iPads: Bane or Boon to College Teaching?

March 16, 2011, 1:58 pm

There’s division in the news media about iPads this week. Optimism about the tablets in the college classroom abounds in a Financial Times article. But The Chronicle‘s coverage, “iPads Could Hinder Teaching, Professors Say,” pointed to serious pedagogical limits to the finger-touch computers.

How could this be? The two articles even reported on some of the same studies. One possible reason for the differing conclusions is that the FT story focused more on students’ reactions—the devices are great for reading, and just plain cool—and less on teaching.

For instance, both articles quoted Corey M. Angst, an assistant professor of management at the University of Notre Dame who tested the tablets in class. The FT reported, correctly, that students felt the iPad was easy to use and hard to give up. The Chronicle, however, also noted students’ complaints that it was hard to use iPads to take notes—the finger-touch interface isn’t good for writing. And one more telling fact: “For their online final exam, 39 of the 40 students put away their iPads in favor a laptop.”

Mr. Angst felt the iPad was an overall plus, but other professors who use computers in class to highlight material and respond to students’ questions said the iPad couldn’t do what they wanted.

There’s a textbook case to be made, too. The FT notes that handing out a tablet for about $500 is cheaper than asking students to buy hardbound books. E-textbooks are less expensive. But while that’s true, Ben Wieder, who wrote our article, says one publisher told him that e-books for the iPad would be only 20 percent cheaper. And students can’t recoup money by selling them at the end of the semester. So the total cost of e-book/iPad ownership may be higher.

Still, the FT astutely points out that technology moves very quickly, and fixes for some iPad drawbacks are in the works. Other fixes are going to be developed simply because the iPad market is big and getting bigger. That’s something that no textbook company, or software developer, can afford to ignore.

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http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1388178302 Dirk C. Fecho

Maybe the iPad isn’t the tablet of the future…do you know about the Kno? Check it out, this has a lot more that makes sense for higher education and productivity. http://www.fastcompany.com/1736602/the-future-of-the-tablet-and-it-isn-t-the-ipad-2?partner=homepage_newsletter
hkacpa

The iPad is great way to throw money at a gimmick. It sounds great to prospective students and parents that their son or daughter will be taught in a “progressive” environment.

The truth is, the resources for a progressive teaching environment are already out there and most are free or cheap.

The computer lab where I teach all my accounting classes is rarely used by anyone other than computer related classes and then, mostly for special occasions. Professors don’t want to deal with the distraction of a computer and internet in the hands of their students because you have to re-think and re-design your course to use those resources. I restrict my students’ computer usage to class content via a separate monitor showing their screens. They know they will be counted absent if they abandon my class for a trip to China or Facebook during class.

You already have the resources so re-design your course to include a lot of free web based resources that help students learn the material and more important, job skills. Web-based professional research tools often have free options and my favorites include drop box, Skype, logmein and LinkedIn. Go to my website and get links as well as videos of what I do in my classroom with technology at (http://aandaupdate.com/technology-in-the-classroom/scaae-meeting-february-18-19-2011-rock-hill-sc/).

Most important, what are you going to do with readily available technology in your classes?

What do I think will happen when all these students have iPads in their laps in class? The same thing that administrators and professors do with them during every meeting.

Don’t get me started on the concept of asynchronous learning.
bleckb

The problem to be overcome with all e-readers, be they iPads, Nooks, Kindles or laptops is the inability to readily annotate texts. It can be done, but not so well as with pen or pencil and paper. Until that hurdle is topped, they’ll make for great recreational reading, but not so much scholarly efforts, at least in terms of reading traditional text.
Guest

“It’s not the technology, it’s what you do with it.” Okay, that’s a Nokia tagline, but it fits here in the discussion of tech and ed. We tend to focus on the actual device, and there’s bound to be fans and detractors of it, but what about what it CAN do? Could a tablet help students to have access to not only the text, but supplemental materials, such as video clips, all in one device? So taking notes may be difficult, then, use a traditional notebook. Students don’t take notes in their traditional texts anyway…

They read, highlight, bookmark, which can be done on a reader/tablet. So we went from chalk boards to marker boards, marker boards to smart boards, TV/VCR/DVD carts to PC/podiums with projectors and wifi classrooms. If a technology facilitates the process for the teacher to convey information to a student, and for that student to access and engage with the material in a more meaningful way, then that’s a win.

