Gutenberg’s innovation drove no fewer than three interrelated revolutions in Western Europe:
technology, new or old, “No can answer all of our educational needs and each comes with both benefits and drawbacks. However, books are on the threshold of another technological revolution, and ACU is poised to play a central role as they move into the digital age.” 14
in religion, in education and in politics. Fueled by a hitherto unprecedented access to the scriptural text, the Protestant Reformation changed the relationship between believers and books. Every Christian household was now expected to possess a Bible for devotional and educational purposes, and people began to augment their libraries with other theological and devotional texts as well. Driven by the expectation that believers needed to read and study the scriptures for themselves, educational reformers began laying what would become the first foundations of universal education. Literacy, which had been comparatively rare up to this point in history, began to be expected of all people, men and women alike. And with the populace thus educated, many began to feel they should be allowed a voice in their own government, as well, opening the door for the first modern democracies. Have you ever stopped to think, for example, how many of the American revolutionaries were printers or publishers? Or why the Stamp Act of 1765 – a law that taxed and regulated printing – was considered such an affront by the colonists that it became a prime factor in setting the revolution in motion? Yet in spite of all of their benefits, the generation of books produced by Gutenberg’s technology also suffers serious limitations, some we scarcely notice. While people have had nearly universal access to consuming printed texts, for instance, the process of writing, editing, printing and distributing is so complex that few people can participate in textual creation. And the economic necessity behind large print runs means that producing certain kinds of texts – those limited to small audiences or narrow fields of study – has been largely ignored. Error correction and the augmentation of texts with new materials has likewise had to wait until running a second edition can be justified, and this means that some of our books, even relatively new ones, can be woefully out of date. Perhaps most compellingly, the customization and localization that once characterized virtually all book production have had to be sacrificed for a standardized, generic approach that best meets the desires of a readership
dispersed geographically and culturally. For all of its blessings, Gutenberg’s technology is beginning to show its age, and a host of new technologies are waiting at the door, ready to spark new opportunities and new revolutions that will transform the world.
Making what’s next When ACU first began to explore the future of books, we established a relationship, in an ironic twist, with the oldest continually operating press in the world. Granted its charter by Henry VIII in 1534, Cambridge University Press is one of the world’s leading academic publishers, and it’s bringing nearly five centuries of expertise to help chart the future of publishing. Rounded out by Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs, which gave the world the laser, the transistor and the C++ programming language that dominates today’s software development, our consortium is exploring some of the elements we believe will characterize books in the 21st century and beyond. So what do these books look like? The first thing we know is they will be digital. With simple, single-function devices such as Amazon’s Kindle pointing the way, digital texts already show certain advantages over printed texts. From ecological and economic standpoints, it is increasingly hard to justify the costs of felling trees, turning them into paper, shipping the paper, printing it, cutting it and turning it into books, then shipping, warehousing and ultimately recycling the books. From a reader’s standpoint, the
difficulty of carrying around more than a few books at any given time makes digital texts, where thousands can be stored on a single lightweight device, incredibly attractive. Having a whole library of books with me when I have a flash of insight or a sudden question means that learning opportunities that once would have been lost can now become opportunities for exploration and discovery. And with the flexibility of digital texts, errors and incomplete information need no longer be a hindrance. In one telling recent example, Theodore Gray’s The Elements – a beautiful digital text built around the periodic table of elements – appeared on the iPad just days before a team of Russian scientists made six atoms of Ununseptium (an element previously only theorized) in their lab. Within two days of the discovery, Gray’s digital book had been updated to include the new information, leaving its paper siblings, which will likely require at least a year to incorporate the new discovery, in the dust. As our digital devices themselves become more robust, led by a generation of new tablet devices like Apple’s iPad, even further possibilities begin to open for us. Equipped with powerful computing and media capabilities and augmented with geolocation sensors, cameras and a variety of inputs, these new devices could transform the way we think about books and reading. Perusing a history of World War II? Tapping that picture could let you hear or even see a movie of President Roosevelt delivering his rousing call to arms
on Dec. 8, 1941. Such media richness offers people the opportunity to contextualize and understand what they’re reading in ways that are currently too cumbersome or complex. Want more? Engage the geolocation feature and let the book incorporate local information into its account of the war. In Abilene, for example, the book’s content could automatically shift to focus on the history of the 12th Armored Division that trained here before being deployed to help liberate Europe. Read by students on a study abroad trip to Normandy, the book could alter its content again – each time providing readers with information to help them better understand their local surroundings and, in turn, leveraging those surroundings to help them better understand what they’re reading. Add in interactivity – for example, letting people adjust the hypothetical levels of aluminum, iron or rubber available over the course of the war and watching the resulting impact on the production of ships and planes – and readers now have a tool for better understanding the role such resources played in winning or losing the war. Such developments may seem like science fiction, but early versions of these features are currently in development. At ACU, we’re already considering how they’ll benefit students and faculty. Another technology essential to digital books involves social networking. College classes often focus on teachers and students discussing the books they’re reading, but it can be difficult for teachers to understand where students are stuck and difficult for students to
understand where a teacher wants to focus. In one of Dr. Ian Shepherd’s business classes this fall at ACU, using a digital text developed for the iPad by Inkling, he and his students “subscribed” to one another’s marginal comments and highlights, enabling them to “watch” one another as they read through the course text. Seeing where his students were confused and what they understood allowed Shepherd, an associate professor of management, to tailor class discussions and experiences in a way that simply wouldn’t have been possible before.
An open door The possibilities are many and intriguing. For example, a team of French researchers spent two weeks at ACU this fall studying how people interact with digital versus print books to augment the social and informational features future books will possess. ACU’s new AT&T Learning Studio, which recently opened in our Brown Library, offers access to next-generation media authoring tools. It represents a first step in exploring a future where libraries no longer serve largely as warehouses for books. Where will it all end up? It’s hard to say. No technology, new or old, can answer all of our educational needs, and each comes with benefits and drawbacks. However, books are on the threshold of another technological revolution, and ACU is poised to play a central role as they move into the digital age. The doorway of opportunity is wide open. n
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Faculty Experiences acu.edu /connected
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The skills at the heart of the Learning Studio – creation and editing of media, collaboration and communication – are the tools today’s students need to gain a competitive edge in the 21st-century workplace.”
Dr. Lauren Lemley
Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of the Speaking Center 18 16
By Dr. Kyle Dickson Adapted from ACU Today Magazine, Summer 2011
lan Kay, a computing pioneer who developed concepts for the laptop computer, the tablet and the eBook, once said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” At ACU, we believe education is at just such a decisive moment. As mobile devices continue to transform the way we think about the classroom, the textbook, communication and learning itself, the time to begin planning the future of education is now.
A pioneering gift of $1.8 million from AT&T is enabling the next step in teaching and learning innovation at ACU. The most visible result of that gift is the new AT&T Learning Studio that provides a laboratory for continued experiments in media, mobility and the future of the academic library.
