Lynn U. Testing App to Track Attendance

Lynn University, Boca Raton, FL, is planning a beta test on a new iPad application that notifies students when they miss a class. The app, Class120, will send students a reminder when they are not in the classroom.

The app could also be used to notify the student’s academic coach and parents, although Lynn is not planning to reach out to Mom and Dad.

“We’re not interested where you are on Friday night,” Christian Boniforti, chief information officer at Lynn, said in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education. “We’re just interested in whether you’re in the classroom when you’re supposed to be.”

Downloading the app is optional, although the university wants all of its students to use it. Lynn already has a strict attendance policy that includes weekly reporting from instructors.

The app is considered an intervention tool because weekly attendance figures show students who miss 25% or more of their classes have a 68% chance of getting a grade-point average below a C. A Harvard study also showed that class size falls throughout the term unless attendance is measured and graded.

Earning a Graduate Degree on an iPad

As textbooks and lectures are being replaced by technology, St. Mary’s University, Minneapolis, MN, has developed a program to eliminate the need for classrooms, at least on the graduate level.

The school has designed accelerated courses for working professionals using Apple iPads for graduate degrees in project management, human resources, and organizational leadership. The course materials take advantage of the device’s easy accessibility to information and convenience provided though apps in the Apple Store.

“Adult learners are adaptive learners,” Bob Andersen, director of instruction technology for the university, told eCampus News. “We want to bridge the gap between work and academia.”

The program lets students and faculty conduct class discussions through social media, video chat, e-mail, and texting to enhance the learning process, according to Marcel Dumestre, vice president of graduate and professional programs. Students still have to write standard term papers, but professors consolidate assigned reading or instructor-created videos into a form that is manageable for a full-time professional to work on over a lunch hour.

The university has 200 students worldwide taking iPad graduate courses through the program which is currently being taught by 15 instructors. St. Mary’s plans to add a dozen more degree programs over the next five years.

“Our students find value not only in instruction; they find value in networking and interacting with other students,” Dumestre said. 

Big Investments Being Made in Online Education

Investing in online education has become big business. Since the beginning of September, news reports have surfaced of $5.7 million in venture capital going to a Chicago-based education startup called eSpark Learning. At the same time, the Canadian firm Desire2Learn reversed its strategy of not using external funding and raised $80 million.

eSpark, described by its founder and CEO as the Pandora radio for education, targets students in grades K-8. Students are given a custom playlist of apps and then asked to rate how much they like the app or how much they are learning, similar to the way Pandora listeners rate songs played, according to an article in TechCrunch.

Desire2Learn, which develops cloud-based learning systems, changed its funding strategy, in part, to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the online learning market. Blended learning programs, personalized learning, and open online courses have all contributed to that growth. Desire2Learn has responded by hiring 200 new employees in the past year, according to a report in Reuters.

Finally, the online educational startup Straighterline recently announced it will begin allowing college professors to attract online students to their for-credit courses through Straighterline and even set their own price for the course.

The company landed $10 million in investment capital last April and plans to use the funds to expand its marketing to institutions across the country. It already offers online learning in nearly 40 courses for a fee of $99 a month and a $39-per-course registration fee. Its long-term goal is to create a platform where students can pick and choose courses created by professors for credit.

“The idea is the student has those choices,” Burck Smith, founder of Straighterline, told The Baltimore Sun. “It’s really an experiment in creating a market for professors and students to meet up.”

Apple Keeps Grip on App Store Purchases

The New York Times’ report that Apple declined to approve the Sony Reader e-book app because in-app sales wouldn’t go through Apple sparked much hand-wringing in tech circles. Many felt Apple’s move would encompass not only the Sony Reader app, but also Kindle and Nook apps for the iPad, iPhone, and the iPod touch.

Then, blogger John Paczkowski of the Wall Street Journal reported an official statement from Apple claiming no change has been made to its guidelines for developers, but that it will now require apps to offer customers the ability to purchase items both outside the app and within the app.

The change is already in place for customers who buy through iTunes, allowing Apple to earn a cut for facilitating the purchase without forcing all content to be bought through iTunes. This means Amazon, for instance, can still sell content through its web site or Kindle device, but iOS Kindle app users will have to sync purchases to their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and Apple will get a cut of the proceeds.

The question now is how will Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony respond? It’d be hard for a company such as Amazon to back away from the iOS platform now, particularly with its “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” promotional campaign. It would also be difficult to build a new sales site that allows customers to buy both from Apple and Amazon, or from Apple alone.

Sony posted a note on its web site saying it’s trying to find other ways to work with Apple, including avoiding the App Store commission altogether.

XanEdu and NYU Stern School of Business to conduct iPad pilot

According to a recent press release, XanEdu, provider of custom coursepacks and textbooks, has partnered with the NYU Stern School of Business to conduct a program-wide iPad pilot for MBA students. Instructors at the university will use XanEdu’s system to publish course materials that students can access on the iPads. The course materials will include digital note taking capabilities and collaboration tools. Throughout the pilot, students will be asked to provide feedback to help determine if the iPad app meets the needs of the students.

Esquire magazine iPad app

Here is an interesting video of the Esquire magazine app for the iPad. The app was developed in partnership with Scrollmotion and features an engaging and interactive experience. The first issue of the magazine for the iPad is available now. You can also read more about it in this posting from Mashable.com.

Apple’s iBooks is one of most popular iPad apps

According to an article on TheBookseller.com, Apple’s iBooks application is one of the most popular apps on the iPad and it has even surpassed social networking apps like Facebook and Twitter. A recent report says that 78% of iPad owners have downloaded the iBooks app while 52% have downloaded the Facebook app and 34% have downloaded the Twitter app. The report also says that half of the users use the iBooks app three times a week and almost a quarter of the users access it daily.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt launches algebra app and pilots in four California school districts

Today, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) launched an interactive full-curriculum algebra app for the iPad and announced year-long pilots with four school districts in California.

The app is called HMH Fuse: Algebra 1 and it includes a year-long course and ancillary materials. The app is intended to provide students with an interactive learning experience that features: guided practice, video lessons, vocabulary links, graphing tools, highlighting, and notetaking capabilities. The app also provides teachers with real-time performance feedback for students.

According to the press release, approximately 400 students in San Francisco, Long Beach, Riverside, and Fresno school districts will participate in the pilot. The students will utilize the algebra app on iPad devices while control groups of students will use traditional paper textbooks. The groups will be compared based on student achievement and attitudes about learning.

The HMH Education website features additional information about the app and pilot. There is also a video demo to show how the app works on the iPad.

Barnes & Noble to release app for iPad

Barnes & Noble has confirmed via it's website that it will release an app for the Apple iPad. The app will allow users to access e-books, magazines, and newspapers from the B&N e-book store, as well as any content that was previously downloaded to their B&N digital library. According to the post, the app will be released “around the time of iPad’s expected availability.”