Disqus
Thirty lucky kids attending London’s Gumley House Convent School will be enjoying free iPhone 3GSes in a pilot program to test their effectiveness as educational aids. Now, conventional techniques usually have teachers scolding kids for texting during class, but a couple universities have already embraced mobile in a few applications. For example, in one Japanese institute, the iPhone is being used to handle attendance, and offer video podcasts of lectures, while at a Christian university in Albilene, it’s been used to deliver homework alerts and answer in-class surveys. It would interesting if these advanced functions were just as applicable in a primary school setting, or if the young’uns could be relied upon to be mature enough to not waste time MMSing pictures of their butts to one another. The iPhones will be used for little more than communication between kids during class, which sounds like a terrible idea, and one can only hope that app loading has been locked down, or Gumley House Convent will just have a room full of kids lost in a sea of brainless fart apps. Then again, you can never underestimate what a kid can do with mobile technology…
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