The future today Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the Margaret and Herman Brown Library. Over that period of time, the ACU library reinvented itself as tools, technologies and the needs of the campus changed. In 1970, a university library was measured by its holdings, so the most visible symbol of the Brown Library’s new stature was its card catalog. To visitors entering the main floor, the card catalog represented the beginning and end of scholarly work. Novice researchers began here with searches by author, subject or title before journeying deeper into the archive. Seasoned scholars returned to see their work take its place in the catalog alongside that of their peers. When the new building opened, a brochure noted proudly that the card catalog had grown from 360 to 1,136 trays, one small indication of the broader ambitions of a college becoming a university. Today, the card catalog is no longer enough. Our students have access to more content via mobile devices than we could
acu.edu /connected
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AT&T’s generosity makes new Learning Studio possible, enables continued work in media and mobility at ACU
Mobile-Learning Innovation
Inventing the Future
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Mobile-Learning Innovation
contain under one roof. For example, Wikipedia now hosts more than 17 million articles by more than 90,000 active authors. In May 2011, YouTube announced its users were now uploading more than 48 hours of content every minute, a 50 percent increase over 2010. Education is no longer about preparing our students to contribute to conversations after they graduate; the vital discussions of our day are already underway and our students are already producing messages for a global audience in a wide range of media. After six months of construction, the Learning Studio opened in February 2011 on the top floor of the library. In an 8,800-square-foot facility, the Learning Studio brings together media production studios, the Speaking Center and the library’s media collections to support students and faculty as they explore the way we live, learn and communicate in a digital world. In the main computer lab, media production support is available for users at all levels. Trained media specialists help students recording audio for the first time or faculty editing video slideshows that incorporate narration and interviews. Users here have access to high-quality studios, as well as cameras and microphones they can check out to capture content in the field. Students can make appointments with Speaking Center tutors to discuss a project, record a practice speech in one of our studios or meet to plan an upcoming group presentation. Speaking Center staff also work with seniors nearing graduation to practice interviewing skills and strategies.
acu.edu /connected
Learning innovation
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The seeds of the Learning Studio project were already present in 2004, when faculty first proposed the Learning Commons redesign on the ground floor of the library. That proposal began: In recent years, the ways university students learn have changed. Responding to new technologies, new styles of communication and the changing nature of the teacher-student relationship, students now experience college life in new ways. In response to these changes, many universities have sought to equip students for independent and collaborative learning as they contribute to wider conversations on and beyond the campus. (“A Library for the Twenty-First Century,” Fall 2004) When the Learning Commons opened in 2006, gate counts to the library doubled. Students and faculty began to see the library not solely in terms of its holdings; as the stacks of books were relocated from the main floor, they also saw the importance of services provided by partners such as the Writing Center. Librarians emphasized their role as information specialists at the new Research Desk.
The years after the opening of the Learning Commons were marked by students and faculty contributing to wider conversations on and beyond our campus. This short period saw fresh thinking in projects such as mobile learning, active learning classroom redesign and the new general education curriculum. The Learning Studio is a result of the same type of intense collaboration that sparked these other conversations. Over a period of three years, faculty and librarians from many disciplines have worked with students, technology leaders, architects, and construction and design teams to produce a one-of-a-kind studio environment. Almost every element – from the ground plan to the technology purchases, from furniture selection to graphic design – was the product of many hours of intentional planning.
Media not just for specialists One remarkable detail in the 1970 design of Brown Library was a downstairs corner set aside for a Media Center. Students had access to “50 individual study carrels equipped with stereo cassette players, providing for leisure listening as well as supplementing classroom instruction with specially prepared materials and professional tapes and records.” Though there were exceptions, educational media in these years were directed primarily one way, from teacher to student. Just as the volumes lining the shelves of the library represented the collected wisdom of professional authors, audio-visual resources were carefully selected from national experts or campus lecturers. The work accomplished here by generations of students, faculty and librarians was central to the university’s educational mission. Here one generation found its own voice in hearing and testing the messages of a previous generation. However, students today inhabit a very different world. Publishing in the 21st century is no longer the province of professionals; citizen journalists and bloggers around the world challenge us to think deeply through the running dialogue of social media. This has been a key finding from our experience with mobile learning. The mobile devices we carry with us on a daily basis are not simply media players, receiving official news reports or media “specially prepared” by professionals. They are communication devices with which we record, remix and publish our experience to the world. The Learning Studio provides students and faculty from
any major the opportunity to develop media creation skills in short training events that help increase their confidence and sophistication in telling digital stories. This spring we hosted workshops in which faculty could expand their skills in digital photography or video editing. Neither was tied to creating media for a particular class; instead, these events created safe communities where teachers could learn from our trained staff and one another.
A vision with global impact
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At AT&T, we see mobile broadband transforming education, and the result is a more engaged and enjoyable learning experience for students and educators. Teaching and learning now take place not just in the classroom, but virtually anywhere. … AT&T has a long history of working with education to enhance today’s classroom experience, and we are proud to support ACU, and look forward to continuing to collaborate with them to help shape the next generation of innovators, fueling this country’s future success.”
Xavier Williams
Senior Vice President for Public Sector and Healthcare, AT&T
For almost a decade, the U.S. Department of Education has worked with educators at all levels to identify the skills needed to prepare our students for careers in the global economy. While technological proficiency is important, the skills essential to our students’ future success include creativity, which inspires innovation, as well as digital communication and collaboration. The Learning Studio was designed with this combination of skills in mind. While academic libraries often have been defined in terms of individual study and critical analysis, the leaders who will shape the future are those who can listen and speak effectively, create new ideas in teams from many different disciplines, and communicate fluently in a range of media. The AT&T gift has provided ACU more than a laboratory to explore these assumptions on campus. Through investments in teacher training and research, our students and faculty are sharing that vision with the world. For example, this summer media specialists from the Learning Studio have worked alongside faculty from teacher education, chemistry and biochemistry, and the Adams Center for Teaching and Learning to train more than 150 teachers from around the country. Groups from the AT&T K-12 Digital Learning Institute and a Gates Foundation Next Generation Learning Challenges grant developed original media content to support project-based and inquiry-based learning.
