Spring Pilot Pre-Survey

Thanks to all who have completed the pre-survey so far. Here are some statistics from 11 participants:
6 Female
5 Male

45% are between 51-60
27% are between 41-50
27% are between 31-40

45.5% have 5 years teaching experience at Parkland
18% have 6-10 years teaching experience...
9% have 11-15 years teaching experience...
2% have 20-25 years...
1% has 25+ years...


9% rated their basic technology skills as "adequate"
36% rated their basic technology skills as "good"
54% rated their basic technology skills as "very good"


18% rated their feeling of using a new piece of technology in traditional classroom as "neutral"
45.5% excited
36% very excited


9% claimed they were "anxious" about using new technology in the online environment
18% are "neutral"
54% are "excited"
9% are "very excited"

45.5% of participants are "very comfortable" using a mobile tablet
36.4% "comfortable"
18.2% "neutral


5 people own a mobile tablet
6 people do not own a tablet


Of those who own a tablet:
40% use it 1-2 times a day
40% use it 5-10 times a day
20% use it more than 10 times a day


54% of participants think their basic computer skills will improve using a tablet
45% answered no to the question


The list of ways faculty anticipate using the tablet for teaching:
A link to the net
A way to draw on the screen
Mobility in the classroom
Using applications
Storing photographs to show students
Using key note and pages
Finding apps that student can use to learn course content better
Interactivity to reiterate ideas and concepts taught in class
Use tablet to review course materials
Grade and respond to course work electronically
Primarily as instructor demonstrating apps since not all students will have device
As a way to provide feedback and drafts with students
To show media files
To communicate with students more easily
Expose students to several apps that relate to design and specifically typography
Increase ways to connect to students
Advanced knowledge of training materials
Test new products
Introduce students to new products


Kim Pankau

WARNING: No wifi Ahead

When choosing apps, especially for the mobile classroom, apps that do not require wifi access 100% of the time are very valuable. Learning often happens outside the classroom. It happens in an outdoor lab, a class fieldtrip or just students reflecting on course material as they go about their day. Students may also want to digest some of the course material during some free time, but when they don’t have wifi access. The concept of apps started with smartphones, which are devices that are connected to the internet almost 100% of the time. However, 65% of tablets in general and 75% of iPads are wifi only. Apps specifically made for tablets seem to be aware of this and often provide “offline” content and functionality. The apple app store does a good job of separating iPad apps from iPhone apps so you can easily choose only apps designed for the tablet platform. However, the Android market does not make this distinction. This often makes it difficult to find apps that don’t require full time wifi access. We encountered this issue several times last semester, especially when using Google docs. However, a new update to the Android Google docs app now allows for offline editing. I’m sure this trend will continue as developers realize that users want to use their devices even when they don’t have wifi. Please respond to this post with any useful apps that you have found that don’t require wifi access.

Give an App!

You can buy apps and give them as a gift to other people. If you go into iTunes from a computer or the App Store on an iOS device and go to a particular app, one of the options it gives you is to "gift this app." You can give the same app to several people at one time by just typing in their email address. They will be sent an email with instructions on how to redeem the app. This is a great way to give students an app you want them to use in the classroom if it is not free. However, you will get charged for each email you send an app to, whether or not they actually redeem the app. Also, you cannot use iTunes credit to gift apps. You must use a "funding source," usually a credit card.

Ratings can be Misleading

When searching for an app on the iPad, I usually sort apps by “Customer Rating.” More often than not, if an app gets terrible customer ratings, it is not worth trying. However, some of the apps we are using in the classroom are bucking this trend. An example of this is the “Documents” app we have been using. This app allows you to view and edit many types of files including text files and spreadsheets. It can download and upload files to and from Google Docs and you can also attach a file to an email. Google Docs allows multiple users the ability to modify files in real time. This is great for some situations, but not for the classroom. First of all you always need internet access and second of all it is a pain to share documents with students because you have to create a separate document for each student or group. By using Google Docs to share files, we only have to create one document and share it with the entire class. This is easy to do once you have your students set up in a group in your contacts. Then the “Documents” app allows students to download their own version of the file and modify it without having internet access. Once they modify the file, they can email it to the instructor for grading. This is working well for our needs. However, this app gets terrible reviews in the app store. You can imagine why: what makes it useful for the classroom, makes it a pain to the individual user. In order to move documents from your desktop to the iPad, you need to first upload it to Google docs and then download it to the iPad. Then you need to reverse the process or email the document back to yourself to get it back on your computer. This process is not acceptable to the average user and thus it gets bad reviews.

