The question about iPad use in education isn’t a new one as there has been a lot written on both sides – pro and con.
From our experience with Junction (free iPad app available) on college campuses this past academic year we’re seeing very strong usage on one device – computers (desktops, laptops, Chromebooks) with nearly 89% of all traffic. Yes, despite rumors to the contrary college students are still showing a decided preference towards using computers to learn – even if they haven’t shifted over entirely to ebooks, but that’s a post for another day.
If we focus on new users against total usage, we’re seeing a clear pattern towards greater mobility but it’s also evident that the leading horse in this race is smartphones and not tablets. That isn’t to say tablet usage isn’t growing, but that the prevailing device in the mobility wars is the one device that everyone carries with them everywhere these days, the smartphone. To be clear, the #1 tablet we see accessing Junction is the iPad – and it’s not even close.
So it looks like students will sign up for new services via their smartphones, but what are they actually using to engage and learn? The last high-level metric we look at is how deeply students engage with the learning content by device used to access the application. For a typical study session of 60-90 minutes students are, more often than not, using computers. But here we see a smaller gap in time spent, 29 minutes for tablets vs. 24 minutes for smartphones, with both significantly lagging computers (67 minutes). What we can infer is that students are often using mobile devices for different reasons than computers when they are looking to study and learn and that they may find mobile device access handy for on-the-go study sessions between classes or while waiting for a bus.
We’ve just scratched the surface here. Faculty using Junction have access to our new Junction Insight center that provides engagement metrics all the way down to a lesson, page and activity level so they can see what portions of their lessons are or are not serving the purpose of engaging their students.
At least now we’ve got some context for articles like the one below.
Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal | State offers laptops as trade-in for school iPads
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