Where past and future meet In a recent presentation to the Friends of the ACU Library, Dr. Abraham Malherbe (’54) reflected on moving from ACU to Harvard in the 1950s. While there, he learned that a library must be a place that anticipates the future while it preserves the past. So much of the work of the 21st-century university lives between these two imperatives. Throughout its first 40 years, the Brown Library and its professional staff have demonstrated a deep commitment to preserving and sharing the treasures of the past through their teaching and digitization of historic collections. What makes the Brown Library truly exceptional is its track record for anticipating the future. The Learning Studio is only the most recent illustration of this commitment. While the future of mobile collaboration, textbooks and interactive media have yet to be mapped, we’re confident the road leads through Abilene. n
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CU’s mobile-learning initiative was featured June 16, 2011, on a CNBC report about how the university’s digital textbook research is showing publishers and students a new frontier in education, aided by Apple’s iPad. Abilene Christian sophomore Prentice Ashford, senior Caitlyn McCoy and Dr. Bill Rankin, the university’s director of educational innovation, spoke about this past school year’s research that centered around business classes. Dr. Ian Shepherd, associate professor of management, used a digital text developed for the iPad by Inkling in his microeconomics class. Other research took place in a senior-level marketing course taught by Dr. Rick Lytle, dean of the university’s College of Business Administration, as well as in other faculty projects. ACU is in year two of a three-year partnership with Cambridge University Press and Alcatel Lucent’s Bell Labs to help rethink the future of publishing. n “The iPad makes mobile learning practical,” said Dr. Ian Shepherd.
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K-12 Digital Learning Institute helps teachers embrace technology
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high school English class is studying The Great Gatsby. But instead of reading the classic novel, memorizing vocabulary and writing a literary analysis, the students are forming independent groups and using iPads to create a movie trailer for the upcoming remake of the film version that will star Leonardo DiCaprio, due out in 2012. Along the way, the students will learn the same lessons they would have while writing a research paper, but they’ll become more engaged, exercise more creativity and, best of all, see how skills used in their English class can translate into a real-world setting. This is called Project-Based Learning (PBL), and was the focus of Abilene Christian University’s first K-12 Digital Learning Institute in July 2011, sponsored by the Department of Teacher Education and made possible by a gift from AT&T. Sixty-four secondary teachers and 56 elementary teachers attended one of the three sessions held in June, facilitated by ACU faculty and guest presenters from several PBL schools in Texas. Julie Garner, English teacher at Jim Ned High School in Tuscola, Texas, is eager to take PBL to her classroom using her Great Gatsby idea to teach classic themes in a new way. “It’s not the content that’s different; it’s the delivery of the content,” said Garner. “It is allowing students to have more control over their own learning, and pushing them in that direction.” Dr. Billie McConnell, assistant professor of teacher education, said this is the whole idea behind ACU’s institute. “What we want are independent self-directed learners who can think, who can
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Mobile-Learning History at ACU 20
CNBC spotlights ACU’s iPad pilot program
By Robin Saylor Adapted from ACU Today Magazine, Summer 2011
Texas teachers at ACU’s first K-12 Digital Learning Institute included Jeff Montgomery, Austin Westlake High School; Helen Wilcox, Abilene Christian Schools; and Tami Weaver, Fort Worth Christian School.
collaborate, who can be creative and innovative,” said McConnell. “Technology is a support to that.” The PBL concept has been around since the 1990s, says McConnell. What’s new to teachers at ACU’s institute is the way technology is integrated into the PBL lessons, with emphasis on iPads in the classroom. Though a small rural school district, Jim Ned stepped into the world of mobile learning in 2009 by issuing iPod touches to all high school students. “ACU has been a huge resource for us in using the iPod touches,” said Kay Whitton, Jim Ned business teacher. “Everything we were taught in our education classes, especially those of us who went through school a couple of decades ago, has changed so much,” she said. “A lot of this week has been showing us ways to integrate technology more in our classroom. The workshop has been great.” Jeff Montgomery, English teacher at Austin Westlake High School, is ready to wrap his entire lessons around PBL, noting that all juniors and seniors at his high school will receive iPad 2s this year. “I think we are probably just knocking on the door of bigger and better things,” he said. “If we’re afraid of technology or intimidated, we’ll just be stagnant. If we keep embracing technology that comes our way, the sky’s the limit.” n
At Texas’ Abilene Christian, Digital Age Underway
“T
he entering freshman class in 2011 will have several interesting traits,” Abilene Christian University officials noted in a 2006 report, “not the least of which is that they were born the same year the Internet became mainstream.” Indeed, 2011 will be an interesting year for Texas higher education. At Texas’ public institutions, it will assuredly be marked by budget cuts, even as they are asked to graduate more students. It is also the year of the $10,000 – books included – bachelor’s degree, less than half the cost of the current statewide average. At least, that’s what Gov. Rick Perry called for in his recent State of the State address, along with some vague suggestions of how to do it. “Let’s leverage Web-based instruction, innovative teaching techniques and aggressive efficiency measures to reach that goal,” he said. In the five years since Abilene Christian University began preparing for the freshman class of 2011, the private West Texas university with fewer than 5,000 students has done just that, transforming itself into perhaps the most technologically innovative campus in the state. In an email to The Texas Tribune, Karen Cator, director of educational technology for the U.S. Department of Education, said education as a whole needs to rapidly change its trajectory to create a more economically sustainable model similar to how technology has advanced other sectors. “Our education system is based on both an agrarian [school year calendar] and an industrial [seat time, bells and rote memorization] time frame,” she wrote. “Now the information and communication age has changed the ways we live, socialize, learn, work and play. Our schools have a tremendous opportunity to increase access to learning – everywhere and for everyone.” ACU officials say the lessons learned in the process can inform the state’s public universities as they are pushed toward similar innovation by the changing expectations of the student body and the state’s leadership. A few years ago, professors noticed that fewer students were taking notes. Instead, if they needed to recall information, they were looking it up online, says George Saltsman, executive director of ACU’s Adams Center for Teaching and Learning. He says the conventional method of teaching – basically, professors telling the students the answers to the upcoming tests – is badly outmoded in the
digital age. “In today’s world,” he says, “students can look that up any time they want” – including in the middle of a lecture. “If a student can Facebook through your whole class and still make an A, whose problem is that?” Saltsman says. To meet the students in their digital space, ACU gave faculty and every full-time undergraduate on campus the choice of an iPhone or an iPod touch last fall. Unlike other schools in the country that have handed out high tech devices, ACU has made a point of tracking usage and researching what, if any, benefits the devices have provided. Today, 83 percent of ACU professors say they incorporate the mobile device into their instruction on a regular basis, and most report an increase in student participation. Some professors have taken to flipping the traditional model by podcasting lectures and instructional information for students to consume on their own time and applying that knowledge in the classroom. The school’s use of mobile devices is featured in the 2011 Horizon Report, an annual collaboration between the New Media Consortium (a nonprofit association of organizations like colleges, museums and education-related companies focusing on new media and emerging technology) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (a project of Educause, a nonprofit association that promotes the use of information technology in higher education) that looks at emerging technologies in higher education. The new report predicts widespread integration of mobile devices into the classroom in four to five years. But on the nearer horizon, it says electronic textbooks will become more prominent. Saltsman anticipates that public elementary and secondary education will see the adoption of e-textbooks more rapidly than higher education because the state has a stronger incentive to reduce costs than the university bookstore. They’ve been studying the implementation of e-textbooks at schools like New Tech High, a charter school in the Coppell Independent School District, where every student gets a laptop. But Saltsman is wary of rushing into the elimination of physical textbooks just yet. One of his concerns is that, in tight financial times, the potential financial savings of digital textbooks will outweigh the educational benefits. “Before we
run off and give everybody digital texts, are we sure they’re learning as effectively and efficiently on them?” he says. When that research comes in, Texas lawmakers hope the state is ready. Last session, state Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, passed legislation allowing high school textbooks to be assembled using digital open-source technology. In the meantime, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is taking stock of everything the state offers in terms of online learning with an eye on reducing higher education costs. Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes says the result could be a statewide digital university, or increased offerings of online degrees. Although ACU students, coached along by their professors, appear to be increasingly teaching themselves with the help of electronic resources, Saltsman says there is no plan to disband the physical campus. “There is a diversity of opinions and experiences on a college campus that is extremely valuable,” he says. “We just want professors to be using that value of coming together in the classroom.” Of course, the likelihood of one of Texas’ large public universities doling out iPhones with the same enthusiasm as a very small private university – where a student’s tuition and fees run more than $22,000 per year – is slim. But Saltsman believes their teaching model needs to change either way. “We’re seeing a backlash against the industrialization of education, where we just move kids through the assembly line,” he says. “Are they willing to make the change or are we going to stay with pedagogical models that haven’t changed since the 17th century?” n By Reeve Hamilton, Copyright 2011, The Texas Tribune. All rights reserved. Originally published on texastribute.org. Reprinted by permission.
