Going mobile

• Article 10 of 15
• EducationInvestor, February 2013

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If there's one area of spending that seemingly everyone in education, from primary schools through to high education, is convinced is going to avoid budget cuts and could even expand it's mobile education. A survey by BESA (British Education Suppliers Association) found that by the end of 2015, 22% of all 'pupil-facing' computers will be non-Windows tablets. This makes the companies that produce such devices and those that create content and software for them golden investment opportunities. So what needs to happen to make mobile more than just the latest hype and which are the areas likeliest to continue growing?

In higher education at least, mobile devices are largely bought by students. According to an NUS survey of mobile device usage, the overwhelming majority of students have at least one device and a third own a tablet ebook reader. Nearly three-quarters of students use their devices for reading educational books, so to a certain extent, the opportunities lie in electronic textbooks.

Cengage Learning, for example, recently digitised all the first year textbooks for psychology students at Plymouth University. Student Rosie Rule says: "The ebooks are so much more accessible than the hard copies. I can now carry 12 textbooks round with me on my phone and iPad. I can read during the commute to uni and even whilst I'm queuing to pay for my groceries. Similarly, the search facilities are so much more effective and book marking and highlighting are especially useful."

Simple digitisation of books is just the beginning, however. Ebooks offer publishers the chance to provide multimedia content, such as videos and audio, and interactivity as well, such as tests. Cambridge University Press, for example, has developed 'Explore Shakespeare' apps that provide glossary definitions of Shakespearean language, include audio performances by the likes of Michael Sheen and Kate Beckinsale, give the option to separate out particular characters' actions, and include group and pair activities.

Nevertheless, outside of content provision, higher education doesn't provide many opportunities for anyone except the big mainstream IT companies, such as Apple, since universities tend not to buy and supply mobile devices themselves, leaving that up to students. Developers of "mobile device management" software will see some benefits, as institutions that want to limit the activities of students who want to "bring your own device" (BYOD) look for ways to lock down those devices. There are few benefits to trying to incorporate mobile devices into learning when there is no classroom, only a lecture hall, not everyone has a device and those who do may have completely incompatible operating systems and features.

Distance learning courses, particularly those that incorporate online content, are a different proposition, with many providers looking at how to adapt old content and include new content that will work on mobile devices. Most are looking to work with tablets rather than mobile phones: "For us, the content we create is quite rich, quite high impact so can't be used on lesser devices than smartphones," says Rich Townsend of the Greenwich School of Management, which offers a marketing course especially adapted to include tablets, right down to an 'augmented reality' app that superimposes course content onto the real world using mobile devices' built-in cameras. "Adapting content for a tablet isn't difficult, but adapting for a phone is a different experience that requires different skills and thought processes. You probably wouldn't watch our content on smartphones." However, for those that are looking to offer online content to countries such as those in Africa, where the mobile phone is ubiquitous, the PC scarcer and the tablet non-existent, the mobile phone presents a golden opportunity to access an otherwise unreachable market.

It's in primary and secondary education that mobile has the greatest opportunities. Here, schools are investing not just in content but in the devices themselves so they can be used in lessons. "There's a tablet frenzy in the UK. An overwhelming volume of our customers are currently planning classroom, year group or whole school deployment of this technology," says Gareth Davies, MD of learning platform developer Frog, which is re-architecting its software to work with mobile devices. "It's inevitable and brilliant for education. Getting rid of the beige box is the way to go."

Luke Noonan, purchasing director at tablet manufacturer Disgo, agrees. "What we are starting to see is that with costs involved in managing IT in education, actually this is a common and effective way of bringing more interaction into classrooms without having huge IT rooms without having bulky PCs and monitors."

BYOD is far less appealing to schools than HE, says Joe Warren, head of ICT curriculum at Cognita, the UK's largest group of independent schools. Schools are cautious, he says. "They have fear in their eyes and take devices off kids at the gates. It would be a huge culture shift for them to adopt BYOD."

While most schools are interested in Apple's iPads, the greater openness of the 'Android' tablet platform as well as the relative expense of iPads - starting price of £269 including VAT for just an iPad mini - means that hardware manufacturers as big as Dell, as well as much smaller companies such as Disgo (starting price of tablets: £59.99), are developing tablets especially for schools - and schools are buying them.

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