By RYAN LYTLEThe sight of cell phones during a lecture has typically been a source of frustration for many college professors attempting to teach students who may have more interest in their mobile devices than the lesson plans. But one university is hoping a new effort to leverage smartphones will better engage students inside and outside of the classroom.
Seton Hall University in New Jersey has launched its new initiative during summer orientation by providing smartphones and pre-paid cell phone plans to its incoming freshman class. Equipped with an app for freshmen to connect with other incoming students and academic advisers, university officials hope this mobile device, a Nokia Lumia 900, will keep students engaged with the school, even when they're not on campus.
FULL ARTICLE.
"Using that mix of real world and classroom learning, it engages students at a deeper level."
ReplyDeleteHow about sitting still, paying attention, taking notes and learning the material? Is there an app for that?
So true, Gary. This school seems to be engaging students at the most shallow level possible.
ReplyDeleteI'm old and experienced enough that this shouldn't still shock me, but I can't help being stunned every time administrators make these decisions without consulting, you know, the *teaching faculty*. Maybe WE have just a tiny bit of insight into what students need for effective and meaningful intellectual development?
When a school has a "Center for Mobile Research and Innovation," could we really have expected anything else?
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm glad they include a prepaid plan, since that, not the phone, is the expensive part of the whole enterprise (just as the film or ink cartridge is the expensive part of the "cheap" camera or printer). But I still strongly suspect that lurking somewhere behind all of this is a cell phone company wanting to get students accustomed to the idea that a smartphone, and the associated data plan, is a necessity of life. I hope the plan is good for the duration of the students' college career.
ReplyDeleteI had an on-campus interview at Seton Hall once (many, many years ago), and my impression was that they served a good many fairly underprivileged students (as well as some wealthy, not particularly academically engaged, fairly-locals -- all of this may, of course, have changed). That may explain the perceived need to keep students connected to school. But I still wonder how much this project is costing the school, and whether, if the goal is connection, the money wouldn't have been better spent providing additional financial aid. If the goal is to provide technological equipment that aids learning to students who couldn't otherwise afford it, my first vote would be for netbooks, and my second for tablets/ereaders with good annotating and some word processing capability, and full-campus wireless access. Screen size really does matter, and, for all that they'll need to learn to communicate information to others in bite-size pieces, they first need to learn to consume it themselves in larger, more complex forms.