Faculty Pilot Begins!

Yesterday, in "Oprah" style (and I think in the former Oprah time slot) we distributed the tablets to our faculty pilot participants. Everybody gets a tablet! Well, everyone in the room anyway.


We talked with the group about the larger goals of the project first. Our goals are to engage:

• Students as active learners in the classroom: This goal speaks specifically to the paperless classroom in Natural Sciences this semester that Curtis Shoaf and Heidi Leuszler are co-teaching with the Acer Iconia tablets. Each student has received a tablet to use for their coursework - no textbooks, course packets or paper assignments!

• Faculty as innovators in teaching and learning: We have a pilot group of more than 30 faculty, who are investigating ways to enhance their curriculum with iPads and/or Acer tablets. We have at least two faculty members from each academic department participating this semester.

• Students as innovators in software development: Dave Bock, CSIT faculty member, is teaching a new course next spring (2012) on Mobile Application Development. Our faculty pilot participants will develop a list of "mini-apps" that they'd like to see developed for their courses. The Mobile App class will choose selected app ideas to develop for their course projects.

• Students and faculty as collaborators in learning: All participants (students, faculty and staff) in the larger project will use this blog to discuss/share the experiences, ideas and discoveries we make throughout the process.

We're excited to get started, and as our faculty dive into the world of "apps" they will begin to share with us some of the great apps they find and how they can envision using them in their courses. Stay tuned!