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Texas Education Agency touts ACU for teacher education through new documentary
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• “ACU’s Mobile-Learning Initiative Model of Innovation,” highlights the university’s campus-wide technology integration effort that allows the offline world of the classroom to merge with the online world of the Internet;
• “A Model for 21st-Century Educator Preparation,” shows how ACU’s teacher education department is making the most of the unique advantages of technology, especially on mobile platforms, to prepare the teachers of tomorrow;
• “Learning to Integrate Technology in the ‘Mess’ of a Real Classroom,” illustrates how ACU helps teacher candidates prepare for the reality of incorporating digital learning in diverse and often unexpected settings;
Blog helps Cornerstone course come alive for students
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hen the Texas Education Agency began looking at universities across the state for a school demonstrating innovation in preparing teachers for the 21st century, one rose to the top. ACU’s Department of Teacher Education was selected as the statewide model for its successful integration of mobile-learning technology, and is the latest to be featured in the TEA’s three-year-old POWER ON TEXAS project. The university “has developed an intriguing convergence of technology integration and educator preparation principles,” according to the TEA. A website for POWER ON TEXAS is designed to give teachers resources, ideas and practical tools as their districts journey to join the digital learning revolution. At powerontexas.com, five short documentary videos showcase various aspects of ACU’s mobile-learning initiative. The videos, produced by AMS Pictures, show “the innovative educator preparation program at Abilene Christian University, where the latest in mobile technology is being combined with 21st -century approaches to education with noteworthy outcomes.”
Senior physics education major Stacie McConnell works with students at Abilene Christian High School on a full-year physics course she developed, supported by iPads and iPod touches.
• “Researching the Benefits of Project-Based Learning With the Integration of iPads,” shares the results of an undergraduate research project using iPads in a local high school physics class; and • “Incorporating Media Into Curriculum for 21st- Century Learners,” ACU faculty explain how the program prepares teacher candidates to integrate the principles of 21st- century learning into their curriculum and then guides them though an evaluation process not only on state standards, but also qualities such as authenticity and relevance.
Previous TEA video projects have profiled seven school districts with exemplary programs for children. ACU is the first university featured in POWER ON TEXAS. The model school designation is another prestigious honor for ACU, said Dr. Billie McConnell, assistant professor of teacher education. “We want to keep sharing what we’ve learned,” he said. n
“C
blogs.acu.edu/cornerstone
ornerstone is a truly unique freshman experience,” said Dr. Kyle Dickson, associate professor of English and director of ACU’s new Learning Studio. The course, part of ACU’s innovative Core curriculum, gathers 1,000 freshman students together for a guest speaker each Monday, then sends them into more than 30 smaller discussion groups on Wednesday and Friday. “We needed a course portal that supported both campus-wide online discussion and many private class sites,” Dickson explained. The Cornerstone blog solution (blogs.acu.edu/cornerstone), designed by associate professor of art Mike Wiggins, supports both the large-scale conversation and the smaller discussions – all in a mobile-friendly format. The Cornerstone “spotlight speakers,” ACU faculty members who address questions related to the Cornerstone theme of seeking truth, write guest posts which are featured on the main blog. Instructors use their own private class blogs in various ways, but all students can read, comment and even submit posts by email from their mobile devices, making it simple for them to engage in conversation. “What we’ve seen,” said Dr. Greg Straughn, assistant provost for general education, “is real, deep interest in being able to access this material on the fly.” He also cited the material’s adaptability: professors can easily pull material from the large discussion to spark conversations in their smaller groups. “What was only a virtual space becomes both a virtual and an interactive space in the classroom,” Straughn said. n 23
Essa’s successes resonate loudly
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Cullen Auditorium was a major venue for the event.
Registrants came from 29 states and nine nations.
Pearson eCollege’s Adrian Sannier
Panel discussions invited professionals into broader discussion.
teacher in his home state of California, seeking to connect with and motivate youngsters of all abilities and interests, especially shy ones, as he was. Wozniak envisions a classroom of the future where all students have computers that recognize and serve the user – as he says the iPhone does – with minimal guidance from a teacher. Such ideas were at the heart of those shared at Connected Summit – a gathering of more than 540 international educators, administrators, technologists, thought-leaders and policy-makers committed to mobile learning. Registrants represented nine countries, 73 universities, 87 K-12 schools and 33 corporations. Other keynote addresses were by Karen Cator, director of educational technology for the U.S. Department of Education, and Adrian Sannier, vice president of product for Pearson eCollege.