I don’t believe every new gadget suddenly will increase student learning and retention. The instructor still holds the key. I know instructors who are equally as engaging and effective, regardless of the types of tech they use (some use chalk, others use podcasts). Take distance learning. Critics will assume that an online class can never be as effective as face to face learning. After all, it’s “asynchronous,” among other things. In my experience, DL classes offer more access to more students to take classes than ever before, and no longer hindered by their non-traditional life schedules. I find these students to be very motivated, and are extremely engaged with the course, and would have missed out on a college education/degree otherwise. The asynchronous environment is neither a positive nor a detriment. It just is. Students with all types of work schedules can log into the course, and participate in discussions when they can. It works. But like any class, it may not work for some…

I ramble, but basically I tend to look for the possibilities of any new technologies, before dismissing them outright because we assume it’s just a toy, and not a “serious” pedagogical tool.

Cheers!
mikeelrod

I wonder about comparing the returns on textbooks versus e-books here simply because I don’t think there’s even a twenty percent return on the physical books for students at the end of a semester. The thing for me is that iPads don’t replace everything in a classroom or in a PC but they do offer us a new interaction in finding and gathering information which holds a lot of weight for me.
windfix

The Kno is very interesting. We at DCDC (dcdcgroup.org) have been trying to get ahold of one for testing, thus far with no response from the makers.
windfix

I am quite tired of reading about ipad this and ipad that.
chrisbeks

Who knows what an iPad can do in class? After all this device is only a year old… The users that really think about REAL possibilities with a device like this, we’re currently teaching.
A couple of things:
-Of course the publisher told the reporter that e-books would only be 20% cheaper, they don’t want to lose their margin. You can currently rent e-books through B&N for 35% of a paper textbook, with nothing to “sell back” after 6 months. With more e-books coming on the market, the competition will make them cheaper.
- Annotations are quite easily made in an e-book or other text (pdf/doc/others). But yes, if you’ve always used paper and pencil, you won’t like making annotations on an iPad. And new apps will make this easier and easier.
-The Kno is a joke… I can’t believe a company would make such a thing. Downloading books and handwriting text is revolutionary? My Palm Pilot was able to do that over 10 years ago, the Kno is only bigger.

The iPad will do great things to our lives, and to education no doubt. It can be used for education in many ways, but you have to think outside of the box, think of ways that you cannot do in any form currently in class.
And when we get to that, that’s when we truly integrate an iPad into education.
stevendkrause

This does look interesting, but it also is basically the same kind of thing that a couple of different apps on the iPad does. For me, the killer note-taking app like that is iAnnotate, though that’s for PDFs. But basically, what Kno looks like from this video is more of a cool app that might work on a variety of tablets, and really, that would be ideal. Let students pick whatever tablet they want as long as it will run an app like Kno.
jjenna42

The Sony reader is pretty user friendly in annotating. That has always been an absolute need for me.
mickfan

Thanks, Frank. I agree with your P.S. I rarely read the comments because so many people who obviously do not know academe, or know it from such a small window, post silliness. My “screen name” is Mickfan because I love the Rolling Stones, but I will identify myself: Kim Martin Long, Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences from Shippensburg University–PhD in English (promoted to full professor before moving to administration). I’ve seen this life from lots of angles–grad student, adjunct, tenure-track then tenured professor, administrator. I appreciate your article. I have been lucky, or have made my own luck along the way. . . .When I started my doctoral program in 1989, my advisor said, “Give up. You’ll never get a job. You’re too old, at 34.” I finished in 4 years and got a job. . . .

