iPad Pilot Project
Summary Report
Background
In April of 2012, the decision was made by the Ministry of Higher Education to adopt iPads as teaching and learning tools in all foundation programs at the three federal tertiary institutions for the 2012 academic year. This would be one of the largest mobile learning initiatives in the world of higher education to date with approximately 13,000 faculty and students adopting mobile devices as teaching and learning tools. The rationale behind this bold initiative was to leverage the tools and applications of mobile devices to enhance pedagogy and foster 21st century learning skills. The mobile learning initiative has been an impetus to open a discussion about innovation in teaching and learning at Zayed University.
The three federal institutions, Zayed University, UAEU and HCT, worked in a collaborative manner to plan and implement the first phase of the mobile learning project. This included working together to provide professional development for faculty on effective uses of iPads as teaching and learning tools, exploring innovative mobile learning pedagogies, the creation of iPad-mediated language learning materials, upgrading infrastructure, and the procurement of apps and devices.
In order to provide sustained and effective professional development, a “train the trainer” program for the three institutions was implemented. The institutions selected a group of enthusiasts called “iChampions,” to explore the pedagogical opportunities of the iPads. The iChampions were expected to share their experiences and lessons learned with their colleagues.
The adoption of iPads at Zayed University began in the Academic Bridge Program in the Fall 2012 and moved into the University College in the second semester, Spring 2013. By Fall 2014 the first full contingent of students with iPads will be entering into their major’s courses.
In order to prepare for the introduction of mobile devices in the majors, the Center for
Educational Innovation, CEI, developed an iPad pilot project for colleges. The purpose of the pilot project was to offer the faculty in the colleges and major courses an opportunity to incorporate iPads in their teaching and learning environments and to explore the possible pedagogical affordances of the devices.
The aim of the pilot was for participating faculty to be able to offer guidance and leadership within their colleges regarding the judicious incorporation of mobile learning in their course curricula. From their experiences on the pilot, faculty would share when mobile technology was useful and beneficial to the learning environment and when it was not. It was also an opportunity
Some of the areas that were targeted for exploration included new ways of: · doing project work,
· sharing content with and among students, · collaborating,
· assessing,
· creating content by and for students
Funding for the project was provided by the Office of the Provost (see Appendix A).
The pilot project had 4 distinct stages: (1) Call for Proposals, (2) Deployment, (3) Implementation and (4) Review.
Stage 1: Call for Proposals and Selection
The colleges were invited to submit proposals for participation in the iPad pilots. In some colleges more than one proposal was submitted, so the CEI reviewed them in light of the
published criteria (see Appendix B), and selected the pilots that had the widest potential impact. One pilot was awarded within each college for a total of 7 projects. There were sufficient
resources to allow the selection of two additional projects, one from UC and one from CoE.
A total of nine pilots were run in the spring semester, with 14 faculty and approximately 260 students involved.
Stage 2: Deployment - iPad Distribution, App Deployment and Set-up
The first step was to distribute and sign out the iPads from the Service Desk to each of the students involved in the pilot. The devices were handed out with a set of apps pre-installed which were provided by the university (the same apps that had been distributed to faculty and UC students – 19 paid apps and 27 free apps). Once the classes were set up with devices, the faculty contacted CEI to request additional apps as needed for their projects. The technical challenges of gifting the additional apps to the pilot classes was time consuming as each had to be gifted individually. More time was spent on following up on those students who did not receive the apps or had difficulty installing them. There were approximately 500 apps gifted across all the pilots, all of which had to be individually gifted.
The original proposal for the pilots included an allocation for the purchase of apps for up to 200AED per student, which was more than sufficient to cover all the app requests. The goal was to allow faculty and students to explore different ways of using the devices and to try both paid and free versions of apps, to evaluate which apps were most successful as pedagogical tools, and which might be of limited value.
Stage 3: Implementation
CEI offered training and logistical support for faculty and students in the pilot classes. In the first weeks of the pilots, the support included visiting classes for some basic set up (mail) and app training (such as iMovie or Creative Book Builder - CBB), and making sure all the students knew
how to effectively operate the devices. Some classes needed almost no support beyond gifting the apps, while others continued to need weekly support meetings with students throughout the semester.
Although the CEI normally provides support for faculty the success of the project also depended on support for students. An outcome of this support has been the development of a productive relationship with PALS to assist in and take over support for students.
The pilot projects ran through the spring semester.
