Category Archives: Mobile College Apps

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3 Ways Colleges Use Snapchat (Yes, Snapchat)

UM_snapchat

This snap, part of a Snapchat Story, advertises Festifall, a campus event at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

To catch a fish, head to the water. That simple idea motivated the University of Houston to adopt Snapchat, a smartphone application popular with teenagers, as a method of communication with prospective and current students. When it signed up for an account in January, the university was one of only a few experimenting with the social-media platform. Now more colleges are diving …

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QuickWire: Deal Adds Campus-Security Features to Blackboard App

Students and campus-security officials alike are increasingly turning to mobile apps to report incidents and disseminate emergency information—in part because students are “mobile-device driven,” as one university police chief puts it, and in part because those devices incorporate features, like GPS and cameras, that can come in handy when reporting a problem.

Now Blackboard, the course-management heavyweight, is setting up a partnership that will incorporate an app called In Case of Crisis into…

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3 Universities Earn Accolades for Tech Innovation

Boundary-pushing projects involving mobile computing and in-memory analytics have landed three universities on the 2014 CIO 100 list, which recognizes organizations that leverage information technology in innovative ways.

Georgetown University, Lynn University, and the University of Kentucky were the higher-education institutions among the awardees, made public this week by IDG Enterprise, a media company that produces publications including CIO and Computerworld magazines.

Georgetown was recogn…

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For $125, 2 Students Build Official App for SUNY-Albany

Shivam Parikh (left), one of two students who developed the U. at Albany's mobile app, worked with Brian Smith, a web developer for the university. (Photo by Mark Schmidt)

Shivam Parikh (left), one of two students who developed the U. at Albany’s mobile app, worked with Brian Smith, a web developer for the university. (Photo by Mark Schmidt)

Two computer-science majors who received bachelor-of-science degrees this past weekend from the State University of New York at Albany are giving their alma mater a gift fit for the digital age.

Shivam Parikh and Matthew Gilliland spent their final undergraduate semester building the university’s first official mobile applicat…

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QuickWire: edX and Facebook Team Up to Offer Free Education in Rwanda

The nonprofit online-learning organization edX will work with Facebook and two other companies to provide free, localized education to students in Rwanda on “affordable” smart phones, Facebook and edX said on Monday.

edX, a provider of massive open online courses that was founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will help create a mobile teaching app that is integrated with Facebook and “optimized for a low-bandwidth environment.” As part of the program, calle…

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QuickWire: Digital Tools for College Prep Still Miss Many Students

As more and more aspects of higher education become digitized or enhanced by technology, the process of applying to college and planning a successful career there has followed suit. The problem? Students still fall through the cracks.

A new report looks at the plethora of digital tools marketed to students to help them get into and make the most of college. It tackles individual websites and mobile apps, like College Confidential and Find Tuition, and provides a comprehensive look at what each o…

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Emergency App Puts a Panic Button in Smartphone Users’ Hands

When Chad Salahshour’s daughter was accepted into the law program at Cleveland State University three years ago, he wanted a way to know she was safe on the campus. Having worked as a technology officer in a local police department for more than 20 years, and having created security apps for law enforcement as well, he knew about measures that could help prevent crime. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and make a campus-specific emergency app for smartphones that students could …

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Ohio State U. Band Marches Ahead of the Curve With iPads

MBdrills on iPad copy

(Ohio State U. photo by Meagan Culley)

This semester some members of Ohio State University’s marching band will be looking at iPads while they’re practicing, instead of the sheet music and paper drill routines they’re used to. The change was proposed by two students—Ryan Barta, a senior in the business school, and Charlie King, a senior computer-science major—who saw both economic and sustainability advantages in using the iPad.

With the help of the band’s director, Jonathan Waters, and a $25,00…

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Moravian College Will Market Itself as an All-Apple Campus

A college established in 1742 by a Protestant sect devoted to unity is turning to a new-age orthodoxy: It’s becoming an all-Apple campus.

Moravian College, located about an hour north of Philadelphia in Bethlehem, Pa., will provide each member of its 2014 freshman class with a new MacBook Pro and a new iPad. Faculty members will receive the same devices as their current machines come due for replacement.

Michael P. Wilson, director of public relations and marketing at Moravian, said the plan wou…

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