TBR Mobile Summit: Day One report (100% hype-free)

I have been privileged to represent Roane State at the TBR Mobile Education summit held at Walters State Community College in Sevierville. Today and tomorrow meetings focus on why mobile education is significant, what it might look like and how to organize talent and resources toward realizing a P-20 educational system in TN that uses the full potential of mobile educational technology.

Spending two full days with gadgets and gurus, it would be very easy to give in to the hype and just say a few glib things about The Future. I won't do that to you. What impressed me most about the TBR Mobilized Learning initiative isn't the grandeur of the dream but the practical list of real accomplishments. Here are some things that are already happening:

• Walters State has been declared TBR's first officially mobilized campus and has deployed iPads to many faculty and students
• Walters State faculty are actively teaching with mobile apps, mobile devices and associated technology (like the $60 mobile document camera) and are already measuring actual improvements in learning outcomes
• Walters State academic divisions are currently writing division-level strategic plans for how they will implement mobile learning and assess its effectiveness toward learning outcomes
• Hamblen County schools have partnered closely with WSCC to introduce iPads into the elementary and middle school classrooms to help off-set the effects of poverty, language barriers and learning disabilities
• Austin Peay has developed TBR's first mobile app for the college/university system
• Austin Peay is piloting a recommendation engine to help students plan their academic workload to maximize success and retention
• The TTCs have developed a mobile app for use in alternative energy
• Several TBR librarians are currently indexing education-related mobile apps for inclusion in the MERLOT repository
• More than 20 TBR faculty are currently piloting a do-it-yourself app builder called MOBL21
• An additional 20 TBR faculty and staff are currently being trained to develop apps from scratch using their existing base of programming expertise

There's more going on. That's just a few things I caught from day one. This isn't "pie in the sky", "wouldn't it be nice someday" stuff. This is happening. TBR is doing this.

We need to start talking about how Roane State wants to be involved.