The Feb. 28 - March 1 event drew rave reviews from registrants for the quality and variety of its program, and its organization. The future of traditional books – the topic of a feature story authored by Rankin on pages 14-17 of this report – was a major focus. A number of presenters debated textbooks, e-textbooks and the paperless classroom in light of the development of new mobile-learning tools such as Apple’s iPad. Several hundred participants also attended the Feb. 28 grand opening of ACU’s new AT&T Learning Studio on the top floor of Brown Library. See one of the most innovative facilities of its kind in higher education on pages 18-21 of this report. n
ducators are very good at breeding creativity out of children,” confesses Abdul Chohan, a director at Essa Academy (essaacademy.org) in Bolton, near Manchester, England. As test scores at Chohan’s school slipped, putting the academy in danger of being closed by the government, the former chemistry teacher knew something had to change. In an attempt to put the power of learning back in students’ hands, Chohan and his colleagues distributed iPod touches to every student in 2010. As they began using iPods for class projects, email and social networking, there was an explosion of creativity on campus – and test scores skyrocketed. For three years prior to 2009, Essa’s fifth-year students passed required GCSE exams at a rate of only 26 percent. When the school shifted to active learning strategies in 2009, that percentage increased to 67 percent. But after distributing iPod touches in Fall 2009, the 2010 rate leaped to 99 percent. As Chohan researched strategies for using mobile devices in education, he reached out to ACU’s Connected team, eventually traveling to Abilene to speak at the 2011 Connected Summit. His presentation summarized the effects of mobile learning at Essa, and resonated with educators seeking to use mobile devices on their own campuses. “When Abdul told us he had been following ACU, he was surprised to hear that we had been following his work as well,” said George Saltsman, executive director of ACU’s Adams Center. “The type of assistance we provided him is typical of what we do for others every day: helping professionals all over the world by putting them in touch with others who are helping change the future of education. 25 We learn from each other.” n
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Number of colleges and schools (from 11 countries) consulting with ACU during 2010-11 on mobile-learning strategies.
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111
Faculty who bring mobile device to class
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Percent of attendees at 2011 Connected Summit who rated their experience as “good” (27 percent) or “excellent” (72 percent).
Faculty who regularly use device in class
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acu.edu /connected
99
2011
Number of times the 2009-10 Mobile-Learning Report has been viewed online.
Results from the Fall 2010 survey of 149 faculty members demonstrate faculty continue to rate the program a success (85 percent). Survey participants continue to report that device is easy to use (88 percent) and the number using the device in class has regularly increased over the past three years (from 83 to 84 percent over last year and from 46 to 84 percent comparing 2008 and 2010 surveys). t
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89%
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46,505
Faculty consistently rate mobile learning a success
2010
Number of mobile-learning-related presentations made to external audiences by ACU faculty and staff over the past three years, averaging one presentation every 3.2 days.
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Mobile-learning statistics
342
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Faculty use of mobile devices in class Use of a mobile device for learning continues to receive high ratings. The Fall 2010 survey of 149 faculty members revealed 89 percent bring a mobile device to class and 84 percent use it regularly. Faculty continue to report a positive reception from students when they use mobile devices in class.
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Transfer of learning: iPad versus traditional textbook
Enhancing art with mobility
6.00
In a controlled study, undergraduate psychology students exhibited significantly higher transfer learning scores compared to traditional textbook readers when using an iPad to prepare for an exam. The average student in the iPad reading group scored higher than 79 percent of those in the traditional textbook reading group.
16
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Text on iPad
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Source: Kenny Jones
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The Fall 2010 survey responses show ACU students continue to use a mobile device regularly and highlights several areas in which students believe the device has added to their academic experience.
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4.00
t
Transfer of knowledge using AR
Average Mean Score on Test for Transfer of Knowledge
5.00
Augmented reality (AR) layers virtual digital content on top of a real-time image, for example, as seen through an iPhone camera. Kenny Jones, professor of art and design, studied the effects of using AR to increase learning efficiency and retention. Initial findings demonstrated a significantly higher outcome for those using mobility. This demonstrates that using mobility in comparison of artifacts may increase student learning. Jones, however, continues his study as a current Mobile-Learning Fellow to introduce increased controls on various aspects of this study. t
Impact of the iPad compared to a textbook
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29/9 t
U.S. states and foreign countries represented by the 546 attendees at ACU’s 2011 Connected Summit.
iPad increases student interaction with text t
1,505
An undergraduate microeconomics class compared usage patterns of an iPad and laptop computer using only a digital version of the textbook. The researchers, Drs. Ian Shepherd and Brent Reeves, found that students accessing course content using a laptop focused most on the class meeting time, while students using an iPad accessed course content in a much broader time frame before, during and after class. The research of these two 2011-12 Mobile-Learning Fellows will continue examining demographics, device type and location to give a more comprehensive picture of mobile learning.
t
Number of hours students reserved group-collaboration rooms during April 2011 in ACU’s new AT&T Learning Studio.
Macroeconomics Laptop 8:00 am TTh S
M
T
-
0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 2 3 3 5 2 3 1 2 2 1 0 2 1
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 6 6 5 5 4 7 7 8 12 10 13 6 sum avg
3 3 2 1 1 0 1 3 10 1 1 2 9 7 3 1 2 3 5 11 5 8 14 2 101 2.05
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
W
T
F
0 5 0 1 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 5 0 1 16 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 4 3 0 4 1 0 4 0 1 6 0 1 2 1 0 5 2 0 5 1 0 1 1 0 3 0 0 8 0 0 6 1 0 Active hours Students were active per hour
t
Laptop users are focused around class time and the Tuesday/Thursday class schedule, while iPad users demonstrate more widely distributed use patterns.
Macroeconomics Laptop 9:30 am TTh S
Hour
S
M
T
0 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 2 2 0 0 1 0
-
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 2 2 2 1 1 4 0 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 3 3 3 5 7 7 1 5 8 9 8 10 9 11 sum avg
5 2 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 4 3 4 3 2 3 4 4 2 5 6 7 2 7 6 71 1.55
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
185 t
iPad vs. laptop heat map comparison Hour
t
Each student in Dr. Ian Shepherd’s class was given an iPad to test Inkling’s enhanced digital version of “The Micro Economy Today 12/e” by Schiller.
W
T
F
3 9 0 0 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 4 1 1 15 0 0 6 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 3 0 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 3 1 0 4 0 0 4 0 0 6 0 0 Active hours Students were active per hour
Microeconomics iPad 1:30 pm TTh S
Hour
S
M
T
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
-
2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3 5 6 3 4 6 6 4 8 9 9 7 22 17
6 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 8 14 3 0 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 2 2 5 6 7 sum avg
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 4 3 4 4 113 2.13
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
W
T
F
2 0 3 1 0 3 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 2 1 1 5 12 0 18 1 1 4 0 0 0 1 2 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 3 1 0 2 0 0 2 2 0 2 4 0 2 5 1 6 4 1 1 3 0 2 5 Active hours Students were active per hour
S 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 3 1 3 0 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 0 0 2 1
Number of external educators receiving mobile media training from ACU faculty and Learning Studio staff in summer 2011.
126 t
Number of K-20 schools represented by attendees at ACU’s 2011 Connected Summit.
Key: Green indicates no use Note: iPad usage is more diffused over more hours of each day, indicating mobility in use.
