The university gave away free mobile Internet devices to select students in an effort to see if such tools can enhance the learning experiences of its users, a school official said.
Called the Mobility Initiative, the project began at the start of the semester and will examine whether students can effectively use educational applications on iPods and iPhones, said Phyllis Dickerson Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Information Technology.
“I think [this project is] going to be very, very effective,” said Kent Norman, a psychology professor and member of the Mobility Initiative Steering Committee. “I think it’s essential to the campus.”
The 133 freshmen, including Banneker-Key scholarship recipients and members of the Maryland Incentive Awards Program, had the option of choosing either an iPod Touch or an iPhone 3G for this study, Dickerson Johnson said. The iPod Touches were free, while the iPhones required students to sign a two-year contract with AT&T.
Once students made their selections, they could then use their devices to access educational applications designed by the university, Dickerson Johnson said. As a part of the Mobility Initiative, the university reformatted two university websites – MyUM portal, where students can check class schedules, grades and other academic information, and ELMS, where students can check assignments and participate in discussions – to be more functional on a smaller screen Dickerson Johnson added.
The handheld devices will also be able to access MyeVyu, an advanced application that helps students navigate and plan trips on and around the campus. According to the Mobility Initiative website, this program that was originally developed for the Nokia Smartphone can pinpoint where the user is located and give directions to another place on school property.
In addition, MyeVyu will list Shuttle-UM and Metrobus schedules, help students locate the closest bus stop and tell users all the bus routes that come at a particular stop, said Ashok Agrawala, a computer science professor and lead developer of the program. By using GPS, MyeVyu can also memorize the location of where students park their cars. And for safety purposes, the program has a panic button feature, which sends the identification and location of the user to a police dispatcher in the event of an emergency.
Agrawala said MyeVyu will be available for the Mobility Initiative students to use within the next two weeks. He and his team are hoping to develop other features for this program, such as the ability to find friends and the nearest restrooms.
“What we build is a flexible platform from which a large variety of applications can be implemented,” Agrawala said. “It’s aimed at improving the quality of life.”
The students will use the above programs on their iPods and iPhones and then discuss how effective each feature is in seminars. Their feedback will help faculty determine how effective mobile devices are when it comes to furthering education.
Agrawala said he hopes the programs being offered in the Mobility Initiative will one day be expanded to all devices. He added they do much more than simply make things easier for students.
“When on campus, there is a variety of information, and by making them readily accessible … it makes you that much more productive, that much more effective,” Agrawala said. “This is the first of its kind, and it’s well ahead of anything else anywhere.”
Norman said by allowing students to use educational programs on mobile devices, it prepares them for the future, because the 21st century workplace will be filled with similar technology. But that is not the only benefit, he said.
“They’ll feel much more connected to campus,” Norman said. “It’ll extend [learning] beyond the doors of the classrooms.”
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