Changing the World

Today I have a guest post from blogger Marina Salsbury, who discusses a new $99 tablet designed specifically for education.  Guest posts are always welcome.  Please drop me a line if you are interested.


As technology continues to grow and further develop, its reaches and depths are also expanding. Currently, technology is involved in all aspects of society and is seeping into new arenas as well. With this development has come the advent of new technologies to be utilized in new ways and different places.

One area that has benefited from the advancement of technology is education. Research shows that technology offers education several advantageous opportunities. Any variety of technology benefits education by further involving students in learning, engaging students in group work activities, and increasing student-to-student as well as student-to-teacher involvement. Technology also enhances resource availability as well as offers new learning opportunities, potentially decreases educational costs, and expands the teaching and learning horizon.

According to Online MBA, designing a product today must make life easier by responding to needs that customers didn't know they had. Marvell has the answer for all this by asking, “What is the most beneficial, cost-effective, usable piece of technology on the educational market today?” The company has recently introduced its newest piece of technology, the Moby tablet, and is launching a campaign to restructure and the intersection between technology and education. At $99, the Moby, in conjunction with the Mobylize initiative, is aimed at offering a quality product at a feasible price to align the focus of education in line with today’s changing societal progress.

In its attempt to create and offer this quality product, Marvell designed the Moby with a variety of useful features. The Moby contains a Marvell Armada 600-series microprocessor. This piece ensures expedient and reliable internal processing and operates at one of the highest level of processing. The design also offers a video chip equipped to achieve 1080p video as well as some 3-dimensional graphics. The system itself is capable of processing on either the Microsoft Windows or Google Android operating system. The Moby also offers the option of a 10-inch or 7-inch screen size to offer variability in the method of presentation.

While the Moby serves a range of purposes, it's designed to serve as an educational piece. The Mobylize phenomenon is a specific mission of the Marvell company to enable and empower teachers and students by expanding the current horizons of tablet computing. To do so, the Moby is configured to facilitate different varieties of learning interactions. For example, by linking the tablet to different devices, the system will be able to facilitate guided instruction activities in which the teacher leads and the students follow. Such learning might include a manipulative digital experiment or web-based lesson. The Moby can also facilitate collaborative learning by allowing students to work together via interconnected tab interfaces or group work activities. The Moby's offerings are also age-specific to garner optimal interaction for all students. To include parents in the learning process, this tablet also offers a parental organization piece that allows the parent to track the student’s grades, homework assignments, activities, and other important involvement. For the teacher, the Moby has features that permit specific lesson structuring, grade recording, noting calendar events, and other important organizational features. The educator features place all the teacher’s important information and abilities all in one easily-transportable place. The Moby is literally taking the classroom to a whole new virtual world.

In the words of Mobylize, “By improving technology adoption in America's classrooms, we can give students the power to learn, create, connect and collaborate in entirely new ways”.The Moby will ensure that the initial step is taken and, in turn, will change the world (of education at least).