By David Smetters, CEO of Respondus
I was slow to the mobile party. Sure, I’ve owned a mobile phone for 15 years. But for many of those years it was the same phone. It was just a phone to me, not a lifestyle choice.
When you work at an educational technology company, you can’t help but notice the cool factor associated with products that run on mobile devices. But this puzzle always seemed to be missing pieces. Trying to learn on a thumbnail-sized screen seemed tortuous to me. And I couldn’t see how mobile could be a serious learning platform when only a fraction of students had a smart phone with a good data plan.
Then came Apple with their iPhone. They weren’t the only company to make a smart phone, but they were the first to get it right. The screen was larger, the browser worked well, and they offered a software development kit that enables companies to develop applications for it.
For educators, though, it was Apple’s iPod touch that solved a big piece of the puzzle because it allowed students to leverage the free Wi-Fi on campus and to skip the expensive voice and data plans needed for the iPhone. It also helped educators realize that “mobile devices” don’t have to be phones. They can be any device that is easily pulled out of a pocket or backpack, starts up instantly, and can connect to the Internet.
Respondus Commits to Mobile
In early 2009, our company committed to a mobile strategy. While it would have been easy to create an iPhone App and consider our work done, we wanted a mobile solution that would truly enhance our existing products and work with the breadth of mobile devices available.
For our initial mobile project, we chose StudyMate Class since it’s used by students (unlike Respondus 4.0) and because it’s a natural fit for mobile’s “learning on the go” concept.
We then began development of a browser-based solution where StudyMate Class detects the type of browser and mobile device being used and sends custom pages to it. The goal was to support any and all mobile browsers that work with a course management system. Simply put, if a mobile browser works with a CMS such as Blackboard, ANGEL or Moodle, then we want to support it.
Our browser-based solution was completed in December 2009 and it supports the leading mobile devices such as the iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre (running Opera). Here are a few screenshots showing the customized screens served up by StudyMate Class:
(Click on image for a full-size view.)
iPhone/iPod touch App
We are now working on a native iPhone/iPod touch application, scheduled for release in April 2010. Not only does this allow us to take advantage of the powerful iPhone software development kit, it recognizes the wide adoption of these devices on college campuses. The iPhone/iPod touch application allows students to synchronize data with the StudyMate Class server and then work with the learning activities offline.
Another advantage of an iPhone app is that it allows for a streamlined interface. After a one-time setup, users can skip the login step for the course management system and the navigation that’s normally required to locate each StudyMate project. Here’s a preview of how this application works:
ct the course and the proj
The iPhone app for StudyMate Class will be available for free. Stay tuned for further details.
What Do You Think of Mobile Learning?
We’d like your thoughts on mobile learning. Use the section below to post comments and feedback.
• Do you agree with the two-tiered approach we’re using for StudyMate Class (ie. a browser-based solution, plus an iPhone/iPod touch solution)?
• Do you think mobile learning is ahead of its time?
• What needs to happen before mobile learning really takes off at your institution?
• Where are you seeing early successes for mobile learning?
What about the future of StudyMate Author (the original product)? Will it remain a Flash-based product or will you move to something more widely supported by mobile devices?
Hello
I teach extensively online utilizing a Blackboard/WebCT combination. I am also a huge fan of the iPhone/iTouch, and soon, the iPad. I also utilize Respondus to develop my tests within our CMS.
I am very interested in these technologies that you speak of provided that they can be incorporated into our current CMS. I am not familiar with the new product of StudyMate Class as we do not have it on our campus but I can see how it would be great to be able to utilize these tools within my online and face-to-face courses.
The challenge that I think is before us has to do with ensuring that our students have a consistent experience regarding the user interface…jumping out of Blackboard to another site is not what we want.
If you want me to try out your products with my classes as test cases I would be pleased to work with you on that. Particularly if I get a free iPad in the deal.
:-)
Thanks for making great and innovative products.
Mark K.
Department Chair
Social Sciences
Kennebec Valley Community College
I’m glad to see you are supporting more than just the iPhone. While iPhone is very popular, there are a lot of students (and teachers) using Blackberry, Pre, Android, etc.
Mobile might be a bit overhyped right now, but it’s the direction things are going and students want this flexibility.
StudyMate Class looks nice. I just watched the demonstration movie.
I’m glad to see that you are coming to realize that there is life beyond the Windows. Any plans to make Respondus for Mac OS?
I agree with the two approaches. Supporting all types of mobile phones via their browser is the best way to cover the most people. Even for iPhone users (like myself), it’s nice having the option of using a browser _or_ an iPhone app. If I’m already in Blackboard using my iPhone browser, I don’t want to have to start a separate app to access what is right before my eyes. I’d use both, depending on the situation.
How about Desire2learn? It looks like Studymate class only works with Blackboard, Angel, and Moodle. I’d love to see it for desire2learn?
Firstly, kudos to you for being gracious enough to own up to an initial reluctance to take mobile learning seriously. As you realize, you are by no means alone.
In many places outside the US, mobile adoption was far faster and more widespread than was indicated by the (US-based) market research of just about any of the US-based educational software companies. I had a memorable conversation with someone very senior at Blackboard about six years ago where his eyes just glazed over at the suggestion that mobiles might feature on their development horizons. And the closed and limited Blackboard 8 and now 9 is the all-too-evident result of that myopia. One might suspect that moving mostly in the rarefied circles of US-based CIO’s at that time could not have helped either. For the students, having a laptop simply did not- and does not- equate with mobility.
While the iPhone and iTouch have undoubtedly raised the bar, and currently constitute an ‘easy victory’ for entering the mobile space, in the longer term, especially on a global scale, it is likely to be the open platforms that triumph. The Moodle team (heavy i-Phone users themselves, apparently) recognize the benefits of the twin strategy that you are advocating at the present time. But it is still early days and many of us feel that it can only be non-proprietary solutions that can lead to the type of global transformation that we were perhaps seeking when we got involved with education in the first place.