Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/55943
What have been some of the most innovative ways you've seen educators use online technologies? Even the basic ways can be transformational. For example, some students and professors use Google Docs to collabo- rate on group projects and engage in an interactive writing and research process. Others use forms in Google Spread- sheets to do research and conduct surveys. We're perpetually surprised by the creativity of our users and the ways they're taking advantage of these tools. My sense is that the best is yet to come. Many business professors are experimenting with mobile technologies. In what ways do you expect universities to employ mobile in their curricula? I recently saw a professor ask students to send in 20 examples of a concept they were working on—he created a work cloud of all the responses they sent from their mobile devices. Other professors are conducting real-time quizzes on mobile devices. That gives them instant feedback, so they know what students don't understand and focus more time on those topics. They're also using mobile technologies to connect with students through instant messaging or online office hours. We're going to see schools continue to develop these techniques over the next few years. There's an App For That Jeff Keltner has worked on the team responsible for devel- oping the Google Apps for Education suite since July 2006. Now, as part of the Google Enterprise team, he works with large organizations and higher education institutions to drive adoption of the company's technological tools. "We don't know what the future classroom is going to look like," says Keltner. "We want to work with schools in a continual evolution to discover what it could look like." How do you think Android, Google's open-source operating system for mobile devices, will fit into these uses? One way is through Android App Inventor, which enables people without traditional computer science backgrounds to create Android applications. Some schools are using Android as the basis for "intro to computing" courses, while others are using it to teach students about everything they can do on a mobile device. Another great example that has immediate application for both businesses and business schools is Moderator. This is a tool that allows users to submit questions or ideas to a group. Some schools have used it to moderate Q&A sessions in class or in larger settings. Businesses, including Google, use it to collect feedback and ideas from users. We want to create new applications that take advantage of the unique capabilities of mobile devices. For instance, a mobile phone knows so much about the user and its physical location. At some schools, people can access walking directions to buildings on campus using Google Maps on their phones. Professors can design activities that take advantage of the contextual and time awareness that mobile allows. 22 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010