Mobile Learning at Abilene Christian University: Successes, Challenges, and Results from Year One

dc.creator	Scott Perkins
dc.creator	George Saltsman
dc.date	2010-04-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-08-12T11:18:51Z
dc.date.available	2015-08-12T11:18:51Z
dc.identifier	1948-075X
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/9a8c777e67c241b5bc64c6712c3b3e4a
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/27184
dc.description	Following the February 2008 announcement that all entering freshmen would receive an iPhone or iPod Touch, ACU received unprecedented attention from around the world. Instead of attempting to restrict student use of communication devices to out-of-class activities, ACU proposed to intentionally incorporate these emerging technologies into higher education. Deploying mobile devices to freshmen provided unique opportunities to explore the potentials and challenges facing the use of fully-converged mobile devices for both academic and social purposes. A year later, it appears that the program has been a marked success. This paper presents an overview of our experiences to date, detailing results from student and faculty surveys conducted during the first year of the Mobile Learning Initiative (MLI). Results show that faculty and student respondents were mutually positive about the overall success and impact of the program. Similarly, both students and faculty with iPhones reported increased levels of device usage and more positive perceptions of device potential in comparison to colleagues with the iPod Touch. Significant positive findings were observed for dimensions of student engagement and for several aspects of faculty adoption. Furthermore, clear challenges to the overall success of this program were observed in relation to incomplete classroom saturation and limited resources for application development. The MLI has visibly changed the way we work and teach, transforming our faculty into teaching-experimenters and fostering a culture of innovation on our campus. On the basis of these results, it appears that the transition toward utilization of converged mobile devices in higher educational settings is both promising and inevitable. Implications of the findings from our first year and the need for more sophisticated and collaborative research efforts are also described.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	Kent State University
dc.relation	http://rcetj.org/index.php/rcetj/article/view/75/180
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1948-075X
dc.rights	CC BY-NC-ND
dc.source	Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology, Vol 6, Iss 1, Pp 47-54 (2010)
dc.subject	Mobile Learning
dc.subject	Student Engagement
dc.subject	iPhone
dc.subject	iPod Touch
dc.subject	Educational Technology
dc.subject	Smartphone
dc.subject	Theory and practice of education
dc.subject	LB5-3640
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Theory and practice of education
dc.subject	LB5-3640
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Theory and practice of education
dc.subject	LB5-3640
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Theory and practice of education
dc.subject	LB5-3640
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Theory and practice of education
dc.subject	LB5-3640
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.title	Mobile Learning at Abilene Christian University: Successes, Challenges, and Results from Year One
dc.type	article