Apple sought to revolutionize the world with the launch of the iPad in April. At Pepperdine four classrooms have been loaned free iPads on Pepperdine’s dime to see if that revolution extends to the classroom: Professor Owen Hall of business statistics Tim Lucas of calculus Bernie James of education and policy at the School of Law and religion professor Chris Heard.
Vice Provost and Pepperdine Chief Information Officer Tim Chester is hopeful that this venture will produce promising innovative teaching methods.
“It is an exciting initiative Chester said. Over the course of the next three semesters we expect to find out why or how the iPad may increase effectiveness of our learning practices.”
According to project manager Hong Kha any faculty member could have been selected from the five schools at Pepperdine but the chosen professors were required to teach two sections of the same course— one with iPads and one without. The selected courses were not publicized before class registration.
“We didn’t publicize iPads in classes because we didn’t want to skew enrollment Kha said.
In classrooms, students will be able to download applications with their iPad and the professor will then use those applications to teach their courses. For example, Professor Heard had his class download the Bible Reader. In Calculus, students use a graphing calculator application.
Anything that you could think of there is possibly an application for that Kha said. Because the technology is so well adapted to anything and everything we weren’t specific in choosing the subject matter.”
There are several involved in the implementation of iPad project. Chester is the initiator of the project. Hong Kha of the technology and learning group is responsible for supporting faculty in how they teach with technology. Matt Hoover is a research specialist from RAND Institute a think tank of researchers headquartered in Santa Monica. Lastly Dana Hoover is the assistant chief information officer for planning and communications.
A goal of the program is to discover the effectiveness of iPads in changing the waystudents interact with each other and with their professors. Additionally the program plans to promote self-learning in which students will be compelled to learn more about their class subjects because of their enhanced learning through iPad usage.
The effectiveness of this new technology will be determined from surveys taken before and after the trial period as well as classroom observations.
Chester explained that the overall objective of this research project is to study the effect of iPads on students’ ability to learn a subject.
“One thing we want to emphasize is that we are being very selective in conducting this pilot project. We are wanting to research whether the iPad has a meaningful and significant impact on improving the learning outcomes associated with a course Chester said.
The research team also hopes to prepare students to remain constant in a world of growing technological advances.
Through the use of innovative technology we are helping our students get into that mindset so when they graduate they can be better at being innovative and that is what our economy strives on Kha said.
In his education law and policy course, James uses iPad technology to post his syllabus and lectures and check his seating charts.
Pepperdine’s taking their funding to pay for iPads is one of the most student-centered things they’ve done James said. It has allowed students to have the opportunity to use state-of-the-art technology to enhance their experience.”
Lucas said the use of iPads in his Calculus 214 classroom has allowed students to better collaborate.
“The students seem pretty engaged in the class said Lucas. It’s a device that is more accessible than a laptop where students can shared what they’ve learned with each other.”
