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Catalyst for classroom participation At Abilene Christian—where the iPad is being distributed to 100 students in two pilot program classes—Dr. Ian Shepherd has designed his fall Econ 261 class to incorporate a digital textbook from McGraw-Hill, the Blackboard Learning Mobile app, as well as PDFs of supplemental texts. He’s perhaps most excited about the No Advance NOtice (NANO), an ACU-built assessment tool that lets him instantly quiz the entire class using polls, true-false questions and open-ended essay queries. He believes that tool will help him draw reticent students into classroom discussions. He’s taking aim at the “20-80 Rule”—the belief among educators that 20 percent of students dominate classroom time.
“With the device I have available, I can ensure participation from across the board,” Shepherd said. “I know there’s always going to be free riders, there’s always going to be someone there who had a bad night. What I’m hoping to do with the tools is flip that to an 80-20.”
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How schools are putting the iPad to work | Business Center | Macworld
America’s education system is broken, embracing modern technology to provide a better learning environment is one of the things schools need to do to fix it.
Doesn’t need to be an iPad, by the way, but it is a compelling device for keeping students focused while also being powerful enough that students will make them part of their daily life outside of school (unlike maybe the Kindle DX).
Super interesting that one of the schools commented on the lack of multi-tasking being a useful feature for them, not that the technical kids aren’t going to get around that one way or another.
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christopherdwhite posted this
