Hot College Mobile Programs

The Hottest College Mobile Programs are available across a growing number of universities and colleges worldwide. The rising demand for information technology continues to grow. Educational technology departments are exploring opportunities to add more specialized programs such as mobile to their curriculum. Some popular mobile areas include app development, simulation and gaming. Web administration and database development are also in demand.

At The University of Chicago, the UChicago App Challenge offers offers students an opportunity to participate in application development where the university awards a $10,000 prize to the faculty member or student who develops the best application. The university also offers mobile events for its students such as Enhancing Research with Mobile Development, Mobile Security Update and more.

University of Chicago / Google

Most educational institutions will offer job placement assistance programs for IT workers and new grads. According to a recent report by Sloan Consortium, Mobile devices and applications are expected to have a significant impact on teaching and learning in the near future. Yet colleges and universities are currently facing severe budget constraints and discretionary funding is restricted for new initiatives.

A key question addressed in the report was,“What strategy should an institution of higher learning with limited resources use in adapting the capabilities of mobile devices to benefit its academic programs?” To help answer this question, Sloan Consortium had surveyed students to identify their perceptions on the importance of a selected set of mobile learning functions, their experience with using those functions, their recommendation for a mobile learning adoption strategy, and information on the particular mobile devices they possess.

The recommended strategy was “pick and choose special capabilities to develop” with the selected functions being (1) Receive alerts and reminders about assignments and appointments concerning the course being taken; (2) Communicate individually with faculty, an advisor, or other students using voice, email, or text messaging; (3) Post or reply to items in a poll, discussion board, or other application; and (4) Download and review lesson materials from a course being taken. Other recommendations included techniques for faculty and student support services as well as institutional policies for limiting models of mobile devices for use in courses, making online courseware for laptops and desktops the same as mobile learning courseware, and making the opportunity for mobile learning optional.

Courses such as creating mobile applications are in demand courses for the future Android mobility developer. Social Media, Mobile Programming, Mobile Marketing and mobile programming are other classes of strong student interest. Mobile programs don’t end with only colleges and universities. There are opportunities to learn from the internet, online courses and online universities, developer bootcamps and more.