College launches mobile phone app

Hopwood Hall College has purchased an innovative e-learning resource for its students; ‘The Hub’ is a mobile phone app for its students which will deliver education resources directly to their smart phones. The College is believed to be the first UK education institution to offer such a service to its students.

Students can now get a wide variety of services and education resources delivered directly to them via their smart phone. Moreover, unlike other applications The Hub app, can be downloaded and used via a range of 3G phones such as a Blackberry, Android or iPhone.

This new app will provide students with up-to-date and instant access to the most important college resources, including access to information fed from the College’s MIS application.

The e-learning resources and services which students can now access on their phones include: ‘cloud based’ student email (email which is purchased from another organisation, such as Microsoft, instead of the more costly option of running email off the organisation’s own servers), timetables, assignments, course materials and news feeds.

The learning benefits of this app are clear; faster and more convenient access to important information and documents, better communication between the College and its students and more opportunities for students to collaborate and build communities amongst themselves.

Simon Evans, Director of Technology and Innovation at Hopwood Hall College explains why the Hub is an important part of Hopwood’s e-learning strategy: “In this increasingly online collaborative world that we are all living in, technology such as The Hub will enable our students to interact with the college and with each other in the most effective way possible – via their mobile phones.

“The College is striving to be a leader through technology. We see The Hub as a way to improve the student experience.”