Funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, College Open Textbooks is a collection of colleges, governmental agencies, education non-profits, and other education-related organizations that are focused on the mission of driving the awareness and advocacy for open textbooks.
One school in Pennsylvania is using open-source tools wherever possible to keep students close to the code behind the machines they use. This stance is opposite to the very restrictive policies of many schools, but could allow students more freedom to explore what makes devices work.
"Blackboard Adds Testing to Mobile Learning App
By Dian Schaffhauser
05/21/12
Blackboard has updated its mobile app to accommodate test taking and to deliver alerts to students when changes happen to their courses without the learning management system (LMS) app being opened. Version 3.0 of Blackboard Mobile Learn allows students to take tests through their devices. That includes a feature that enables the user to start a mobile-based test by "cutting" a red ribbon on a traditional exam blue book. He or she can flag a question for later review by tapping a corner of the screen to create a "dog ear" and eliminate multiple choice answer options from the list by swiping them.
The new features of the latest release are currently available only for Apple iOS and Google Android devices. The company said the previous version of the app will continue being supported on Blackberry and WebOS and it will "continue to evaluate viable platforms for future development based on usage and popularity.""