Voice from the Field
Mobile Devices: The New Education Backpack
Rob Dickson, CIO, Andover Kansas, Eliot Levinson, CEO, BLEgroup — Friday, September 02, 2011
A BLEgroup Blog: Rob Dickson, CIO, Andover Kansas, Eliot Levinson, CEO, BLEgroup
Is this the 80s all over again? Are mobile devices a silver bullet that will fail to support education results, or are they the platform for a disruptive breakthrough in education improvement?
The use of mobile devices is changing so rapidly that it is hard for education decision makers to know what to purchase or for publishers to know what to produce. In this blog posting, we provide a perspective for decision makers in schools, technology, and publishing on the current state of devices and what they can expect in the coming year.
Mobile devices are everywhere. They are changing the way we live. The two major drivers for the increased use of mobile devices in education are:
- The move from textbooks to digital materials.
* The change in state laws (e.g., Texas Senate Bill 6) enabling districts to buy less expensive and more targeted digital materials has a major impact on both school systems and publishers.
* The “cloud” is driving the use of digital educational materials. - The increased functionality and lower price of mobile devices, making 1:1 computing more feasible. THE TABLET IS BECOMING THE BACKPACK.
The cost of tablets is gradually heading toward $300, making them more cost-effective than laptops or desktops. These new devices are the ideal host for the new digital materials.
A year ago, many of the mobile devices were specialized for smart technology and prohibitively costly. These devices are currently going through a process of convergence, overtaking the desktop and notebook and computing much faster than expected. Purchasing these devices did not make sense for educational institutions 12 months ago, in the midst of budget cuts and uncertainty. Now mobile devices have the functionality of desktops and laptops at a fraction of the price. The combination of low-cost devices and customizable and lower-cost digital materials is turbocharging the move to digital devices, making them attractive to school districts.
It is important to note that software delivered by the “cloud” is driving the acceptance of mobile devices in many school districts. For example, due to the success of Apple’s Application Store and other online marketplaces for software, instant downloading is bringing an end to the days of running to the computer store to buy the latest and greatest educational resources. Even Apple’s latest operating system, Lion, can only be installed from Apple’s proprietary App Store. Without question, districts need to be prepared for this instant access to new material and anytime, anywhere access.
How can mobile devices be used in a K-12 classroom? One example is using the mobile-device camera feature at a fraction of the cost of mainstream laptops or desktops with webcams for global collaboration projects. Digital cameras, video streaming, and video calls have become the norm for smartphones and tablets. With the recent release of Skype for iPad, video collaboration is seamless, expanding the possibilities of cross-district or even cross-country collaboration. Now students can strengthen their 21st century skills of cultural understanding, collaboration, and communication with cost-effective tools.
Another way that mobile computing will impact K-12 is in regard to textbooks. Textbook companies are already offering completely digital-dynamic content in place of static pictures and basic text. Using a mobile computing device, the student cross-references information with the tap of the screen, accessing supplemental information, historical data, or even current media articles related to the subject matter. No more waiting for seven-year textbook updates.
The Device Race
At the moment, Apple’s iPad 2 dominates the market, simply because it is the first kid on the block and offers over 7,500 apps. However, over the coming year, look for both less expensive devices and for Android to provide more apps with Flash functionality.
Education is a lemming culture. Currently many leading-edge school systems are piloting iPads.
- Minnetonka Public Schools in Minnesota are using them to provide half their 9th graders with their curriculum materials, and Middletown City Schools in New York are using them to provide all curriculum and assessment to their high school students. The danger for school systems is that, unbeknownst to them, many of their curriculum materials have to be customized by the vendor to be usable. The schools cannot live by iPad apps alone.
There is good reason for the star status of iPad. In its second generation, it provides a 9.7-inch display, features front- and rear-facing cameras, and has a ten-hour battery life, allowing for web surfing up to ten hours, which makes it ideal for classroom use. Apple’s App Store contains 7,500 education apps built exclusively for the iPad. In addition, iTunes U provides a large repository of free resources produced by colleges and K-12 institutions for classroom use.
Adobe, however, has recognized the need for Flash on Apple products and has released a new application called Edge, giving much of the same feel and interactivity as Flash products.
iPads have a few downsides. They are costly, they do not have Flash (which many education applications use), and customization is often needed for commonly used curriculum materials.
Android is Google’s open-source operating system. The Android-based tablets are the Avis rental cars of the education tablet world. They are currently way behind, but this situation could change a lot in the next 18 months. A number of companies are releasing competitive tablets. Among them are the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy. The biggest advantages of Android tablets are the ability to use Adobe Flash and a lower cost compared with the iPad. Interestingly, content generated from the Edge program works on both Android and iPad devices.