Note: The “Documents” app does actually provide a pretty nice way to move files back and forth from the iPad. As long as you are connected to wifi the app will provide you with a URL to type into your browser that gives your direct access to the files on the app. You can upload or download files. This feature is not very intuitive so I imagine many users miss it.

Note2: There is a free version and a $0.99 version of the app. So far, one difference we have noticed between the two is that the free version limits a spreadsheet to 11 columns and 50 rows. The $0.99 version seems to be unlimited.

Build a house app

We are in the energy module, and I would love to see a simple "build an energy efficient house" app. We've talked about all sorts of choices that would help a home be more energy efficient. We could have groups of choices for the house: studs, SIPS, or other structural choices; shapes that can be made bigger or smaller to serve as windows and doors; different R values of insulation; different types of heating/cooling, etc. 

The students could make choices about the different characters of their home, and two values would be summed: 1) an energy efficiency and 2) a total cost to build the home. Students would then have to make choices about whether or not the building decisions they make also make economic sense.

Virtual lab

Dave said that he put a "virtual lab" app on his list for apps to develop for use on tablets. We had our first on campus labs of the semester this week (transformers, resistance, and home appliance electricity), and I wished again for such a virtual lab app. 

We have it working fine, but it's so clunky. The biggest issues are finding a way to share a fillable spreadsheet with the students, being able to fill in the spreadsheet without wifi (for example, in one lab I have students collect data outside where there is no wifi), and finding a way for them to get their completed spreadsheets to us.

It works fine, but students almost have to work in groups of 3. One tablet has the instructions, one has a calculator, and one has the spreadsheet open.

Last semester, we tried to use Google docs exclusively as there was no free app that would share and allow editing of spreadsheets.  Google docs was okay, but we had to create a separate spreadsheet for each student or student group, and the students had to use wifi in order to access and save information.

This semester, Curtis discovered a free app called "Documents" for the ipad. It worked much more smoothly.  We share a spreadsheet on Google docs, the students use Documents to reach out through wifi and grab the spreadsheet. It opens in Documents and students can fill it in without needing wifi, save it, and email it to us.  The app has  a few strange bugs (it crashes occasionally, and you lose the back button sometimes), but we'll continue to use it.

An app that would have the instructions with fillable fields specific to each lab throughout, would work without wifi, compile the class data into a graph or table, and record the individual student's data would really make labs go much smoother and utilize the tablets well in lab.

Wifi is working and the ipads can run Angel!!!

Today was a successful tablet day in class! First, I think it's important to note that we have decided we don't have to use the tablets for EVERYTHING, like we were trying to do last semester. Ironically, as soon as we stopped worrying about it, everything works beautifully.

We had students using Edmodo to access course material and using the feed. All 7 students took two polls that Curtis posted since the last class, and we were able to use those anonymous data in class discussion.

I posted the url for an Ecological Footprint quiz that I use every semester, and all 7 students + Curtis and I were able to link to it, and take the quiz without any delay or concerns.

Curtis also discovered that if you switch Angel to PDA mode, that Angel works perfectly on the ipad. It's simple and plain, but that doesn't matter at all when it works! Most students chose to open the lecture powerpoint on their ipads and follow along.

Though we just used the tablets for enhancing lecture today, and doing a short activity, having the mobile devices in the hands of every student felt good.  A couple of Edmodo posts were made during lecture, which is what we want. It will probably take a few class periods to break the habit of not using your mobile device during class!