Teaching and learning sessions that cover the use of mobile technologies in nearly 20 educational areas will be available at the first Mobility App Summit.

Azuza Pacific University assistant professor Jennifer Courduff makes a point during her keynote speech at today’s Mobility App Summit in the new Student Union Building ballroom. (Photos by J. Intintoli/MTSU Creative and Visual Services)

MTSU and the Tennessee Board of Regents are co-presenting the summit, which will be held Monday (8 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.) and Tuesday (8 a.m.-2 p.m.), Oct. 15-16, and expected to draw at least 300 educators from across Tennessee. The event will be held in both the newly opened Student Union and year-old College of Education buildings.

The event will provide opportunities to explore all levels of Tennessee’s educational community, from Pre-K through higher education, including workforce training and how mobile technologies can be developed, utilized and maintained to enhance learning. The summit’s website is www.mtsu.edu/msummit2012.

The mobility summit also will offer sessions focusing on general academic subject areas and mobility management as well as workshops for mobile application and eBook development.

“It’s going to be really great,” said Tom Wallace, associate vice president in the MTSU Information Technology Division, talking about the summit. “For people working in the classroom, we’ll have an exchanging of ideas and practical uses of what we’re doing with mobile apps. Everybody’s getting smart phones. People use the iPad, iPhone and Android. What can we do (for them)? What are they expecting (from the technology)?”

Greg Schultz, left, of TBR, Robbie Melton of TBR Mobility and Rusty Boozer of Apple visit before the start of the Oct. 15 Mobility App Summit at MTSU.

Academic areas that sessions will cover include nursing and allied health, natural science, mathematics, fine arts, language arts, social sciences, teacher education, business and communication. Additional sessions also will be offered in library sciences, social networking, simulation/gaming and augmented reality, adaptive/assistive technologies and Google tools.

University participants include Austin Peay, East Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, MTSU, Memphis and the TBR. Community college participants include Chattanooga State, Cleveland State, Columbia State, Dyersburg State, Motlow, Nashville State, Northeast State, Pellissippi State, Roane State, Southwest, Volunteer and Walters State. Other attendees include Hamblen County Schools, Mid-Cumberland Health Services, Tennessee Technology Centers and Woodbury Grammar School.

Five keynote speakers will be attending, including:

• Jennifer Courduff, an assistant professor at Azusa Pacific University, where she develops and teaches courses in the master’s in digital teaching and learning program;

• George Saltsman, who is executive director of the Adams Center for the Adams Center for Teaching and Learning at Abilene Christian University. He also is a university instructor in the department of journalism and mass communication and an electronic publishing consultant;

TBR Chancellor John Morgan addresses the 300 educators attending the Oct. 15 Mobility App Summit at MTSU.

• Stephen Baldridge, who is the director of bachelor’s in social work program and assistant professor of social work at Abilene Christian University. Along with Saltsman, he co-edited “A Mobile Pedagogy Approach for Transforming Learners and Faculty, Handbook for Mobile Learning.”

• Corinne Hoisington, who is professor of information systems technology at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, Va., with more than 25 years of teaching experience. She speaks to college and university professors and K-12 venues across the country and for such customers as Microsoft Corp., Cengage Learning and many other universities and K-12 groups; and

• Mitzi Adams, an instructor and student teaching coordinator for Abilene Christian University, where she earned her bachelor’s in education. She holds a master’s from Western Governors University and professional memberships with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the Texas Directors of Field Experiences, the National Association for the Education of Young Children and Kappa Delta Pi.

MTSU has implemented a strategy to accommodate the increasing presence of mobile devices on campus by supporting the development of applications into MTSU business, student and learning environments.

MTSU’s IT department is playing an integral part in this strategy by supporting a student application development team that maintains the official MTSU app (available for both Apple and Android devices) and by working with areas across campus to develop content-specific apps to assist faculty.

Wallace said the summit is offered through a partnership with TBR Mobility and MTSU, and a number of vendors will be attending with displays.

— Randy Weiler (Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu)