Originally from Mashable.

Jeff Kirchick is Director of Universities at SCVNGR, the popular mobile game about going places, doing challenges and earning points. He presents regularly about the future of mobile and location-based services in education. You can follow Jeff on Twitter @JeffreyKirchick or e-mail him at jeff@scvngr.com.

Mobile technology is on the minds of higher education professionals more than ever before. At the recent HighEdWeb conference in Austin, the itinerary included several ways schools can use social media, blogs and mobile technologies to better captivate its student body. And last week, hundreds of orientation professionals gathered in New Orleans for the National Orientation Directors Association annual conference, where they discussed how to engage with prospective students in modern and relevant ways — including mobile — to welcome the next freshman class.

It’s no mystery why: The latest numbers show 40% of teens plan on buying an iPhone within the next three months. In the last three years, the smartphone penetration rate among the 18-24 age demographic has risen by nearly a fifth. It’s not unreasonable to expect that nearly all of the Class of 2015 will have smartphones by the time they graduate. At the same time, nearly half of all college students are using their phones to access the mobile web.

There’s a recent debate about whether schools should create mobile apps or mobile websites. Either way, according to Dave Olsen, a web developer at West Virginia University, roughly 15% of colleges and universitieseven have a mobile website, much less an app or set of apps targeted to their prospective, current and/or alumni bodies.

To be fair, universities have come a long way. Nearly all schools are now using social media for everything from brand awareness to event management. And some institutions — for example WVU, William and Mary and Ohio State University — are pioneering and already providing an impeccable mobile experience for students.

As tomorrow’s grads become increasingly married to their mobile devices, here are five ways that mobile tech matters just as much as social technology in the higher ed space.

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1. Engaging a Mobile Student Body

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Students today seem unable to go five minutes without checking their phones for a text, notification or email. (88% of students even text during class!) The power of that reliance could be harnessed to announce campus events, such as a fundraiser or a special guest lecture, or even incorporate it into the class curriculum.

Technology in education usually means places of higher learning play a bit of catch-up, but those who start embracing mobile now with development and budget resources will be ahead of the curve for years to come. Check out what Purdue University’s done with mobile learning with their remarkable Studio Project. In particular, the project’s Hotseat app takes status updates and creates a “collaborative classroom” by allowing students to provide near real-time feedback during class. The idea is that professors can then adjust the course content and improve the overall learning experience.

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2. Providing Real-Time Information that Matters

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Even though the latest numbers show only 4% of adults use location services to check in, nearly a quarter of them use it for practical things like getting directions and recommendations. Savvier teens are more likely to use location for fun, but they’re also looking for practical information: campus events, news alerts, social recommendations — you name it, there’s probably a need on campus.

One great example of this is at WVU, where the school’s iWVU app shows everything from athletics to shuttle bus info. Another is Ohio State University’s OSU Mobile app that even gives students their grades and schedules in real-time.

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3. Creating a Safer Campus

Just this summer, the University of California, Davis removed more than 100 emergency landline phones from campus — not only to save money, but because the idea of a stationary phone-based system seemed draconian when compared to the ubiquity of mobile. Indeed, a safe student body makes for a happy one, and the rise of mobile technology should empower students more than ever before to report dangerous situations and remain safe from harm.

Many schools, like Princeton University, send their student body SMS alerts for emergency situations. And new apps like MyForce Campus Interface provide crime data about campus and surrounding areas. Mobile technology has enormous potential to bring real-time knowledge and assurance to any college student today.

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4. Empowering Mobile Commerce

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The idea of paying with your phone is starting to catch on, with Square and Intuit’s GoPayment, as well as LevelUp and Google Wallet. Some early-adopter institutions are already on top of it.

Last year, the University of Denver partnered with Mocopay and a local coffee shop to test things out. Stanford University is experimenting with BlingTag stickers, which charge students’ PayPal accounts for purchases on campus. Embracing mobile payments on a wide scale will result in new levels of data and commerce, for example, giving schools a better read on dense periods of commercial activity. This will help identify the best (and worst) performing kiosks and services. QR-code technology could also securely add value to promotions, such as apparel and attendance at athletics events.

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5. University Brand Reputation

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All of this doesn’t have to take place in a vacuum. Developing a strategy where mobile activity is easy to share on existing social networks is key. Allow your app to connect with Facebook when possible and appropriate. Your students will be able to share what they’re up to with their friends, mapping directly to the brand of your school.

