In Business and Accounting, Professor Dr. Jeanine Stratton’s marketing principles class, when she asks for her students to turn to a page in the textbook, the whole class takes out their iPad minis and scrolls to the page. With new iPad minis available for the semester to Stratton’s non-business-major marketing principles class, students take full advantage of using them in and out of classroom.
The iPads are registered through the Furman technology center, and each has its own screen protector and case. The students in the class were given the iPad minis on January 15 in the library technology center, where library aids taught them how to download the textbooks and register the iPads to their Furman ID.
The Studio Lab in Furman’s library has been interested in getting iPads in the hands of students for about two years. Dr. Jane Love, Director of Furman’s Center for Teaching and Learning, helped start the iPad initiative on Furman’s campus. Two years ago twenty-five faculty members were given iPads to aid in their research and teachings. These teachers started to realize what an impact getting iPads into the hands of their students could potentially have.
When the iPad mini came out in October 2012, Furman’s Studio Lab jumped on the opportunity. The Studio Lab had Faculty members submit proposals on how they would incorporate the iPad mini into their course Stratton’s marketing principles class was chosen to be the first class at Furman to receive the iPad minis for a semester.
“Dr. Stratton had a well developed idea, she had a great plan for how she would assesses the way the students would be using the iPads to be able to see if the iPads were actually adding to their experience,” said Love.
Kolby Merryman, a sophomore Communications major who takes Dr. Stratton’s class said, “Everyone uses it when we are in the class, and it is honestly making marketing so much more fun. In the marketing world these are used all the time. Dr. Stratton is trying to incorporate the new business world techniques into our classroom.”
Blending the latest technology with a classroom setting makes for a new experience for students.
Stratton starts her marketing principles class each day by asking students for any tips, tricks or problems they have found from using the iPad minis. This class will be using the iPad minis for online textbooks, note taking, web browsing, presentations, and a video based public service announcement project.
The public service announcement is one main concern of the class. The entire process of making the video, not just the end product, is what concerns Stratton.
“If they are ever in an interview one day and the interviewer asks, ‘what did you do at Furman’, they can show their whole portfolio of this video,” said Stratton. The entire public service announcement project is being done on the iPad minis.
Stratton likes the iPads because all of her students have Internet access in class and have access to an array of apps to aid in their learning.
“I have been able to look into what the benefits and barriers are, maybe the iPad will change the way we look at courses and the way the students learn, maybe it will only be good for Facebook and Angry Birds,” said Stratton.
Even though Stratton spent a lot of time researching and testing the best apps to use in her class, there are still moments where computers are needed and when students take notes on notebook paper.
Merryman is confident in the iPad’s usefulness.
“I think that in the next five to ten years everybody will have some sort of tablet technology, maybe even high schools,” he said.
Stratton is cautiously optimistic.
“I think we need to do these pilot tests, a cost benefit analysis, look at the real benefits and the real barriers, and the time it takes to design a coarse knowing your students have an iPad; we need more data, and I am trying to help collect those data,” she said.