BUT, this is not 1993, and I realize times are tough. We do need to be honest with grad students and provide them with all the tools they need to be successful while pursuing their passion, wherever that success takes them.
jeff_winger

You know Frank, on your PS. I think it is ok. Most people recognized those comments that are, well, stupid. But, those anonymous outbursts are productive, if only because they show the irrational bias lurking below, the bias that, if you knew my real name, I would be forced to hide from you — because you’re a big shot in my field, etc.
I know it is annoying, but I think we should go the other way and let the ugly underbelly (:-) of bad logic, bad manners, etc. hang out, at least in these informal places, so that we can see it. It is there all the time anyway, at least here it occasionally pops into view.
cleverclogs

I think the “dignity/shame” rhetoric is part of a larger problem that English departments will face when they start looking for ways of preparing their grad students for jobs outside academia, specifically, the fact that so few English professors have ever had a job outside of academia. (And thus their misinformation about what happens in other industries leads them to think these industries are somehow “shameful” or soul-crushing – a truly laughable idea.) Most English professors will have no useful or accurate information or advice about outside jobs. Why should they? Keeping up with the intricacies of academia is enough. (But they also shouldn’t pretend that they do know anything about outside industries, either.)

Having said that, I think Mr. Donoghue raises a necessary conversation, and I look forward to future posts.But as a newly minted English PhD who has known for a long time that academia was not for me (and who had several interviews in other industries and a few job offers), I’d like to suggest two “radical” solutions of my own:

Suggestion 1:
Make it clear that the PhD is a professional degree. Its purpose is ONLY to prepare people to become professors. Don’t want to be a professor? The PhD will do you no good. (Indeed, it might be one of those things you’d need to hide on your resume in order to get a foot in the door of another industry).

Suggestion 2:
Encourage students to write a “strategic” dissertation with a view to a future outside profession. (I know, this change would entail a real re-evaluation of the purpose of the dissertation, which would not be a bad thing.)
mycantarella

I had the pleasure last week of creating and moderating a panel discussion for students by alumni at my own alma mater Bryn Mawr College. The topic was “Your Major is Not Your Life”. We had 2 english majors, one classics major and one economics major. All have careers totally unrelated to their majors except for the economics major who is in finance but who also took lots of literature courses. I was a political science major who began life as an advertising account manager (and after 15 years of corporate life did my doctorate in American Studies). The clear message from every one of us was how important communications skills have been to our careers. Perhaps first and foremost. We also acknowledged the critical thinking skills, research skills and learning about people through our majors. The careers represented on the panel ranged from litigator, to government regulator in health care to government and not-for-profit management around education and equity issues. None felt that being an english major was a problem– indeed it had been an asset. The pursuit of a doctorate conveys a depth of purpose and rigor. I have known colleagues with doctorates in sociology and history who have gone on to head government agencies and create multimillion dollar firms. Ultimately applying your skills to a passion seems to work just fine.We need to take the fear out of the discussion and share the optional paths.
Marcia Cantarella, PhD Author of I CAN Finish College.
3rdtyrant

In the great tradition of John Milton’s Areopagitica. Nicely done, and a good point. Without illogic and impassioned, substanceless bluster, how will logic and substantive, objective argument be identifiable to some? And how better to judge the quality of argument than among its grotty, poorly planned and even more poorly executed companions?
ramanujam

A PhD in English needn’t just mean a PhD in literature. It could be one in English language teaching (ELT), too. When I decided to do research after some years of teaching both literature and English as a second language (in India), I opted for the latter for my research not just because I thought my ESL teaching would inform my research and my research influence my classroom teaching but also because the prospects were brighter for an ELT professional. In India also the situation is grim for people who have specialised in ELE (English language education), but those whose communication skills are good move without much difficulty into corporate training, soft skills training and various others.