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To iPad or Not to iPad?

By IGI Global on Mar 18, 2011
Integrating technologies into classroom exercises can provide distinct advantages for educators, but choosing which device or software will advance and not hinder learning can prove challenging. Ben Wieder, reporting for the Chronicle of Higher Education, recently discussed strategies that several universities have taken when considering whether to use iPads in their classrooms.
Chatham University was considering using the university's hefty mandatory $700 technology fee to purchase iPads for all incoming students, but chief information officer Paul Steinhaus opted not to prescribe the device due to the slow finger-typing that is inherent to the device, reports Wieder. "I'd hate to charge students and have them only be able to use it for e-mail and Facebook," Wieder quotes Steinhaus.

Wieder reports,
"When the University of Notre Dame tested iPads in a management class, students said the finger-based interface on its glassy surface was not good for taking class notes and didn't allow them to mark up readings. For their online final exam, 39 of the 40 students put away their iPads in favor a laptop, because of concerns that the Apple tablet might not save their material."
However, blending technologies with face-to-face instruction can aid learning. Some of the staff interviewed by Wieder shared examples of how iPads have helped students and faculty better engage with math and political science. For example, "At Reed College, having all the texts available in a political-science class on the iPad meant it was easier to refer to readings and pull in outside material for discussion," he reported from an interview with Martin Ringle, the college's chief technology officer.
"Students using [iPads] for group assignments in a math class at Pepperdine University were more in sync than were students in a section not using iPads," Wieder writes. Perhaps a debate over whether the iPad or different tablet PC models will prove most popular among students is beside the point; shouldn't the goal of technology in this context be, ultimately, to enhance learning?
IGI Global offers a series of books which can help educators create blended classrooms. UNBC professor Andrew Kitchenham, writes that blended learning is "combining face-to-face (f2f) teaching with computer-mediated instruction." Dr. Kitchenham is the editor of two forthcoming IGI Global books, Blended Learning across Disciplines: Models for Implementationand Models for Interdisciplinary Mobile Learning: Delivering Information to Students.
To view more books discussing blended learning, please visit our Blended & Mobile Learning resource section.
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