Source: Dr. Ian Sheppard
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Mobile-learning at ACU acu.edu /connected
30
Presentations by Faculty, Staff and Administrators • Center for Scholarly Technology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., Dr. Kyle Dickson, Aug. 2, 2010. • A New Vision of Digital Learning, Diocese of Shreveport Catholic Center, Shreveport, La., Dr. William Rankin, Aug. 10, 2010. • Faculty Conference (online), Lubbock Christian University, Lubbock, Texas, Dr. William Rankin, Aug. 17, 2010. • U.S. Army, Abilene, Texas, George Saltsman, Dr. William Rankin and Dr. Scott Perkins, Aug. 31, 2010. • Faculty Mobility Workshop, Anderson University, Anderson, S.C., Dr. Kyle Dickson, Sept. 3, 2010. • Mobility and the Transformation of Education, Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst, Basel, Switzerland, Dr. William Rankin, Sept. 8, 2010. • Conférence dans le Cadre de la Formation PRessMITIC, Haute École Pédagogique Vaud (HEC/v), Lausanne, Switzerland, Dr. William Rankin, Sept. 9, 2010. • Mobile Learning Symposium, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, George Saltsman and Dr. William Rankin, Sept. 15, 2010. • Digital Learning Environments in Action, Apple Executive Briefing Center, Reston, Va. (online), Creating Digital Learning Environments, Dr. William Rankin, Sept. 23, 2010. • Apple Educational Briefing, Apple Nederland Head Office, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Dr. William Rankin, Sept. 27, 2010. • iPads, eBooks and Apps: Technologies for 21st-Century Teaching and Learning, European Schoolnet (EUN) Headquarters. Brussels, Belgium, Dr. William Rankin, Sept. 28, 2010. • Apple Higher Education Day, Crowne Plaza, Dundalk, Ireland, Dr. William Rankin, Sept. 29, 2010. • Webinar Guest Lecture, University of Athabasca, Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, October 5, 2010. • Mission Day XII: CalUFusion, California University of Pennsylvania, California, Pa., George Saltsman and Dr. William Rankin, Oct. 6, 2010. • AT&T College and University Advisory Council, Miami, Fla., Dr. William Rankin, Oct. 7, 2010. • Turning Technologies User Conference 2010, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Scott Perkins, Dennis Marquardt, Dr. Autumn Sutherlin and Dr. William Rankin, Oct. 11, 2010 • 2010 Annual Conference, EDUCAUSE, Anaheim, Calif., Dr. Scott Perkins, George Saltsman, Dr. Brad Crisp and Dr. Cynthia Powell, Oct. 13, 2010. • Dynamic Enterprise Tour 2010, Alcatel-Lucent, Paris, France, Arthur Brant, Oct. 19, 2010. • Innovationstag II, Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden, Germany, Dr. William Rankin, Oct. 22, 2010. • ACU Connected Open House, Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas, George Saltsman, Dr. William Rankin, Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, Dr. Kyle Dickson, Dr. Brad Crisp, Dr. Cynthia Powell, Dr. Matt Dodd, Dr. Jennifer Shewmaker, Dr. Jaime Goff, Dr. Curt Niccum, Dr. Paul Roggendorf, Vickie Cardot, Dr. Scott Perkins, Kenny Jones, Dr. Autumn Sutherlin, Jessica Nguyen and Dr. Mark Phillips, Nov. 2, 2010. • Gateways to New Directions: 35th Annual POD Conference, St. Louis, Mo., Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, November 4, 2010.
• Lernen mit Apple: Innovationen im Bildungsbereich, Apple, Berlin, Germany, Dr. William Rankin, Nov. 10-11, 2010. • Apple Higher Education Day, Apple Executive Briefing Centre, Paris, France, Dr. William Rankin, Nov. 15, 2010. • Apple Educational Briefing, Apple Executive Briefing Centre, Paris, France, Dr. William Rankin, Nov. 17, 2010. • Annual General Meeting, Conference and Exhibition, European Council of International Schools (ECIS), Nice, France, Dr. William Rankin, Nov. 19-20, 2010. • TASA-Apple Institute: Creating Successful Blended Digital Learning Environments, Grapevine, Texas, George Saltsman, Dec. 2, 2010. • 2010 Annual Meeting, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), Louisville, Ky., Dr. Phil Schubert, Dr. Scott Perkins and George Saltsman, Dec. 6, 2010. • 2010 Education Technology Conference, Technology Information Education Services (TIES), Minneapolis, Minn., Dr. William Rankin, Dec. 6-7, 2011. • Verizon Wireless Inc., Abilene, Texas, Dr. William Rankin, Dr. Scott Perkins and George Saltsman, Dec. 16, 2010. • ACU Pre-session Workshop, Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas, Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, Dr. Richard Beck and Dr. Scott Hamm, January 2011. • National Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America, New Orleans, La., Dr. Jason Holland, Jan. 6, 2011. • Learning Without Frontiers 2011, London, England, Dr. William Rankin, Dr. Scott Perkins and George Saltsman, Jan. 10-11, 2011. • Apple Education Leadership Summit, London, England, Dr. William Rankin, Jan. 11-12, 2011. • Swedish Education Leadership Summit, Apple Executive Briefing Centre, London, England, Dr. William Rankin, Jan. 13, 2011. • Apple Distinguished Educator Summit, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Dr. William Rankin, Jan. 17, 2011. • 2011 Annual Meeting: Connections in a Changing Era, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), Washington, D.C., Dr. William Rankin and Dr. Phil Schubert, Jan. 31, 2011. • Fifth Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Texas A&M-Kingsville University, Kingsville, Texas, Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, February 2011. • Online Mobility Conference, Daytona State College, Daytona, Fla., Dr. William Rankin, Dr. Scott Perkins and George Saltsman, Feb. 8, 2011. • EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, Washington, D.C., Dr. Kyle Dickson and Dr. James Langford, Feb. 15, 2011. • EDUCAUSE Live!, Boulder, Colo., George Saltsman and Dr. Scott Perkins, Feb. 17, 2011. • EDUCAUSE West/Southwest, Austin, Texas, Dr. Kyle Dickson and Dr. James Langford, Feb. 24, 2011. • ACU Connected Summit, Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas, Dr. Brad Crisp, Dr. Kyle Dickson, Dr. Cynthia Powell, Dr. Autumn Sutherlin, Dr. Jaime Goff, Dr. Stephen Baldridge, Dr. James Langford, Dr. Ian Shepherd, Dr. Brent Reeves, Dr. Darryl Jinkerson, Dr. Robert McKelvain, Dr. Mark Phillips, Dr. Billie McConnell, Dr. Sheila Delony, Dr. Rick Lytle, Dr. Scott Hamm, Kenny Jones, Dr. William Rankin, Dr. Scott Perkins, Dr. Dwayne
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Harapnuik, Kay Reeves, Joshua Tooley, Eric Lemmons, Arthur Brant, Dempsey Peterson, and Kristy Strickland, Feb. 28 - March 1, 2011. Education Technology Strategies for Universities, Colleges and K-12 Schools, Strategy Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, March 2, 2011. Creating Futures Through Technology Conference, Biloxi, Miss., Dr. Scott Perkins, March 2, 2011. Webinar Guest Lecture, University of Athabasca, Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, March 3, 2011. FridayLive Weekly Webcast, TLT Group Online Institute, Takoma Park, Mass., Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, March 7, 2011. Apple Education Leadership Summit 2011, School of the Arts, Republic of Singapore, Dr. William Rankin, March 5, 2011. SITE Annual Conference, Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE), Nashville, Tenn., Dr. Scott E. Hamm and Dr. Scott Perkins, March 8-9, 2011. International Christian Educators Conference, Association of Christian Schools International, Quito, Ecuador, Dr. William Rankin, March 9-10, 2011. Association of Christian Distance Education (ACCESS), Chicago, Ill., Dr. Scott Hamm, March 9, 2011. International Sun Conference for Teaching and Learning, El Paso, Texas, George Saltsman and Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik, March 10, 2011. Annual Conference 2011, Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), New Orleans, La., Dr. William Rankin, March 15, 2011. Apple México 2011 Hi-Ed Leadership Summit, Cancún, Mexico, Dr. William Rankin, April 1, 2011. MobiNet, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., George Saltsman, April 6, 2011. Faculty Workshop, Smith College, Northampton, Mass., Dr. Scott Perkins, April 6, 2011. Pearson CITE Conference, Denver, Colo., Dr. William Rankin, April 12, 2011. Section of the Mathematical Association of America Conference, University of Texas-Tyler, Tyler, Texas, Dr. John Ehrke, April 15, 2011. Dr. William Rankin presented “Building for the Next Information Age: Envisioning the Future of Books” at the 2011 Connected Summit.
