CUNY’s Baruch College Using Cell Phones To Educate Its Students
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Can you hear me now? Do your homework!
Professors at the City University of New York are encouraging students to use their cell phones.
CUNY’s Baruch College has started a service that allows students to easily access class information such as homework assignments and campus computer lab availability over the phone. The service also lets students participate in surveys, start telephonic class discussions, arrange study groups or receive alerts from the college.
Baruch tested its alerts this summer, informing freshmen scheduled for an orientation that the campus was closed because of an August 3 power outage, meaning the students didn’t have to commute to the college to find out the orientation had been canceled.
The college’s Air Baruch program, which began last week, takes advantage of the fact that more than 90 percent of students own or use mobile phones. It uses a language called Blackboard to let the students communicate, college officials said yesterday.
Baruch is one of the first U.S. colleges to employ mobile phones on campus, using technology called Rave, created by Rave Wireless Inc.
