This keynote presentation was given at the 8th Annual Faculty Technology Showcase at Bloomfield College in New Jersey, January 2012.
This presentation addressed the then-current advertising tagline that "There's an app for that" which has moved into education as a possible solution for many software needs. Apps – small, easy to download software for mobile devices – are changing how students use technology. It is also changing the way colleges design and deploy software. How are schools reacting to this app world? This presentation examines how mobile and web apps are currently being developed and used, and the ways educators can implement them for teaching and for campus-wide initiatives.
2. Are you using:
Cell Phone
Blackberry
iPhone or Android
Kindle or other eReader
iPad or other tablet
Using an eTextbook
Using an app in class
1999 = Blackberry
2004 = RSS, blogs, Web 2.0
2005 = podcasts, iTunes
2006 = Video & vlog, Twitter, Google Apps
2007 = iPhone, Kindle
2008 = iPhone App Store, Android phone
2010 = augmented reality, location-based apps, iPad
2011 = cloud computing
3. Disruption
What has changed?
3 Waves of apps in education
Pedagogical change
What is down the road?
4. • Disruptive innovation - coined by
Clayton Christensen
• The process by which a product or
service takes root initially in simple
applications at the bottom of a market
and then relentlessly moves “up
market’” eventually displacing
established competitors.
• Examples of disruptive innovation
– cellular phones disrupting fixed line
telephony
– traditional full-service department stores
being disrupted by online and discount
retailers
– Doctor’s offices being displaced by medical
clinics
– The traditional four-year college
experience being displaced by community
colleges, online learning and
5. Disruptive Education
• Companies tend to innovate faster than their
customers’ lives change - newer phones but
customers who don't want to upgrade yet -
and so most end up producing products or
services that are actually too good and too
expensive for many of their customers.
But the model for education….
• In education, customers/students innovate
faster than the schools. They have the
technology in their hands before we have it
and before we have a way to use it in our
classrooms. So…
are schools offering an inferior product for too
high a price?
6. What Is Changing?
• how students use technology
• the way colleges design or purchase
websites and software
• how colleges deploy software
• the ways educators can implement it for
teaching
• how colleges use it for campus-wide initiatives
• And apps are driving the ways they are
changing.
• Is change easy? Is it being accepted?
7. • "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously
considered as a means of communication. The device is
inherently of no value to us."
-- Western Union internal memo circa 1876
• "I have anticipated radio's complete disappearance ... confident
that the unfortunate people who must now subdue themselves to
listening in, will soon find a better pastime for their leisure."
-- Science fiction author H.G. Wells circa 1925
• "Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures
after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a
plywood box every night."
-- Film mogul Darryl F. Zanuck of 20th Century Fox, in 1946
• "The cinema is little more than a fad. It's canned drama. What
audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage."
-- Charlie Chaplin circa 1916
• "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his
home."
-- Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., circa 1977.
8. Web versus Mobile Apps
http://blog.flurry.com/bid/63907/Mobile-Apps-Put-the-Web-in-Their-Rear-view-Mirror
11. Software Distribution
• App Store = vertical integration, tied to selling
hardware, a 30/70% split, tight control, and
centralized
• But big & small developers can profit
• Android Market = more “open”, less control,
hardware fragmentation
12. Expectations
• Easy downloads, updates, removal
• Free or low cost (if it’s cheap enough, users
won’t steal it; defeats the “sneaker network”)
• A mobile/iPad version
• Backup (cloud)
• Always on/connected
• Don’t want single-function
gadgets (app stores for TVs, Ford cars…)
• Live in public – share information
13. Devices are changing
• What is a “computer”?
• What size screen do we want to
watch “TV”?
• How many devices do we want?
– One!
• Where do we want the Net?
– Windows 8, Phone 7, XBOX, Metro
UI
• Do schools provide the hardware,
software or the network?
14. App Development
• Then: Get an app
• Now: Make it good
• Multiple versions 11 Android OS versions - Still
an Apple/Android/PC divide Will the cloud solve that?
• Fast and light
• UX - User experience is critical
• Apps on appliances, consumer
electronics, kiosks,
checkouts, medical, eReaders,
cars…
15. TOP 100
Paid
Apps
What does
this say
about app
use?
In
education?
21. http://www.cengagesites.com/academic/?site=5232
“MindTap is well beyond an eBook, a homework solution or
digital supplement, a resource center website, a course delivery
platform or a Learning Management System.
More than 70% of students surveyed said it was unlike
anything they have seen before.
