May 2008 — Features
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The principles of delivering mobile learning in higher ed and K-12 environments are the same, in Wagner's view. "The most obvious application for such converged devices is podcasting, especially podcasting lectures, but the opportunities are so much greater. Many colleges and universities have now established official communications with their students via e-mail. Why not K-12? And, of course, there is the security angle. Schools are now turning to text messaging for emergency notification."
Wagner says his own favorite use for converged devices is as electronic readers. "Often, schools have no idea how much money is being spent on printing. Here at Indiana University, students print 28 million pages per year....For every 500,000 pages printed by or for students each year, we could buy 10 computers. When printed materials can be delivered to converged devices for reading, it really doesn't make sense to eat into scarce IT budgets to print these materials on paper."
The flip side of such economy, however, is the steep price of the gadgets themselves, plus the high cost of connectivity, which makes Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices and Technology Trends team, skeptical of their ultimate viability in education. "Let's face it, these devices aren't cheap," he says. "Who's going to absorb the monthly cost? Who is going to get the device? What about the non-school-related applications on it? If you're a student and you do a presentation on it, are you going to transmit that PowerPoint to other students? Think about the cost of the data. It raises a lot of questions about the sustainability of converged device programs."
Although the devices' nifty look and cool features may grab the spotlight, the real debate will center on what content should be delivered through them, says Adam Newman, interim vice president and service director of Burlingame, CA-based Outsell, a market research firm serving publishers and information providers. "The biggest challenge will be for content providers to figure out what their return will be," Newman says. "They'll want to put resources behind one or two models. It's hard for large publishers to be interested in multimillion- dollar adoptions as well as innovative pilots. At what point do they sacrifice the integrity of their own instructional models?"
In addition, school administrators must learn not to fear mobile devices, but plan how to use them effectively, designing instructional models that make optimal use of the technology. Fundamentally, Newman says, "there are two ways to think: 'How do you protect the kids from the technology?' Or, 'How do you unlock the creativity of the kids by engaging them with the technology?' If you assume that students will get their hands into the cookie jar, you're thinking about it the wrong way."
While cost may present a barrier to their widespread use, Newman still has no doubt that converged devices will be the instructional medium of the future. He says that content standards and interoperability standards will render what kind of device dominates the market unimportant. "Five years ago, 1-to-1 learning meant a laptop computer. That hypothesis has proven inaccurate. It's going to be a handheld device."
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Rama Ramaswami is a freelance writer based in Wilton, CT.
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