Speakers at a recent education technology industry summit had a key piece of advice for the company executives who make and sell products for schools: Go mobile.
Hosted by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the summit was intended to keep company executives abreast of the latest trends and recent developments in school technology. But its content also gives educators a glimpse into where business leaders see the ed-tech industry heading.
Keynote speaker Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of Qualcomm Inc., pointed to a successful initiative in North Carolina, called Project K-Nect, that uses mobile phones to help teach algebra as an example of how mobile technology can empower learning.
At-risk ninth graders taking part in the project have access to specially created mobile applications that help explain algebraic principles, and they also can watch videos of other students explaining these principles. In addition, they can text or IM their peers for advice when they get stuck.
According to early studies of the program’s efficacy, students taking part in this Qualcomm-funded project outscored their peers who did not have access to the mobile phones and content by an average of 30 percent in algebra proficiency.
“Kids are excited—[they’re saying,] ‘Wow, we get to use cell phones in class?’” Johnson said. “It lets them learn in a way they’re learning outside of school.”
Mobile technologies can provide “24-7 connectivity [for] learning, just as we see in business,” she said, adding that mobile devices offer an emerging platform for the “21st-century textbook”—one that is more flexible, interactive, and allows for instant feedback, as well as greater personalization of the learning process.
The future of mobile computing
Research suggests there are some 1 billion 3G wireless subscribers in the world today, Johnson said—and according to wireless industry projections, that number will soar to nearly 3 billion by 2014. By 2011, emerging regions are expected to represent 50 percent of all 3G handset shipments.
“Emerging markets are stepping over the steps we took” in computing, Johnson said. “Their first PCs are smart phones.”
And the proliferation of mobile devices in these areas of the world is having “a huge transformative shift” in the literacy and quality of life of their populations, she said—noting that the Gross Domestic Product of a nation goes up as its cell-phone penetration increases.
What’s more, the speed of innovation in the chip sets that are driving mobile devices “has been astounding,” Johnson said, “and it’s not stopping here.”
She showed a graph indicating the growth over the last decade in MIPS (millions of instructions per second) that cell-phone chips can handle. The curve of the graph started rising steeply in 2004, when cell-phone chips could handle roughly 400 MIPS; today, that figure stands at nearly 2,000.
Today’s smart phones give users “all the power of a laptop in your pocket,” she said.
Cell-phone screens and battery life still remain challenges, Johnson acknowledged; the screens are very power-draining, and the developments in battery life haven’t been nearly as dramatic as the gains in chip sets.
But Johnson revealed new advances in these areas, too, that could make mobile computing even more powerful.
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