Amount Houston Community College Southwest received as part of a grant to pilot digital tools, including iPads and Kindles, in its classrooms. 1 0 0 K
textbooks at half the price of printed
textbooks. Some professors even began
compiling reading materials for
students online, free of charge.
“Nineteenth-century British novels
are in the public domain,” says Rowlett.
“Why buy them when you can get it
free on the Web? It brings the cost
down to zero for the college.”
Implementation Strategies
After completing a three-semester pilot
in fall 2010, administrators at HCC
Southwest remain convinced of mobile
computing’s potential in the classroom.
The college recently made plans to
equip every full-time faculty member
with an iPad, as many as it can within
the parameters of its budget.
“We’ve proved these devices work
in classrooms,” says Rowlett, who
says the technology fared well in anat-
omy, biology, and physiology pilots.
“Faculty on the waiting list now ask
“We are going in the direction of be-
coming as platform-agnostic as we can
be, so students can access educational
content on whatever device they bring
on campus,” he says.
WYLIE WONG is an education and
technology writer based in Phoenix.
Across the country, technology integration is changing the face of teaching and learning. For more on how these tools
are changing life and work on campus, visit the technology section of the Community College Times Web site:
www.aacc.nche.edu/technologystories.
