It’s hard for many students to remember the days before iPods, Hulu, Twitter, and Skype. If you were to stroll across campus, odds are you could find all of these and many more technologies in use—they have become central to university life.
And the Marriott School is no exception.
Through the use of these technologies, students are simplifying their tasks and enhancing their learning experiences. Here are a few ways students are using the latest and greatest.
The Next Big Thing in Presentation Creation
One of the technologies students have discovered is a presentation creation tool called Prezi. It differs from PowerPoint in its ability to zoom in and out of videos, photos, text, and other icons embedded on a single canvas.
Brandon Osmond, a senior pre-communications student and management minor from Provo, started using Prezi after hearing students buzz about the program’s interactivity.
In one of Osmond’s group presentations, the class gave an audible gasp seeing their first Prezi presentation. At its conclusion the first questions were “What did you just use?” and “Where did you get it?”
Capture Text, Images, Video, and Audio in Your Notes
Any student can tell you what a burden note taking can be, but Microsoft OneNote was designed to lighten the load.
“Microsoft OneNote makes taking notes much quicker,” says Adam Cuppett, an MBA student from Wilmington, California. “A student can use the program to annotate PowerPoint slides provided by a professor, record the professor’s voice, and link it for later playback.”
The program also allows for screen shots of a web page to be taken and inserted into notes.
Apps, Apps, and More Apps
Sometimes a mental note to stop by the grocery store doesn’t always work when managing your long list of to-dos. This is why mobile apps such as Remember the Milk are popular among students organizing their schedules.
Not only do students have apps to check their bank accounts, grades, and emails, but they can also access news articles, dictionaries, and financial calculators. With a simple touch of a screen, students can search for competitive textbook prices with an app called Book$Price. If there isn’t an app for it yet, it’s probably under development—maybe even at BYU.
“We live in a world that is increasingly connected and mobilized,” says Stephen Liddle, an information systems professor who teaches a class on mobile platform development and analytics. “This is an exciting space to be involved in because there is a tremendous amount of innovation occurring right now.”
Not Your Typical Classroom
Lee Radebaugh’s international business course is different from most. His students include not only those sitting in the Tanner Building but also some in Europe and South America who join electronically. Students in the class interact with their international counterparts through videoconferencing and online resources.
Radebaugh says the students started out using a chat function on the course web site, but quickly switched to Skype and Facebook as more effective ways to communicate. They also tapped Google Docs to share files for their final project.
“This was a good way for the students to see what it’s like to work in cross-national teams using technology,” Radebaugh explains. At the end of the semester students make suggestions as to what technologies ought to be integrated in the future, keeping the class as up-to-date as a smart phone.