Using 21st Century Tools for College Success
Succeeding in college today can be a daunting challenge for students without the necessary study skills or those with learning disabilities. Students must adapt not only to a whole new learning environment, but also to a more rigorous and advanced curriculum. Fortunately, 21st century technology can help colleges and universities provide the extra support their students might need to reduce their anxiety and successfully complete the required courses to graduate.
From software that warns administrators when students are in danger of failing, to technology that helps students capture and play back their lecture notes as many times as they need to build comprehension, advancements in technology help ensure college students succeed and graduate with lifelong skills. We’ve assembled this collection of stories from our archives, along with other relevant materials to help you learn how.
—The Editors
Analytics use boosts online student retention
Phil Ice knows numbers never lie. Ice, the director of course design, research, and development for American Public University System, has watched retention rates at the 70,000-student online…
Ed-tech leaders push closed captioning, compliance monitoring
Teaming up with companies that provide transcribers or software that scans recorded lectures and provides transcription, colleges and universities are increasingly looking for new, inexpensive ways to eliminate…
Technology, interaction can bring big retention gains to small colleges
Electronic lists detailing which students are in danger of dropping out of college have become a favorite of campus administrators trying to curtail falling retention rates. Classes teaching…
Small campuses focus on retaining students with the help of technology
An Arizona community college and a New York campus with 1,000 students are using technology embraced by large research universities to stem alarming drops in student retention, especially…
University looks to draw students to STEM education
Arizona State University officials will invite teenagers to learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) from experts in those fields. The campus program joins a host of…
Purdue’s student achievement technology goes national
A Purdue University-piloted tool that uses educational technology—and online “signals”—to warn some students that their grades are dropping, offer study-habit suggestions, and provide positive reinforcement to students who…
New software turns paper into an inexpensive digital tablet
New software will enable Livescribe's digital "smart" pens to stream all notes taken live, in real time, to a computer—turning special dotted paper into an inexpensive digital tablet,…
Digital pens: Mightier than MSWord?
A significant key to students' academic success is their ability to take complete and accurate notes during class--and recent developments in digital-pen technology might help students do just…
UCB Written Case Study on Smartpens