The iPhone made room for ACU’s newest toy last month. The iSchool won a Google Nexus One phone Oct. 18 as a part of its admission into the first round in a competitive mobile education grant.

Unity Technologies chose ACU as one of 20 international learning institutes to receive the phone and Unity Pro software, valued at $3,000, said Dr. Brian Burton, assistant professor of information technology.

“Having the reputation for doing mobile learning at ACU gave us a leg up,” Burton said. “That is really what sold them.”

The 20 finalists will use the Unity materials in developing a one-semester curriculum for a mobile games development class, Burton said. Unity will choose three schools with the best curriculum proposals to receive the full grant. It will equip the schools to perform application testing with 20 Google Nexus phones and licenses for the Unity 3D Pro game engine, as well as the Android Pro game engine.

Burton said he didn’t know if or how the iSchool’s new involvement with the Android, a competitor of the iPhone, may affect ACU’s alliance with Apple. The iPhone will continue to be the core of the mobile computing curriculum, Burton said, but the Unity software will allow students to program for the X-Box, Wii and PCs as well as Apple products.

“We’re training programmers,” Burton said. “Our students need to be able to go out there and develop for all platforms.”

Burton is putting together two 20-minute video example lectures for the proposed course, Game Development, which will be offered next semester. Brittany Kight, senior information technology major from Corpus Christi, is already enrolled for the class. She said the Unity software will be less restrictive than what she used in previous programming classes.

“We’re going to be able to reach a different group of people,” Kight said. “That will make the students more marketable.

She and the rest of Burton’s current programming class are offering suggestions for the video lectures and creating a pilot game with the Unity software to get acquainted with the program’s new language.

“The class as a whole has been brainstorming ideas to make sure he’ll get the grant,” Kight said.

Burton said he hopes to publish the game for the Android, iPhone and PC versions by the end of the semester, when he will also submit his course proposal to Unity for evaluation. Unity will announce the three winners Feb. 1, 2011.

The Game Development course will be offered annually, regardless of whether ACU wins the full grant, Burton said. It will become a required course for the new major ACU is developing, Digital Entertainment.

Burton said he was excited ACU was recognized as one of the top 20 mobile-computing educators in the world. But while he believed ACU has a good chance of winning the full grant, Burton said he was more enthusiastic about the new ways students will be able to use the Unity technology to express themselves.

“Personally, I just can’t wait to see what our students develop,” Burton said.

Students can learn more about the grant at unity3D.com.