t
t
Drs. Jaime Goff, Autumn Sutherlin, Cynthia Powell, and Stephen Baldridge, and Kenneth Pybus, J.D., participated in a panel discussion at the 2011 Connected Summit.
• Slide2Learn Conference, Queensland, Australia (online), Dr. William Rankin, April 19, 2011. • Shady Hill School, Cambridge, Mass., Dr. William Rankin, April 27, 2011. • Technology Leadership Workshop, McAllen ISD, McAllen, Texas, Billie McConnell, Dr. William Rankin and George Saltsman, April 29, 2011. • WCNY HDI Executive Panel Dinner and Discussion, Gates, N.Y., Joshua Tooley, May 2011. • Apple Publisher Event, Zurich, Switzerland, Dr. William Rankin, May 2, 2011. • Lernen mit Apple: K-12 Leadership Summit, Munich, Germany, Dr. William Rankin, May 5, 2011. • Lernen mit Apple: Hi-Ed Leadership Summit, Munich, Germany, Dr. William Rankin, May 4, 2011. • Huntington University (online), Huntington, Ind., George Saltsman, May 13, 2011. • Journées Portes Ouvertes de Bell Labs en France, Villarceaux, France, George Saltsman. May 13, 2011. • Zentren für Kommunikation und Informationsverarbeitung, Universität Kassel, Kassel, Germany (online), Dr. William Rankin, May 17, 2011. • Considering Mobile Learning, Huntington University, Huntington, Ind., George Saltsman, May 17, 2011. • Making the Move to Mobile, Symposium for Higher Education, Salt Lake City, Utah, George Saltsman, May 25, 2011. • CCCU Technology Conference, Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), Portland, Ore., George Saltsman, June 2, 2011. • Texas Faculty Development Network (TFDN), El Paso, Texas, Dr. Scott Hamm, George Saltsman and Tina Powers, June 8-9, 2011. • Pre K-20 Mobilization Summit, Tennessee Board of Regents, Sevierville, Tenn., Kevin Roberts and George Saltsman, June 20, 2011. • mLearnCon Conference & Expo 2011, eLearning Guild, San Jose, Calif., Dr. William Rankin, June 21 and 23, 2011 • Blackboard World 2011, Las Vegas, Nev., Dr. Ian Shepherd and George Saltsman, July 14, 2011. • Apple Distinguished Educators Summer Institute 2011, The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Ariz., Dr. William Rankin, July 17, 2011. • Technology Tuesday Webcast, Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU)Commission on Technology, Washington D.C. (online), George Saltsman, July 25, 2011. • Campus Technology 2011, Boston, Mass., Dr. Scott Perkins and George Saltsman, July 26, 2011.
Advisory Boards and Consulting
t
t
t
ACU is a charter member and one of only 12 schools participating on the Google Higher Education Customer Advisory Board.
ACU is one of approximately 40 schools to serve on the Pillar Institute of Sungard, an ERP vendor maintaining a greater than 60 percent market share in higher education. Pillar Institute schools serve as an advisory board assisting Sungard senior executives in strategic planning.
ACU consults with Turning Technologies, a global leader in student-response and assessment systems, about the role of their ResponseWare and TurningPoint AnyWhere solutions for higher education and K-12.
t
t
t
ACU is a charter member of the AT&T Education Advisory Board, which advises AT&T in all areas of the education marketplace.
ACU has been a longtime partner of Alcatel-Lucent, working closely with many areas of the organization to explore innovative uses of technology in a campus environment, including networking technologies and technologies associated with the future of digital publishing.
ACU is a charter member and one of only ten institutions participating in a collaborative program with Pearson, one of the world’s top academic publishers, focused on developing advanced learning technologies. ACU’s full-saturation of mobile devices makes it an ideal laboratory for exploring future educational solutions.
t
t
t
ACU participates in emerging educational projects and confers with Apple regarding educational initiatives through its representation in the Apple Distinguished Educators program.
ACU has joined Cambridge University Press in a three-year partnership to develop digital texts for course use and to explore the impact of digital publishing in higher education.
ACU and Inkling have partnered to explore the role of digital learning content in higher education. Projects include course-wide deployment of titles on Inkling’s platform and research about the efficacy of interactive and media-rich alternatives to the printed book.
