Random thots…

I have trawled through the App-store and Google-play for apps to try out and recommend to lecturers.  In truth, there are countless of such lists so I will just link to them rather than re-invent the wheel.

Some of them are  paid while others are free. Given that in education, we often prefer the free options, I am reminded of that saying which usually applies to social media “If you are not paying you are the product.”  Consider for a moment all we read, hear and observe about how our data is being harvested and shared and monetised, it seems a tad remiss not to at least give some thought to what we are giving out by recommending and using free tools in education.

I think if you are going to be giving anything out for free, at least know what “IT” is.  In this age of “big data” and all, should education institutions not be partners in gathering and using data rather than seemingly gathering it for others?

Most of the use mentioned in this blog relates to higher education but at secondary and primary levels, there are also the COPPA guidelines to consider.

In this light, I am beginning to think that it is crucial that there is someone in the learning technology/IT teams space that understands how mobile apps work, data sharing and related concerns, mobile enabling technologies, and can at a very rudimentary level at least highlight the possible implications of a mobile app or strategy consideration.