iPhone Connected: ACU
Link: Abilene Christian University. It is no secret the Kansas Business Attorney has been skeptical of the iPhone. The rest of the story. While the AT&T 8525 has certainly filled the bill for mobile connectedness, there is a quiet concession to be made. Fewer keystrokes may have value. Some may have had a tendency (due to an old stereotype that Apple products are merely “more expensive and prettier”) to bash the iPhone in favor of the Windows Mobile (first 5, now 6) platform. True, it still seems the Windows Mobile can ultimately do more (and it already meshes well with Outlook), but for what it will do (and yes, that list is growing and many are eager to be its primary grower) the iPhone will do it faster than than a WinMo device.
Remarkable Concept: ACU Connected: Convergence and the 21st-Century Classroom. In its brief discourse (“Implications for the Emerging Classroom”) on the “flexibility, creativity, and community manifest in Web 2.0″ ACU suggest today’s students are
“born multitaskers for whom convergence is second nature.
Rather than fighting against a change that’s old news for our students, and rather than passively waiting for the development of new pedagogical models, we think it’s important to embrace and nurture the trends demonstrated by the 21st-century classroom and Web 2.0. We believe that the best way to fulfill these goals is to encourage communication and convergence. We see the new generation of converged mobile devices like the iPhone or Blackberry as devices uniquely suited to this purpose, offering multiple communication technologies – phone, voicemail, email, multi-session chat – while also bringing together an unprecedented level of media and information access – audio, video, photography, and the web.
At their core, these devices offer compelling support for the strategies of the 21st-century classroom. Further, they offer students, faculty, and staff unprecedented opportunities for building academic and social community, bringing technologies together in a way that encourages participation, creation, and exploration rather than passive consumption. We see them as ideal platforms for developing innovative and integrative applications for higher education.”
What are those terms Jobs always throws around: remarkable … fascinating … groundbreaking. Pick one. Any way you slice, convergence and the classroom — the iPhone on any campus = pretty cool.