31
I
n Fall 2006, a group of ACU faculty, technologists and administrators came together to produce their vision for the future of education. The document they created, “ACU 2011,” described the key challenges and opportunities they saw facing higher education at the dawn of the 21st century. It sought to understand how technology would impact teaching and learning in 2011 – five years in that group’s future. Describing the increasing impact that student-owned devices, media, social networking, and always-connected access to the Internet would have on learning, this document set the stage for ACU’s Connected mobile-learning initiative, which, appropriately enough, began its first, experimental phase when the class of 2011 entered our university. As we watched that class graduate this past spring, we recognized how much our campus had changed since their arrival. Mobility offered them new ways to interact with classmates and professors. Polling and course tools allowed them immediately to assess their own learning and to see where they fit in relation to their peers. Course blogs offered a new, always-open, always-accessible forum for sharing ideas and information. And likely for the first time in their academic careers, professors told them to take out and use their mobile devices, rather than requiring them to be put away. As I look back over the past three years, I want to acknowledge the tireless efforts of people throughout our
32
academic community to bring this vision to life. They’ve collaborated together to discover and research new teaching methods, to develop new tools and applications, and to redefine teaching and learning for a new century. Their innovative leadership has opened doors for collaboration with peers at prestigious schools and with visionaries at important companies, and this work is helping us realize an increasingly ambitious educational vision. Most importantly, they’ve worked together to prepare our students more effectively and thoroughly for success in a world where mobility and access are playing an increasingly important role. As we look to the coming year, we’re committed to continuing our exploration of the ways that digital books can improve learning, to helping students create the new media that will illuminate their professional lives, and to building facilities and pedagogies that unlock learning for a new generation. I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made in these last few years, but our team isn’t ready to stop. We are once again being called to envision a new future for education, and we will do it with the same energy, engagement and focus that has characterized our past work. The challenge of the future – not just for ACU but for education broadly – stretches before us. We’re setting out to meet it. n
Dr. Phil Schubert President
Forbes magazine rates ACU in the top 10 percent of colleges and universities in the nation, and second highest in Texas in our Carnegie classification.
August 15, 2009
ACU distributes iPhone and iPod touch devices to incoming freshmen; half of undergraduates are equipped with devices.
August 22, 2009
Release of ACU’s 2008-09 Mobile-Learning Report summarizing the first year of the mobile-learning program, Connected, reveals improved student productivity and campus connectedness.
Fall 2009
Two-hundred ninety-one course blogs were used by 180 faculty members to enhance the learning experience for 3,064 students.
October 18, 2009
ACU hosts Connected Open House.
December 8, 2009
ACU’s Adam Center for Teaching and Learning releases version 2.2 of the white paper “Code/X: Considering the Future of Publishing & Learning in a Converged World,” an assessment of the future of digital books and road map of educational possibilities for this new medium.
2010
January 27, 2010
Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs announces the iPad; ACU announces plans to publish the first student newspaper on Apple’s iPad; ACU students use their iPhones to weigh in with their opinions on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in real time.
February 12, 2010
Dr. Phil Schubert named ACU’s 11th president.
February 18, 2010
Dr. William Rankin named to the Apple Distinguished Educator U.S. Advisory Board for 2010-12.
April 3, 2010
Apple releases the first iPad.
April 6, 2010
ACU’s The Optimist becomes the first student newspaper to publish an app for Apple’s new iPad.
April 12, 2010
ACU announces a joint research project with Cambridge University Press and Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs to explore the future of digital publishing and to develop technologies for digital books.
May 3, 2010
ACU announces the launch of the Leadership of Digital Learning program, an online graduate certificate designed to produce innovative K-12 leaders for the 21st-century classroom.
AT&T contributes $1.8 million to ACU to expand the mobile-learning initiative by developing the Learning Studio for creating new media, the K-12 Digital Learning Institute, and an expansion of ACU’s Mobile-Learning Fellows research program.
June 11, 2010
ACU business students integrate the iPad into their Study Abroad program in Oxford, England.
technical expertise, access to research and faculty mentoring. (In August 2011, DCS provided an iPad2 to each of its 200 high school students.)
2011
February 22, 2011
ACU announces research comparing iPad and iPhone use. Statistics show students’ use-patterns differ due to form factor.
June 17, 2010
February 28, 2011
June 24, 2010
February 28, 2011
June 25, 2010
April 6, 2011
ACU brings iPads and mobile learning to West Texas middle and high school teachers. ACU’s Dr. Kim Pamplin, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, developed a three-week technology program for area teachers using Teacher Quality Grants. ACU has used TQGs to help rural teachers gain access to technology and network with each other since 1990. ACU’s Department of Theatre connects with audiences using iPhones in performance of Othello during the Abilene Shakespeare Festival. Patrons interact online with each other and talk with actors backstage during the production. Class blogs were used in nearly half of ACU classes during the 2009-10 school year. When faculty were asked if blogs added value to their course, 95 percent said “Yes.”
August 17, 2010
ACU is rated in the top 7 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities, according to Forbes’ “America’s Best Colleges” rankings for 2010.
August 19, 2010
For the second time in three years, ACU is named the No. 1 “Up-and-Coming School” in the Universities-Master’s western region by U.S. News & World Report.
August 23, 2010
ACU Connected enters its third year of deploying iOS devices to students.
August 24, 2010
Fifty students in Dr. Ian Shepherd’s Principles of Microeconomics class are given iPads with Inkling’s enhanced digital versions of McGraw-Hill’s “The Micro Economy Today 12/e” by Schiller.
August 26, 2010
ACU Connected research finds faculty and students are consistently positive about the overall impact and potential of the program. Data shows that learning activities can be successfully transitioned to mobile platforms with no reduction of learning efficiency or content mastery.
September 24, 2010
The third group of Mobile-Learning Fellows is named.
December 13, 2010
ACU announces plans to support Dallas Christian School’s ChargerTech initiative to provide iPads to its full-time teachers. The university’s partnership with DCS includes providing
U.S. Department of Education’s top technology officer, Karen Cator, opens ACU’s second biannual Connected Summit; Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak discusses educational history and trends at the evening plenary address. More than 540 educators, administrators and educational technologists attend the two-day conference. Although the formal ribbon-cutting for the AT&T Learning Studio ribbon-cutting is four days away, several hundred ACU students attend a Red Carpet Premiere event designed specifically for them, including tours of the new facility. Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) awards ACU nearly $250,000 to to implement ACU’s mobile-enhanced inquiry- based learning (MEIBL) program in two STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs – one at Del Mar College and the other at California University of Pennsylvania.
May 18, 2011
The Learning Studio hosts its first faculty Digital Storytelling Workshop with Joe Lambert from the Center for Digital Storytelling at the University of California, Berkeley.
June 2, 2011
ACU Connected research finds three-quarters of college freshmen surveyed said they would be willing to personally purchase an Apple iPad if at least half of their textbooks were available digitally.
June 24, 2011
ACU names its fourth year Mobile-Learning Fellows.
July 11, 2011
ACU’s K-12 Digital Learning Institute launches its first summer session to train K-12 teachers to integrate mobile technologies and develop 21st-century skills in the classroom.
August 1, 2011
t
August 12, 2009
May 11, 2010
Blackboard names ACU Connected a Catalyst Award winner for Mobile Innovation. Visit acu.edu/connected to view the full timeline of mobile learning at ACU.
Timeline of Mobile Learning at ACU
2009
Our Promise ACU is a vibrant, innovative, Christ-centered community that engages students in authentic spiritual and intellectual growth, equipping them to make a real difference in the world.
acu.edu
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M O B I L E L E A R N I N G I N N O V AT I O N
110397-1011
acu.edu/connected