Mobile Technology Use in Education

Recently, on the monthly podcast I co-host, The Mobile Marketing Review, we reviewed the mobile campaign of a U.S. university who had used SMS/Texting to aid incoming freshman in adjusting to campus life.  My co-hosts and I were quite gratified to see mobile marketing technology being used in such a non-traditional way.  The college, The University of Louisville, wasn’t trying to sell them anything – instead, they were trying to provide a service thru a medium that incoming freshman are most actively involved with and most comfortable with.

Personally, while I certainly believe that mobile marketing technology is incredibly important and valuable for increasing company revenue, I also believe it has many other uses that also can be of tremendous value and I’m very glad to see firms (and in this case, universities) starting to embrace those alternative uses of the technology. 

To get a better idea of the ways mobile is being used on today’s college campuses, I did a bit of research.  The results were fascinating!  I saw a wide variety of interesting uses of mobile technology such as:

• mobile safety alerts
• class scheduling
• deadline reminders
• tuition due reminders
• campus maps
• athletic schedules
• ability to purchases athletic event tickets
• using cellphone coupons as meal tickets for student meal programs
• much, much more!

From my work with Michigan-based mobile companies thru the Mobile Technology Association of Michigan and Mobile Monday Michigan, I’m also very aware that college campuses are beginning to embrace mobile as a teaching aid with such uses as:

• listening to class lectures via podcast instead of, or in addition to, the classroom
• receiving class assignments via text
• communicating with professors
• participating in class forums.

I’m also aware that mobile initiatives in K-12 education are also picking up steam.  A Michigan-based firm, GoKnow Inc. provides educational software for use in the K-12 classroom.  They have been conducting test studies in school systems all over the country for several years, and the results have been astounding – across the board there is typically a 25 – 30% increase in test results from those students who are using the mobile technology learning tools!

I believe the opportunities that mobile technology are providing us to improve education, and the way we conduct business are only now starting to be explored. And I, for one, look forward to a future where every student who wants an education can have access to one because they are able to be provided with an inexpensive mobile device that contains software providing them the tools needed to learn, to communicate with teachers and other students, and offers them opportunities to explore the world.