Devices in the Classroom: Lessons from A Learning Community’s iPad Pilot Project
There is a pretty good probability you are reading this on your phone. No? Then my next best guess is a tablet. The computer revolution of the past thirty years has made possible high speed, always connected devices in your pocket. Hard to believe how profound the switch is? Watch a video of teens reacting to Windows 95. What is the worst possibility for a teen? To go someplace without WiFi according to one teen. My students generally agree. (Meanwhile I remember when a computer was lucky to have a few kilobytes of memory. The Adam Computer anyone?)
Classrooms today often do have WiFi. A few classrooms have giant desktop computers. In the halls of higher education those are usually few and far between. If you want to use any type of computers for a class it typically requires a reservation and a reason. On a day to day basis most schools have what is called in the business world as a “bring you own device” or BYOD model. The only exception to this are speciality programs in design or related types of programs.
In the business world BYOD has gotten a lot of press. It refers to workers bringing their own devices — starting with their smartphones — on which to do business. For the for-profit world it comes with a host of questions for both the business and the IT department. Are those BYOD devices safe? Does it help with IT costs? Could you completely offload the coast on your employees? For the most part companies have allowed phones, to varying degrees, into the workplace, but have standard devices for employees. BYOD is more tech talk than anything.
In the educational world, however, we have been using a form of BYOD for as long as there have been devices. If students show up with a device they can generally use it. If they don’t, then they can’t. The difference is that unlike a business, that might require an employee to have a device, Universities aren’t always so lucky. Especially those that serve underprivileged populations. Instead colleges are on the front lines of dealing with first generation students have to confront the digital divide.
In the land of academics we faculty have largely ignored technology because our most fundamental users — students — have a desperate set of devices or no devices at all. As one professor put it to me, “I can’t spend thirty hours working on an assignment, a project, or a reading that my whole class can’t use. It would be pointless.” He is right, we can’t.
As a result of this uneven distribution of devices, academia is largely immune to much of the technological revolution occurring in culture more largely. A chorus of voices have argued that online education, MOOCs, flipped classrooms, etc., would be the savior of the university. Yet, all of those voices have consistently forgotten the price of admission: a standard device for all students on which professors can develop content. Without that professors simply can’t push the envelope of the possible.
Imagine a programmer who is told: we need a program that will run on all platforms — all desktop platforms, the web, and all mobile devices — or could be used by a user who has no device at all. It should be obvious: the programmer would laugh in your face. Yet this is precisely what is asked of professors. We are pushed to design cutting edge, relevant content, for any platform, any age of device, and for students who have no device. It is impossible. The outcome is professors who rightfully ignore most innovative technologies as time drains that their classes are unable to use. This before you even have to deal with a student who doesn’t understand a device.
Ending BOYD at College
If the goal is to get technology interwoven more deeply into academia, the first step has to be ending the current strategy of any device goes. That ten year old laptop simply may or may not be useful. That side-loaded Kindle device that can run Android apps might not be the most reliable device. If we leave the decision of device up to students, especially in community colleges, this hodgepodge of device use is precisely what will be in the average classroom. Professors and colleges don’t have students pick their own books, why would we leave device choices up to them? How could a political philosopher even begin to have a class if she couldn’t require students all have the same books?
There are two possibilities colleges could consider. One possibility is a limited menu of devices. Each professor can then know every student has a certain number of tools and they must have those tools to be in the class. The second possibility is to let students have as many extra devices as they want, but to require they all have one central unifying device: like a certain tablet.
We have recently faced this very real problem in a pragmatic way in the QUANTA Honors College. The program was undergoing a number of profound shifts. We needed and wanted students to use devices in classes to help them with collaborative note-taking, with assignments, and with general technological literacy. We settled on requiring one cheap device for all students: an iPad mini. If students wanted more they could upgrade on their own to a full iPad. They could also bring in a laptop, but everyone was going to have an iPad running iOS 9.2. It was a comforting uniformity. It allowed for faculty to create a program, and a schedule, that had a deep interaction with tech.
I recognize that whatever device an institution chooses comes with advantages and limitations. It also means, if you are doing it at the program level, getting the blessing of the college. This is no small undertaking. Navigating the complex requirements of books and budgeting are not easy. However, in 2015, the QUANTA iPad pilot was approved and we have the early set of data on its efficacy, efficiency, and student retention.
QUANTA Honor’s iPad Pilot
Beginning last semester, fall 2015, all students received an iPad who were entering the QUANTA program at DSC. In our specific case it became a book requirement. For most students this meant the device was free due to financial aid. Because QUANTA is a multi-year program it meant that students were saving a significant amount of money on books over the long haul. This created a big buy-in from both DSC and from students.
Getting ready for launch was no easy feat. It required the entire honor’s college faculty to rethink their curriculum. The upside to the change was that faculty knew there would be a payoff to that time investment. If designed for the iPad, then students would be able to undertake the assignment — all of the them without exception.
It has been, however, a mental adjustment. Students have to spend time getting comfortable. Some students — who are device illiterate — need more work than others. Fortunately tablet devices are user friendly. They are, more or less, intuitive. It also means faculty have to be living inside those devices as well. Most tech issues can be solved right inside the student’s own home group.
On the other side, for better or worse, universal device requirements also bring IT support issues to the forefront. At DSC our IT department has deployed Office 365 for faculty and students. This is wonderful for students who want to use Microsoft Office products (like Word) on the iPad. What we encountered as the pilot started was a number of students with accounts not set up properly — they couldn’t log in on day one. In a class without iPads it would have been equally true, but in our iPad class it became a major tech block and a number of students had to meet with IT to resolve the school’s issue. The school had an issue that would have probably gone unnoticed as a larger issue without our large sample of students.
The pilot has also led to questions over app usage. The major productivity software packages are free (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers on the Apple side Or Google docs) or free to our students (like Microsoft Office because of our school’s 365 subscription). Other software (time management, distraction free writing environments) can cost money. Students quickly had a desperate set of tools, but we found it a manageable one.
The more difficult problem was trying to have a set of “base apps” that we wanted every student to have for day to day operations. On what features did our Learning Management System (LMS) offer? What features did we find better filled by another program. Like juggling textbooks: how many required applications was too many?
The pilot has also offered a number of multimodal options. This semester I have students playing the game This War Of Mine in lieu of a specific reading. We also have a great deal of video content for students. Having the standard device has greatly opened up the types of media and assignments possible on a daily basis. For one assignment I even had students use The Most Dangerous Writing App to force a bit of focus.
In short, I think we have seen a lot of qualitative improvements from our students. What has been deeply interesting is the amount of quantitative data we have been gathering on our students, before, during, and after the process. I will be writing on that data in my next post. For now I think the takeaway is clear: professors cannot effectively create class content for both every device and no device. Colleges and universities are going to have to give up the BYOD model if they want faculty buy-in and higher use of existing technology.
About the Author
Dr. Harold “Trey” Orndorff is an associate professor of political science at Daytona State College. You can learn more about him at his website or follow him on Twitter.