Stage 4: Project Review
The pilot projects included a wide range of subject areas, and while not all were entirely successful in achieving the original goals set out in the proposals, they provided a wealth of information to faculty regarding the potential benefits and challenges of using mobile technology as learning tools. From early on in the pilot, it became clear that it is not enough to give students a device and ask them to ‘go learn’. Learning with mobile technology, as in other learning
contexts, needs to be managed and guided, and projects need to be intentional, well-structured and planned. With students creating alternative tasks and projects with the tools provided on the iPads, it became clear that assessment might need to adapt, to take into account both the content and the media, or mode of presentation. And while some things are much easier with the mobile devices and the many apps that are available (taking photo and videos, audio recording, production of videos and presentations, etc.) some things can be more difficult (managing and sharing of files and secure assessment, etc.). Also, new sorts of challenges were revealed, such as dealing with very large files, sharing files among the class, and reliable wireless access.
At the end of the semester, the iPads were returned to CSD. All faculty who participated in the pilots expressed interest in continuing the pilots in the Fall semester. Most faculty wanted to continue with the same course, but several expressed interest in conducting the pilot in a different course or for a different project in the class. This suggested that these faculty saw opportunities for the iPads in a wider range of contexts.
iPad Pilot Reports
A review of 6 reports authored by faculty involved in the iPad Pilot Project was conducted. Three were outstanding at the time of writing this report but will be included as updates.
The review looked at the pedagogical strategies used to integrate the iPad technology into courses across a variety of disciplines. The review also looked for common themes in terms of the impact on teaching and learning. A summary of the results is in Table 1.
Table 1: Summary of iPad Pilot Project Reports
Course/Program Students/ Faculty
Pedagogical Model Strategies Learning
1 Biological Concepts
(BIO202)
College of Sustainability Science and Humanities
Faculty – 2 Students – 9
Cognitive
Depth of Processing
Content-Vocabulary Building Practice using Simulations
Deeper understanding of material Contextualized learning Engagement 2 English Composition II (COL145) University College Faculty – 1 Students - 20
Cognitive Content Delivery via iPad
Presentations
Engagement
3 Early Childhood
Mathematics and Science (EDC386)
Literature for Children and Adolescents (EDC452) College of Education Faculty – 2 Students – 41 Constructivist - Problem Based Learning (PBL) Knowledge Construction
Design and develop a media product to teach young children about an Arabic scientist or mathematician. Fairytale for young children that integrated mathematical concepts such as numeracy, shapes, patterns and
measurement using an eBook format.
Engagement
Leadership and team skills
Language development
Critical thinking skills
Technology skills
4 Global Awareness III
(COL250) University College Faculty – 1 Students – 24 Cognitive and Constructivist - Problem Based Learning (PBL)
iBooks for content delivery and interaction
student presentation development and delivery
Engagement
Course/Program Students/ Faculty
Pedagogical Model Strategies Learning
5 Communication, Media and
Society (COM200)
College of Communication and Media Sciences
Faculty – 1 Students – 68 (in 2 sections of 33 and 35) Cognitive Constructivist - Problem Based Learning (PBL) Knowledge Construction
Reference tool and content delivery (eBook) Quizzes Presentations Projects: 1) Movie/Documentary 2) Podcast 3) eBook creation Engagement Increased understanding 6 Business Communication (BUS207) College of Business Faculty – 3 Students - 28 Constructivist - Problem Based Learning (PBL) Collaboration Data-gathering Presentation Engagement Increased understanding and involvement
Feedback from students about appropriate use of the iPads tended to focus on difficulties entering text and/or data. Students said they would prefer using their laptop for these activities.
One of the benefits of mobile technology is its portability making ubiquitous learning (anytime, anywhere) a realistic expectation. However, much of the student feedback suggested that they did not use their iPads a lot out of class. One of the reasons offered by students was that they did not own the iPads and so were reluctant to personalize them or to use them off campus.
One faculty provided the following reflection based on an extremely successful student project, “… success was not defined by the use of an iPad but rather by mobile technology”. In this case students also used social media and SMS to complete their project.
The common themes that emerged from the pilot project reports were:
(1) increased student engagement,
(2) deeper understanding of course content and goals, and
(3) the greatest success was when a constructivist pedagogical model was used (e.g., Problem Based Learning).
Engagement was lower when iPads were used as eBook readers perhaps due to the passive nature of such activities. However, engagement rose significantly when students used their iPads to perform the hands-on projects. Project 1 from Table 1 made good use of a pedagogical process model that used a content-action model where students learned content, practiced vocabulary and then engaged in online and app-based simulations. All projects used this process model to varying degrees.
Conclusions
When faculty were submitting their proposals in stage 1, there was much discussion regarding iPad-mediated content creation for student consumption. However, it became clear early on that the iPad’s greatest impact was not as a tool for student consumption of content, but rather as an excellent tool for student-created content.
