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The overwhelming response is – YES!
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ABILENE, TX April 12, 2011 — In its continued effort to increase student engagement using innovative technology-enabled approaches, Abilene Christian University’s (ACU) mobile-learning initiative, Connected, today announced it was awarded nearly $250,000 from Wave I of the Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) grants.
The grant money will be used to scale ACU’s mobile-enhanced inquiry-based learning (MEIBL) program demonstrating its effectiveness in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs at two schools — Del Mar College and California University of Pennsylvania — both that have low-income students who are at the highest risk of failing or dropping out. MEIBL is a blended learning strategy which helps creates an active and engaging learning environment, producing increased student engagement, independence, and persistence to course completion.
Research conducted through ACU’s Mobile Learning initiative, Connected, provides evidence that mobile device usage consistently results in creased ratings of student engagement (Perkins & Saltsman, 2011). Findings also show that student teams effectively use pre-class viewing of instructive podcasts to reduce in-class instructional time and to facilitate just-in-time review which fosters independent, collaborative and active learning processes in basic science labs (Powell, 2009; Saltsman, Crisp, Perkins & Powell, 2010).
“To provide new methods of learning to students who otherwise would drop out or fail is precisely the foundation of ACU’s mobile learning initiative,” said Dwayne Harapnuik PhD, Director of Faculty Enrichment at Abilene Christian University. “It’s an honor that the NGLC recognizes the benefits of our MEIBL program.”
Over the next 18 months, California University of Pennsylvania and Del Mar will implement MEIBL with students in biology, zoology and botany courses. ACU currently uses MEIBL with over 400 students in chemistry and biochemistry courses and will apply the MEIBL to additional classes with a portion of the grant money.
In this first wave of grant funding, NGLC awarded a combined total of $11 million to organizations developing promising education technology solution. The $20 million grant program is run by Educause and sustained mostly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
ABOUT ACU’S MOBILE-LEARNING INITIATIVE, CONNECTED
In a world of search engines, social networking, and mobile computers, students have access to more information than one could process in a lifetime. In 2008, Abilene Christian University launched a mobile-learning initiative, Connected, which trains students to not merely consume these vast amounts of information, but to assess information, synthesize thoughts, generate new ideas, and contribute meaningfully to conversations of global importance. The university hosts live and online conferences for educators and administrators to engage in dialogue, research and idea-sharing. ACU was named one of “America’s Best Colleges” by U.S. News and World Report in its 2011 edition. In 2010, Forbes rated ACU in the top seven percent of colleges and universities in its “America’s Best Colleges” rankings. It enrolls 4,700 students, generally from 50 states and territories, and 42 nations. For more information visit http://www.acu.edu/connected
The ACU Connected Summit kicks off today and for those involved in organizing the event this will be the culmination of many months of work. The conference headline “Turning the Page: The Next Chapter for Education” suggests that we will be exploring the future of Education and the line up of sessions, keynotes, panels confirm this focus–we really will be looking into the the future has in store for education. This will be a wonderful event that will bring together Educational thought leaders from throughout the world willing to explore the impact mobility is having on learning. The twitter feeds, ACU Connected Facebook page and blog sites are starting to confirm that many folks in addition to everyone at ACU is getting excited about the start of the conference.
So how does the title of this post “preaching to the choir” fit into this context. Let me explain… As part of the Teaching and Learning track at the conference we have scheduled a faculty panel titled “Mobile Learning: The Teacher’s Perspective” in which we plan to have faculty from several institutions involved in mobile learning participate and share their experiences. As I have been pouring over the conference registration looking for faculty to participate in this Faculty panel I have noticed that other than ACU faculty there are fewer faculty attending than one might expect. Most people attending are in some form of institutional leadership or administration and many have an Educational Technology or IT focus. There is nothing wrong with this–we need strong leadership and vision at our institutions if we want to fully realize the potential of mobility. But we also need to have as many faculty as possible involved if we want to have the most significant impact on our learners.
ACU must be commended for opening the conference to all its faculty and if you look at many of the conference tracks you will see dozens of ACU faculty involved in the sessions. Obviously, ACU can do this because the conference is happening on the ACU campus. Institutions like California University of Pennsylvania must also be commended for sending a contingent of 20 participants, several who are faculty so there are others who recognize that folks on the front lines of implementing mobility are the faculty. There are several other institutions who have 3-5 attendees that have representation from Administration, IT and the Faculty so it is obvious that in times of economic constraint hard decisions of who can attend conference must be made.
It is also a well know fact that most people attend conferences in which they have a specific interest, so there is always some aspect of “preaching to the choir” at all conferences. But this is where the impact of mobility is different. Everyone is impacted by mobility in some way and we need to recognize that mobility is a catalyst for change that transcends academic disciplines and institutions. Mobility has broadly impacted society in a way and at a speed we have not see before, so I encourage everyone at the ACU connected conference to remember to pick up a tune or two that can be easily passed onto the choir members back home who were not able to make the trip. Fortunately through social media like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube the faculty who haven’t been able to make the trip and be part of the chorus at ACU will be singing along virtually back home.
