The LaunchPad Initiative Six Months Later: The Student Experience
Part 1 of 3: How has having an iPad affected students at Southern Virginia University?
By Tyler Smith
“Our purpose is to gather Latter-day Saints, lift them to heights they never imagined, and launch them into meaningful lives and careers.”
The mission of Southern Virginia University as stated on the LaunchPad Initiative website is to gather, lift, and launch. Six months after the initiative began, The Herald has decided to put this mission to the test and see if the initiative is lifting students’ academic experiences.
As part of the initiative, every student and faculty member at Southern Virginia received an Apple iPad Pro, Smart Keyboard, and Apple Pencil. In addition, the University added Apple TV systems to classrooms and updated the WiFi network. All through the fall semester students were playing, testing, and learning.
Now that students, teachers, and faculty have had almost two semesters to get familiar with the new system, The Herald decided to reach out to individuals to see how the LaunchPad Initiative has changed their academic experience.
“I hate carrying around giant textbooks, but now I can get a lot of them on my iPad so that makes a big difference,” said Leilani Olsen, ’22. As more textbooks become available on the iPads, students’ loads get lighter, prices go down, and students are less likely to forget to bring textbooks to class.
“I like that I have access to information at any time,” said Russ Tyler, ’18, a senior studying music and math. “[Using forScore] I can keep all of my sheet music for each of the groups that I am in all in one place.”
For Hannah Crave, ’22, the initiative came at the perfect time. After completing her first year of college, she’ll report for an LDS mission in South Carolina in June. “It meant I didn’t have to buy a laptop that would just sit for the next year and a half,” she said. For Crave, the iPad has other benefits as well. “I have all of my notes for my classes all in one place, I don’t need to carry around a different notebook for each class,” she said.
The University’s IT department set up a help desk in their office in the basement of Main Hall with employees specifically trained to help students, faculty, and staff with any issues they may have with their iPads.
Emma Evans, ’18, said that with a little persistence iPad users could solve some the problems she sees working in IT. “I think sometimes there is an easy answer and an easy fix but it might take a little bit of time … sometimes if you just go the extra step you can figure it out,” she said. “So that might be helpful and would eliminate a lot of the problems that people have — obviously I am more than willing to help.”
As the LaunchPad website says, “Over the next few years, we expect the LaunchPad Initiative to enhance many areas of campus and improve student learning outcomes…
Are you ready to launch?”
