“A member of Notre Dame’s ePublishing Working Group, Angst is debuting the University’s first and only class taught using Apple’s new wireless tablet computer to replace traditional textbooks,” Chapra reports. “The course is part of a unique, year-long Notre Dame study of eReaders, and Angst is conducting the first phase using iPads, which just went on sale to the public in April.”
MacDailyNews Take: These students are going to be begging for their iPads back when forced to switch to craptastic monotonously monotone/mono-use Kindles.
Chapra reports, “‘One unique thing we are doing is conducting research on the iPad,’ Angst says. ‘We want to know whether students feel the iPads are useful and how they plan to use them. I want them to tell me, ‘I found this great app that does such and such.’ I want this to be organic…We have an online Wiki discussion group where students can share their ideas.””
“Members are evaluating the creation, distribution, consumption and usefulness of electronic course materials in an academic setting by examining the usefulness of the iPad as an eReader, with the broader goal of designing an ‘ePublishing ecosystem’that serves faculty, students and staff by making the creation, distribution, sharing, reading and annotation of eMaterials simple and inexpensive,” Chapra reports. “The students will not, however, get to keep their iPads. They will be used for pilots in other courses later in the academic year sponsored by the Law School, Arts and Letters, First Year of Studies and Hesburgh Libraries.”
MacDailyNews Take: Like wildfire.
Chapra continues, “For the moment, however, Angst’s 40 students are the only ones on campus walking around with University-loaned iPads and they fully intend to show them off and play games and music with them, in addition to developing brilliant ideas to improve society. And they don’t have to sneak. It’s part of the plan. ‘We asked the students to sync the iPads with their personal iTunes accounts,” Angst says, “so they feel a sense of ownership and so all of their applications will travel with them on a single device.'”
Full article here.
Angst plans to discuss his findings on the study in his new blog – recommended – here.
[Attribution: Inhabitat. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ralph” for the heads up.]
The avalanche continues while Apple’s product wipe out and disrupt the old order
Sent this in last week, good story!.
POINTLESS RESEATCH: iPad is really useful nearly in everything, and it is all-around cool, so there is nothing more to find about it.
The revolution has begun, and it will be streamed.
With all the typing they’re doing, time to get the bluetooth keyboard.
MaLvado:
Not necessarily. Typing on a full-size touch screen, with just a little adjustment, can be just as accurate as typing on a physical keyboard with some form of audio-tactile feedback. I have a feeling, only a small subset of those who type a lot won’t be able to adjust and be efficient, fast and comfortable enough without a physical keyboard with moving buttons.
I find typing on iPad uses less physical effort than a real keyboard — it’s actually less stressful and better for longer work!
Predrag:
The space bar most always catches a letter above it, any suggestions?
After Michigan ruins their football dreams Saturday. Even Touchdown Jesus cannot save them from Denard & Co.
i work at a city college in ny and just paid a bill for an iPad im pro apple and all that but im also conscious about spending why did the IT department buy a 64gig 3G iPad? first off 64gig is not needed unless they are filling them up with music and movies and games and we have wifi in the school so why did we allow a 3g ipad purchase i get pissed cuz its my and our tax money and it should be spent wisely a 16gig wifi version would have done and would have cost less but i cant question it cuz all i do is pay bills and the purchase was approved from the purchasing dept. and u dont know how many macs we purchase but u dont see them i know when i was a student all we had were broken dells and they still do. something fishy going on here
MAC_KID,
Somewhere there is a large pile of punctuation marks and capital letters crying about getting no respect and being yesterday’s news.
If you didn’t post from a dumb phone, you have no excuse whatsoever for this mess you posted.
@MAC_KID: Are you in college or just work for one? Did you attend and graduate college?
Because if so, your post, lacking any form of actual punctuation, and consisting almost entirely of severe run-on sentences, makes me wonder exactly how much our tax dollars *are* being wasted…
I haven’t seen too many college teachers/professors that use the word: “CUZ”.. lol
Oh, how times have changed! I still recall approaching class for a physics or engineering test, then realizing I forgot my SLIDE RULE. I ran back to the dorm even knowing I’d be late for the test. Better that than to be sunk, I thought.
It’s too bad the iPads shown had to be locked down (some folks succumb to temptation, I know). But the mount prevents using it in other than landscape mode.
I can see all the Universities, heck everyone should just jump on in!
“I want this to be organic”
Well I hope he didn’t plan on using cyborgs.
With a name like Angst, he should be teaching Judaism 101.
@ Hope They Are Waterproof :
Right ON!!!!
You better hope they’re Beerproof.
And they have to give the iPads back? With Notre Dame’s $40k per year tuition and fees!?
Like Hotcakes!
I’m reading for my degree using my iPad. The problem I have, which frustrates my silly dream of seamless work, isn’t the fault of apple or the iPad. It’s that the textbooks are not available through iBookstore or even kindle. Instead, it’s through a website I have never heard of, and the deal isn’t good. Not only does the customer not save much from buying the e-version, it’s also **rented** which means that after the semester is up, you don’t get to refer back to the text anymore. A total rip-off. So I bought the paper version. And paid shipping. Ugh. Feels like the stone age.