Android devices also have their downsides. Currently there are only 400 education Apps, and the versions of the Android-operating systems differ slightly on different hardware brands causing incompatibility. To become successful in the K-12 space, Android will need one standard platform. Given the flexibility of the Android platform, its lower cost, and its ability to use open source, Android could become the major device in the K-12 market.
The number of mobile solution options available to schools is growing every day. In addition to the Apple iPad and major-name Android devices, we are beginning to see lower-cost tablets focused on the school market. Here are two examples:
- The Brainchild Kineo costs less than $300. It offers high-quality content and assessment targeted at schools that are not making average yearly progress (AYP).
- The Edutone tablet provides the Edutone Exchange curriculum on a mobile device rather than a PC.
Amazon’s Kindle is like a backpack for textbooks. It is reasonably priced, it provides the convenience of having all books on one device—a device that never loses your place, lets you highlight content or make notes, and gives you access to additional information. The disadvantage of the Kindle is that it does not provide the collaborative functionality of an iPad or a Droid device, and its main purpose is delivering books. The Kindle can be an interim solution for traditional school systems that are moving from books to digital interactive curriculum.
Mobile Is More Than Tablets; For Openers, Add Cell Phones
Cell phone use in the classroom is increasing significantly. As more and more students have their own cell phones or smartphones, educators are considering the possibility of using them for instruction. To use cell phones, districts must have the technical capacity to ensure that the cell phones can be used only for academic purposes on the district’s network during school time. Many districts ban cell phones within the classroom, but with the right policies and procedures in place, a “bring your own technology” approach could enhance the classroom experience with little or no cost to the district. Consider, for example, a web application called Poll Everywhere. Using this free web application, a teacher creates a quick poll or quiz inviting students to text in answers, making cell phones instant student-response systems at no cost to the district.
With continued advances in mobile computing, the traditional textbook will become a dinosaur, replaced with a classroom environment that is as dynamic and interactive as Internet content.
Issues for Educators and the Industry in the Coming Year to Make Mobile Devices Effective
Can schools employ these new devices effectively, avoiding the adoption problems of the past? What is needed is a combination of good policies, high-quality interactive customizable curriculum and assessment at reasonable prices, adoption management, content, and follow-up activities, so that mobile devices can achieve their educational promise. That outcome will depend on both the schools and the vendors.
Issues education decision makers and content providers need to address to make effective investments:
Educators
- The educators should be piloting mobile devices to gain the technical capacity to manage the new delivery system.
* Since the schools will no longer need complete textbooks, they need to determine what standards-based curriculum should go on the devices and what type of LMS will be needed to deliver it.
* Districts need to ensure that their chosen content will fit their device.
* Schools will have to deal with change management necessary for teachers to deliver instruction on mobile devices in a more collaborative way
* ADOPTION PRACTICES ARE THE SINGLE BIGGEST ISSUE SCHOOLS HAVE TO ADDRESS. Adoption is the area where schools have failed historically. The integration of the mobile devices into teaching and learning will need to be planned, adopted, and supported over a three- to four-year time frame. The mobile devices need to be treated as educational delivery systems to be effective.
* Districts need to carefully watch Android and Apple to determine which of the devices will be the most cost-effective and flexible, as well as able to support the curriculum that they wish to use, without large amounts of customization
Content and Device Providers
- Curriculum providers will need to modularize their curriculum and ensure that it can be used with a variety of devices. There will need to be usable pricing models for the modularized content.
- Technology and content providers need to be service-oriented, supporting schools in selecting curriculum for the mobile devices and continuing to support them after the sale.
- Curriculum providers need to think about increasing interactive curriculum, adaptive assessment, professional development, and learning objects that fit into a repository.
- Device providers have distinct issues. Apple will need to determine how it solves the Flash problem, and the Android providers will benefit from a standardized common platform.
It is 2012, not 1980. The vendors, publishers, and schools have the capacity and experience to utilize the new mobile devices so that they produce improved educational outcomes. We think the combination of new mobile devices in tandem with high-quality content, new business models for content pricing, and effective adoption practices by schools will significantly improve education delivery.
________________________________________________________________________________
About The BLEgroup
The BLEgroup is a group of 100 leading ed tech practitioners, composed of a mix of superintendents, CIOs, instructional technology specialists, and heads of instruction from a wide variety of state departments, large districts, intermediate units, virtual schools, and large and leading-edge technology districts.Eliot Levinson is CEO of the BLEgroup.
The BLEgroup provides services to both schools and the industry. At ISTE and TCEA, the BLEgroup provides 25 focus groups during which leading ed tech practitioners “kick the tires” on new products and answer questions which firms have about messaging, marketing, and implementation from a school perspective.
________________________________________________________________________________
Want to share you thoughts on mobile devices in education? Make a comment on the EdNET Community facebook post!
