Campus Technology: Retention and student success have long been among the biggest issues facing institutions of higher education, but a new generation of students is complicating matters. "There has been a change in who goes to college," according to Colleen Carmean, assistant chancellor for academic technologies at the University of Washington Tacoma. "We think of the traditional student as the person right out of high school; but now the demographic is across the board. What in the past was a small percentage of students returning to college is now the majority. We are a nation going to college, as people realize they need a college degree in order to have a more successful life."
2 comments:
Mobile scheduling apps and reminders are nothing new by any means. However, it is interesting that college professors are helping to load the due sates of assignments and tests onto the app for students. That says something about the college, though I’m not sure it’s something good. It’s clear they have the best intentions in giving their students opportunity to succeed, but colleges need to remember: students that care will care. Of course there are students with full time jobs and an abundance of other things going on in their head, but a student who truly cares will make sure to get their work done. This app just seems like a way of babying students, which keeps them in a high school mentality instead of preparing them for a career. No one is going to do this for them in the real world, and if the goal is to instill the initiative for them to do it themselves then they should do it for themselves now.
The “Nudge” app is interesting because it is not necessarily a revolutionary concept by any means, and scheduling apps, interactive calendars, and so on have been around for as long as smartphones have. But this is the first time that I’ve seen an interactive calendar that can be shared with other people such as the professors mentioned in the article. In my opinion, this is both a pro and a con. Granted, the existence of this feature allows a student to have further guidance from his professors outside of class, and an easier-to-manage schedule. However, the point of college is to prepare students to go out into the “real world,” where this system is most likely not going to be widely used. If a student becomes accustomed to relying on all scheduling from an app, it may be quite the shock when he or she ventures out into a world where you can’t rely on a screen to tell you what to do.
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