MindTap is a new personal learning experience that combines all
your digital assets – readings, multimedia, activities, and
assessments— into a singular learning path to improve student
outcomes.”
24. Mobile is more than phones…
Tablets and iPads
apple.com/education/ipad/
25. • More visual content
• More sophisticated
Designing swipe/pinch & navigation
for the • More interactivity
tablet
The Elements: A Visual Exploration
29. “My Teacher Is An App” online.wsj.com
“Apps” are not online
courses or virtual schools
“In a radical rethinking of what it means to
go to school, states and districts nationwide
are launching online public schools that let
students from kindergarten to 12th grade
take some—or all—of their classes from
their bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens.
Other states and districts are bringing
students into brick-and-mortar schools for
instruction that is largely computer-based
and self-directed.”
30. Are apps driving curriculum or
is curriculum driving app development?
31. “For this invention will produce
forgetfulness in the minds of
those who learn to use it,
because they will not practice
their memory.
You have invented an elixir not of
memory, but of reminding; and
you offer your pupils the
appearance of wisdom, not true
wisdom, for they will read many
Socrates on the things without instruction and
written word, will therefore seem to know
many things, when they are for
Phaedrus, 340 BC the most part ignorant and hard
to get along with, since they are
not wise, but only appear wise.”
35. Early Use Developing
After adopting & adapting • Parking & events using
commercial apps… GPS
• (RE)creating campus • Doing research in the
maps & recruiting field
materials • Software developed
• Schedules specifically for a course,
• Homework school, program
• Grades
• Registration
36. Do Schools Need To Develop Their Own Apps?
To predict the future, you need to know the past
• Look back to the development
of
– educational software
– school websites
• Are your school websites even
ready for mobile, phones,
tablets…? Do they support
swipe, pinch, HTML 5, no Flash
etc.
38. • Locations, hours
• Computer availability
• Catalog search
• Reference services
– Not just “resizing the
page”
39. The myRV mobile
application for Raritan
Valley Community
College gives you access
to: Classes, Grades,
Campus Directory, News,
Event Schedule, Library,
FaceBook, Campus Map,
and more
developed by CollegeMobile, Inc.
40. “iPhone apps: The hottest course on campus”
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/technology/
apps_campus_classes.fortune/
41. “Porter says the challenge of smartphones is to treat them as more than
small computers and to harness their mobile capacity. "The device
always knows where it is," he says. So, for example, his students are
working on an app called I Remember UMD that would create an
ongoing time capsule as you move about the campus.”
money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/technology/apps_campus_classes.fortune
Two NJIT students released an iPhone app that ascended to Apple’s
15th best-selling app in the Reference category at $1.99. The app,
called Quotebook, allows people to store, sort, and share quotations
on the iPhone and iPod touch. That app got them jobs – designing
aps for The New York Times…
adultlearner.njit.edu/admissions/prospective/iphone_online.php
44. Microblogging has grown in the past few years because of mobile
Microblogging platforms
and location services -
real-time interactions between users
photo: http://www.heikkironkko.com/images/yolehti_jaiku.jpg
45. Who Should Be Microblogging?
• Communications
• Recruiting
• Athletics
– Programs
– Courses
• faculty
48. • Voice-powered artificial
intelligence (AI) like Siri
and Google Voice are
shaping up to become
the next-generation
user interface.
• Siri is a personal assistant application
for iOS. The application uses natural
language processing to answer
questions, make recommendations,
and perform actions such as search
by delegating requests to an
expanding set of web services.
Siri on iPhone 4S
49. Back to TV?
Maybe the
convergence
device won’t be
the phone… back
to big screens?
From Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: “I'd like to create an integrated
television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced
with all of your devices and with iCloud. No longer would users have to
fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. It will
have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”
50. The Death of the Desktop?
• Google's European Chief John Herlihy: "in three
years' time, [desktop computers] will be irrelevant."
• Because of the ever-increasing sophistication and
worldwide popularity of smartphones and other
mobile devices
– In Japan, those accessing via mobile phones eclipsed
computer-Internet users in 2009
• The death card syndrome and killer apps – death of
the land line, laptop, iPod, mouse, monitor…
– The iPhone or iPad doesn’t replace the computer – in fact, it needs it.
51. And so…
• Schools are not ready, as http://www.educause.edu
March/April 2011
always, and lag behind many
students’ use, understanding,
interest, and expectations for
technology.
• We need better goals than
“to use new technology”
• Mobile & apps will be the
ubiquitous computing
• The digital divide is between
students and faculty.