“The increasing use, availability, and low cost of equipment invites educators to begin finding ways to successfully use these devices in their classrooms” (Martin, 2012, p. 51). Here is how an entire university has been doing what Martin described for several years already.
In my quest for an example of mobile technology integration, I stumbled upon Abilene Christian University in Texas. “Since 2008, ACU has been recognized nationally as a visionary leader in campus-wide exploration and 1-to-1 deployment of iPhones, iPod touches and iPads.” 
It’s been fascinating exploring how ACU has been utilizing mobile technologies to capitalize on mobile learning. I want to focu on “Revolutionizing the Classroom” YouTube video, the first video posted below. The other two videos I pulled out small excerpts to focus on. Do not feel like you have to watch the entire 30-minute video at the bottom, unless you feel compelled to keep exploring. I know I did! It provides a fascinating background on mobile learning, technology, and history and leads up to what ACU is doing—really good stuff!
In this example, ACU gave iPads to two different groups of students. One group was using the iPads to experience a completely digital classroom: no paper, no books—everything was on the iPad. The second group of students, a senior-level marketing strategy class, was charged with studying the first. Talk about ethnographic, hands-on research. There was most likely an additional layer of research happening in the background, with faculty researching how the second group of students were researching the first group of students. Here is a quote from a student in the first group, the completely digital classroom:
“With a digital textbook, you can also incorporate media; you can incorporate audio. Not only can you do all that, but then you can maybe blog about it. You can copy and paste it to an email. You can be in a class; you can research something.” —Jonathan Murata, student
Another quick example at ACU is from Adam Hester, Chair of ACU Theatre Department:
“Mobile learning has allowed me a kind of versatility and an immediacy that I didn’t have before…it allowed me to hack in a little bit more into my class than I normally would have.”
The “ACU Mobile Learning” video (above, second video in this post) starts at 3:20 to highlight Hester’s comment. Although there is another fascinating example from a freshman student earlier on in that video. He used the myACU app to find building locations of his classes and to map out walking routes. The myACU app appears to be a native application designed by ACU. It makes me wonder why a large University like Penn State doesn’t have an app like this.
This last idea comes from Dr. William Rankin, Director of Educational Innovation at ACU. The video begins at 24:23 with this quote, “We need to create is not the factory; we need to blow that up. We need to create the laboratory.” He then describes Thomas Edison’s laboratory and how he needed access to everything because he “didn’t know what he needed until he needed it.” He parallels this to a “mobile-y equipped generation” where they carry “a thousand libraries in their pocket”. He mentions how flexible books are becoming and we need flexible teaching that not only allows people to consume but also to create. He ends with an example of climate change and hints at Peppler’s (2013) framework for interest-driven arts learning, one that is “cross-disciplinary—and perhaps anti-disciplinary” (p. 19).
References
Abilene Christian University. (2012, August 23). Mobile Learning [YouTube Playlist]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD29F1464C77E45FD
Martin, F., Pastore, R., & Snider, J. (2012). Developing mobile based instruction. TechTrends, 56 (5), 46-51.
Mobile Learning Research. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2015, from http://www.acu.edu/technology/mobilelearning/research/