It's a revolution! Smart phones multi-task on nation's campuses


Students use the smart phones for communicating with each other; for assignments where they access reference material, tweet, blog and file stories; for checking class schedules and campus news. Tech-savvy professors use them to connect with their students.


Barb Brand I


t’s the educational revolution that’s sweeping universities across the world. Smart phones are changing the edu-


cational landscape. Tey’re used as text- books, for classroom communication and as learning tools, transforming the way schools teach and connect with their students.. In Winnipeg, Kenton Larsen sees a


transformation in the way people consume information as well as a revolution in edu- cation. An instructor at Red River College, Kenton incorporates smart phones into his classes and argues convincingly that “schools which don’t hop on board with smart phones are going to look pretty out


30 SMART careers | Early Spring 2011


of date really fast, if they don’t look out of date already.” Smart phones, including BlackBerrys,


iPod Touches, iPads and Android phones, have been in student hands for years, but it’s only in the last few years that post- secondary institutions have picked them up as educational devices, whether for reporting in journalism courses, for ac- cessing references in any discipline from medical school to the humanities or simply for checking class schedules. A smart phone is mandatory for students


in Kenton’s public relations and advertising classes, much like a textbook. He says it’s important that students learn to use the


technology so they have hireable skills once they graduate. “Students need to know this stuff when they get jobs as communicators, and my job is to make sure someone wants to hire our students. Really their niche in the marketplace involves an understanding of how these things work.” Students in Kenton’s classes use the


smart phones for communicating with each other and for assignments where they tweet, blog, file stories and work on ePubs that incorporate moving graphics and videos in downloadable magazines. “We’re sort of integrating the smart phones as we go along,” says Kenton. “We covered Remembrance Day ceremonies and I fol-


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