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Another benefit of Edmodo is that students are encouraged to collaborate in order to solve problems, while the teachers can stand back and observe.

"It's almost like I had stepped out of the equation and they were problem solving themselves,"

The students' fingers got busy typing on their cell phone keyboards, and anonymous responses started showing up almost instantly on the discussion webpage for the question: "It could make learning more fun." "We can get our grades quicker." "It makes learning easier for everybody." "It's a lot more hands on and everyone has a voice." "Makes us pay attention and focus more."

Most colleges do not have the resources to build their own mobile applications from scratch. The environment is changing quickly, and developing new products for each new major device—iPhones, BlackBerrys, Android phones, iPads—can be prohibitively expensive.

One key to these projects is recognizing the mobility of mobile devices, and not treating them as if they were small desktop computers. Among colleges, even the leading mobile applications and Web sites still function like add-ons; students and others can get much the same information on a personal computer, although perhaps not as quickly.

Creating a cohesive mobile platform does not mean that colleges should try to move everything from their Web sites to a smaller screen. It can be impossible to know in advance what people want to do on a smartphone, and what they would prefer to leave to a full-size computer.

A survey administered last August by Fiserv indicated that fully 40% of online households -- which number 96 million -- could own a tablet before the end of this year. Of those who already own tablets, 45% said that they would like to use them for online banking. Late last year, a study by Oracle Communications pointed out that, of those surveyed, 34% would rather use a tablet than a smartphone for mobile banking.