iPads in Perth schools, ECU research

Last week I attended one of the ECU Twilight Series of PD sessions for WA teachers run by the ECU School of Education researcher, Dr Jenny Lane. This seminar was a result of Jenny’s research: Track iPad Project in Schools (TIPS) 2012. Several local teachers presented on what they were doing in schools and it was really inspiring hearing about some of the work going on. The research is underpinned by educational theory. Speakers talked about using the iPad to truly transform learning by moving beyond just replicating what you do on a computer with an iPad.

For more about Jenny’s research look at the ECU news here

There was also an article about Jenny on the Science Network Western Australia:  iPads open door for m-learning in education

I have written about Jenny's TIPS blog  already. The blog has links to many of the resources that were talked about by the various speakers, including tips on iPads, apps for students, apps for teachers, apps that don't need wireless. The blog is already attracting national and international interest with over 14 500 accesses. Check out the story of the young boy, Jude, from London.

Further to my post on EBL ebooks on your iphone , I came across this paper at the ascilite conference in Melbourne last year: Usability and usefulness of eBooks on PPCs: How students’ opinions vary over time

The paper by Paul Lam, Shun Leung Lam, John Lam & Carmel McNaught from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, was voted one of the ascilite paper award winners. It makes interesting reading. It seems even in a place such as Hong Kong, where acceptance of online would seem to be high, students have trouble adapting to reading whole books onscreen. Of course this is referring to reading on mobile readers and devices such as iphones. I don't find this a surprise at all, and it may be a while yet before we see changes in practice.

Australian unis on iTunes U

This report on ITWire gives some background on the involvement of six Australian universities in Apple’s iTunes U project, whereby academic course content is being provided free via iTunes.

The Aussie unis in this project are: Australian National University, Griffith University, Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Melbourne, the University of Western Australia and the University of New South Wales.

Other new participants include the Open University and University College London (UK), the University of Otago (New Zealand), and Trinity College Dublin (Ireland).

MIT and Yale started providing free recorded lectures and other content via Apple's iTunes U service a while back. To access the iTunes U channel go to the iTunes store and there it is.

It will be interesting to see how this develops and whether the quality of the content being made available, meets expectations.

Read more at the UNSW and Griffth uni websites

UNSW launches iTunes U channel

Griffith in tune

A glimpse of the mobile learning future?

Picture this, on day one at Orientation each university student is handed an Apple Iphone which contains all their course ware, contacts, and everything they need to progress through their studies.

Trevor Bennett, ECU Instructional Designer, and resident “podcast guru” alerted me to this report on the future of MLearning from Abilene Christian University (ACU), Texas

Follow the link to the YouTube videos, which give a glimpse of the mobile learning future when “every student, faculty, and staff member is connected"

The videos track their progress over 2 days.

I noted that no mention is made of accessing the online library on the iphone, but maybe these students leave that to week 3 when the panic of first assignments sets in… ;)