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July 20, 2010, 10:43 AM ET

More Universities Announce iPad Experiments

Each week it seems like a new college is ready to bestow iPads on its students for academic purposes. The latest is Oklahoma State University, which plans to distribute iPads to an estimated 120 students in the fall.

“The goal is to push this tool as hard and as far as we possibly can to really see what the limitations are,” said Bill Handy, visiting associate professor at the university's School of Media and Strategic Communications.

Mr. Handy, who is overseeing the project along with Tracy Suter, associate professor of marketing, said that iPads will be given to students in two courses at the university's communications and business schools, along with the faculty members.

“We’re going to be evaluating what we need to do to fully integrate the tool into the classroom,” he said.

Oklahoma State joins several other colleges that have announced plans to distribute iPads to students in the fall.

Seton Hill University and Northwest Kansas Technical College both plan to provide their entire undergraduate populations with iPads (approximately 2,100 and 8,000 students, respectively).

George Fox University, which has given laptops to incoming students for more than 20 years, is offering fall freshmen a choice between an iPad and a MacBook.

Other colleges, such as Duke University and the University of Maryland, will give iPads to students in select programs. Master’s students at the Duke Global Health Institute will experiment with the iPad's usefulness in field research. Meanwhile, students in Maryland’s Digital Cultures and Creativity living-and-learning program will learn to develop their own applications.

Reed College plans to test the device’s academic value by giving students iPads loaded with course readings. The experiment is similar to one performed with the Kindle, to which students there largely gave a failing grade.

Mr. Handy said that OSU students will be able to keep their iPads after the semester-long experiment, with the expectation that they will integrate the tool into their academic, personal, and professional lives.

"It is their device to use however they see fit," he said.

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Comments

1. goodrum - July 20, 2010 at 04:52 pm

Indiana University announced on July 15th a project this fall to explore innovative teaching and learning with the Apple iPad, and is in the process of creating two faculty learning communities. These FLCs are intended to encourage faculty to explore whether mobile tablet technology enhances or enables our ability to promote student engagement in the classroom, the lab, or in the field; to assist small group collaboration in various ways); and to provide access to and manipulation of digital content, including open educational resources. More information about IU's approach can be seen at http://uits.iu.edu/page/azxr

2. rrhine - July 21, 2010 at 09:47 am

I'm becoming increasingly trustees are nothing more than geeky students with deep pocketbooks.

3. rrhine - July 21, 2010 at 09:48 am

er, increasingly convinced.

4. schloughs - July 21, 2010 at 10:13 am

If you haven't used an iPad or iPhone, you will suprised how much you will miss not being able to play Flash video and acess sites using Flash.

5. billhandy - July 21, 2010 at 10:46 am

Thanks for the link Goodrum, I will be interested to see Indiana's results.

Schloughs, Flash is an interesting concern and we will be documenting this issue as well as workarounds if any exist. Personally I haven't missed flash at all on the iPad and my only issue with it on the iPhone has primarily been businesses related. I find it interesting how many organizations are embracing alternate technology (e.g. html5) to be more compatible with non-flash platforms. We will see who wins this battle or perhaps it will just drag on for years...

Flash aside, I will admit I was surprised (very surprised) at how much I liked the iPad. You can see my personal review of the iPad here - http://www.billhandy.com/apple-ipad-my-experience. Please note, I am more of a tech agnostic and far from a fanboy (I have a PC and love open source software) and focus more on what can solve an issue.

Professor Suter and I will be documenting the pilot/our effort via weekly updates at www.ipadprofs.com and would enjoy everyone's comments and suggestions, recommendations, etc. The site isn't up yet but you can register your email to be made aware when it goes live.

Bill Handy
Oklahoma State University

6. wmartin46 - July 21, 2010 at 11:01 am

It's great that universities are embracing this sort of device soon after its release. We all look forward to the results of these experiments. This version of the iPad is short a little hardware, but other vendors will no doubt provide whatever is missing. Apple will also add whatever the market demands.

Server/PC software to manage materials will be seen as a problem. iTunes is not what's needed for documents/books. Apple will probably not be interested in providing a library management tool for universities, so there is some room for third-parties to do some design and coding.

These exploratory programs also will press Universities to digitize more of the works, hopefully.

7. jimrettig - July 21, 2010 at 12:13 pm

question for Bill Handy--how does one register to know when your www.ipadprofs.com site goes live?

8. masochster - July 21, 2010 at 01:35 pm

why not try pushing printed books as hard and as far as we possibly can to really see what their limitations are? why not try to fully integrate printed books into the classroom?

9. dgra5467 - July 21, 2010 at 02:04 pm

While we're at it, let's push the heck out of stone tablets and papyrus scrolls also. Seriously though, I wish Professors Handy and Suter well and look forward to tracking the results of their experiment. Having used an iPhone for about a year now, I really doubt that the absence of Flash will be a major deterrent, though I do look forward to the maturation of HTML5 as an alternative platform.

10. billhandy - July 21, 2010 at 02:33 pm

jimrettig you can register at the site http://www.ipadprofs.com. It was down earlier (timing is everything) but back up now. The form is simply a google doc.

wmartin46 I completely agree re third party and definitely agree re digitizing work.

11. mbelvadi - July 21, 2010 at 04:32 pm

My family physician has already fully adopted an iPad into his practice - he carries it everywhere. I'm not sure what he's doing with it, but maybe some med schools (and nursing schools too?) should be looking at what it can do for their students as clinicians.

12. eduwebstrat - July 21, 2010 at 04:48 pm

Great article Kelly. I love my iPad and my institution is currently looking at ways to use it. I recently had a chance to see a pitch of a new product being developed that offers a complete online campus solution delivered on an iPad. They are still in the early stages and I feel that they might be suffering from scope creep as they begin talks with potential universities to partner with. I do have to admit that the folks who lead the webinar had shown some of their user interfaces and they are really engaging. You can be added to their mailing list here: ipadcampus.com

13. uberstudent_dot_org - July 21, 2010 at 06:01 pm

I have a better idea. Instead of giving them an expensive, walled platform that requires continued financial outlay, why not use something that will really help them really learn academic computing and that is free, such as http://uberstudent.org

14. hmothman - July 22, 2010 at 12:27 pm

Ditributing IPads fre to the students and the staff is an excellent idea ,but the school must have also the E learning facilitues i.e moodle classes with virtual labs.
We are ditributing the Ipads to students in the Global medical college in Riyadh , Saudi Arabia. This is a unique experience in the middle east and one of the good experiences in the world.
This is not suppose to replace the standard teaching and teh PBL.