Adding game mechanics — for example, asking challenge-type questions during an orientation game to baking in reward elements — can encourage even more sharing and memorability.
When creating a mobile strategy, consider these successful social media ideas. Emerson College, for example, has brought big brands in need of social media help together with an eager-to-learn, hyperconnected student body. The process alone earned big social media savvy points for the brand.

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Mobile is the next imperative channel. Technology makes things easier and adds new layers of engagement, commerce, safety and knowledge. This provides a better overall college experience, which is increasingly important to college rankings and polls. Putting the right mobile technology in place strengthens overall brand perception and student welfare alike.

Are there are other reasons why mobile matters to your college or university? What is your campus doing with mobile? Please share your stories and feedback in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, hellobeautifulworld

About a month ago, I was interviewed by two different sets of high school students. Their questions mostly revolved around my background, my current position, what steps/events got me to where I am now, and what advice I had for them.  One of those pieces of advice that I gave at the time was that they should find some Art that they could find a passion for and cultivate that as a hobby. (an aside is that most of these students were interesting in physics or engineering) I found out after that this was very similar to what many of my fellow interviewees had said.

I have been thinking about this advice since then. I feel it is common advice given to folks. No matter what you do find some creative outlet and cultivate that to make yourself more well rounded. This is very similar to the Liberal Arts education I received at St. Mary’s College (and one that I am very thankful for!) However I am beginning to think that it is a bit flawed. Yes, we should encourage students to take some arts class in college (and hopefully beyond) whether it is a photography class, set design, painting, dance, etc.

BUT this only targets the creative side of our brain, the non logical, often chaotic side. Which we do need to stimulate otherwise we run the risk of becoming cubicle zombies. But we should also flip that and in the same way we encourage study of the Arts, we need to encourage study of the Sciences. Just as there a wide range of Arts so too are there a wide range of sciences. And a varying degree of depth to them! Just as we tell people to grow their creative and intuitive skills we need to be telling them to remember the scientific method and apply that to problems in the workplace. I am a firm believer in creative and intuitive problem solving, but logical progression has its place as well.

In addition, by finding the right scientific interest we can pique those same creative juices! Imagine the wonder of reading and learning about the solar system or having a passion for the depths of the ocean?!

Many seem to think that in order to be interested in Quantum Computers and to know about it, you need some combination of computer engineering, physics, and advanced math degrees. And you would most likely if you wanted to get into that field professionally, but there are many books, videos and websites that make Quantum Computing accessible to average people, but as photography can be made accessibly to those people who do NOT want to be professional photographers for the New York Times.

To wrap up, in order to create a fully balanced person, one truly able to adapt and appreciate their surroundings/life, we need to encouraging in equal measure exploration of the arts AND the sciences not as career paths, or life long quests but as things that can hobbies, can be explored on an hour long commute or on the weekends.

 

I’m probably not going to add anything new to this discussion, but I wanted to point out this issue that I think anyone who spends more than 5 minutes online needs to be aware of.  I first saw this over at Dvice.  I’ve done some research online and didn’t come up with anything new to this story as the deal appears to be both fairly new and being kept fairly hush hush.

Essentially it boils down to Google and Verizon working out a deal where some websites (google) can pay the ISP a small fee to make it possible to have their pages load quicker than another webpage. Another option on the table is that ISPs will become like cable providers where they only carry a set number of pages (abc, cbs, nbc, usa, syfy, etc) and for a small fee can get access to others (hbo, showtime, etc).  Either way this spells really bad news for small businesses, internet marketers, and everyone who accesses the internet.  Right now you can use PPC and a bank account to help rank a page somewhat in Google, but the biggest pull for Google is relevant interesting content.  Content that is getting reposted, pingbacks, and dumped on slashdot/digg.  Having this great content can allow a small business or a basic blog to beat out larger companies, this is fantastic! This means that you have a much better chance of finding what you are wanting, and it gives a certain amount of survival of the creative (ie- successful internet marketers are the ones who are creative NOT necessarily the ones with the largest checkbook). Another implication is the paying by companies to have bad comments/reviews about them load slower than their websites which would in turn decrease visits, and then not rank lower in google.  This takes away a significant amount of the power from the internet. It frankly puts us in the same ballpark of China censoring the internet, except instead of a unified government we’re going to have whomever can pay the most money.  I’ve tried to make this a reasoned argument, putting up a few thoughts based on the limited information coming out about this deal.  I strongly urge anyone reading this to get themselves up to date on this deal and take action. Visit this site for some more.  I found this quote over at alternet.org.  As they pointed out is amazing how fast a company with the motto: “don’t be evil” can slide down the slippery slope of profit:  ”Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.”