The use of iPads or more generally mobile technology to enhance and support learning brings us into a 21st Century model of potentially ubiquitous learning. However, to use such
technology as teaching and learning tools effectively we must understand their affordances -- what are they good at and what are they not good at --- and which of these affordances will enhance learning. The results from the iPad pilot projects suggests that students are much more engaged and show increased understanding when they use the devices to create knowledge through active learning pedagogical models that include, for example, Problem-Based or Inquiry-Problem-Based Learning.
Recommendations
❏ The CEI in partnership with the colleges should provide more formalized department-wide and university-department-wide professional development opportunities to disseminate lesson-learned, strategies for implementation, best-practices, and recommendations.
❏ The CEI should develop a more rigorous, systematic and consistent way of collecting data from subsequent projects to better inform the implementation in the colleges and throughout Zayed University.
❏ To make the greatest impact of mobile learning in the colleges, CEI should collaborate with the colleges to more thoughtfully integrate mobile learning into teaching practice.
Although relatively small in scale, the results of this pilot project have provided evidence to support continued integration of mobile technology into teaching and learning practice at Zayed University.
Troy Priest
Senior Mobile Learning Specialist Center for Educational Innovation
Susan Jones Associate Director
Center for Educational Innovation
Dr. Brad Johnson
Assistant Professor & Director Center for Educational Innovation
Appendix A: Project Costs Budget
The funding of this project came from Office of the Provost:
Materials / Equipment Quantity Cost
iPads 300 @ 800 AED 240,000
Dongles for Projection 950
Pre-Installed Paid Apps 300 @ 360 AED 108,000
Additional Pilot-Specific Apps 8,960
Textbooks - Raven Biology purchased by CSSH and NSPH 4650
Appendix B: Call for Proposal
Project Proposal iPad Initiative in the Colleges
Objective
To allow faculty members and students in the colleges to use iPads to take a leadership role and contribute to the knowledge base of best practices as part of the Zayed University mobile learning initiative. Because iPad integration is quickly progressing towards the degree granting colleges, there is an opportunity to support faculty early adopters and begin to make positive inroads into the colleges.
Opportunity
Up to seven opportunities exist for iPad initiatives in the colleges. Ideally, one project will be accepted for each of the colleges, however, the opportunities will be awarded based on the quality of the proposals. Any successful proposals must meet the minimum requirements of this project.
Project Requirements
1. One full class of students will need to participate.
2. Proposals from individual faculty members or those working in teams.
Project Participants
Project Coordinator: Kevin Schoepp Project Team members:
● each successful applicant ● students
Technical Team
● iPad trainers on each campus ● ½ time CEI faculty
2. Participants will have developed specific plans for at least two comprehensive activities/strategies for incorporating the device in their course(s).
3. Participants will share their findings with their colleagues within the College and beyond. 4. Participants will be able to provide suggestions to the college for further implementation.
Plan
Each successful faculty member will:
● receive an iPad for the duration of the project (Spring Semester 2013) ● participate in three face-to-face sessions:
○ an orientation session showing participants how to set up their mobile device ○ one mid-project meeting
○ a final meeting at which participants will:
● present what they found to be the possibilities of the mobile device for their course(s) and the activities/strategies they have planned ● report on how they plan to share their findings
● participate in a collaborative virtual workspace
● Produce a final report summarizing successes and challenges as well as provide suggestions for next steps for their college
● have a dedicated class set of iPads for the duration of the project with an App credit of AED 200 per iPad
Timeline
January 17, 2013: Proposals due (email Eman Mahmoud) January 24, 2013: Proposals awarded
April, 2013: Mid-point meeting (date TBA) June 26, 2013: Student devices returned
Proposals
Proposals should be submitted electronically from the dean or associate dean and include: ● a description (500 words) of what will be explored and how you hope it will impact
teaching and learning in your course ● expected class size
● expected class room (if possible)
● a minimum of three sources that have already been investigated in iPad use for the specific subject matter (articles, blogs, books, webcasts, etc.)
Proposal Selection Rubric
Low Medium High
pedagogical foundation
Little or no mention of the pedagogical possibilities to be explored and/or they appear irrelevant to the situation
Some reference to the pedagogical possibilities to be explored is included; limited relevancy Pedagogical possibilities to be explored are clearly identified and explained and are relevant to the situation
potential impact on learning
Proposal content suggests very little impact on teaching/learning A potentially positive impact on learning and/or teaching is evident A potentially substantial positive impact on learning and/or teaching is clearly articulated focus on the unique characteristics of the device
The proposed area of investigation is not unique to the device (ie, it is something that could just as easily be done with a computer or laptop)
The proposed area of investigation focuses on areas somewhat unique to the type of device (ie, something that could be done with a laptop but is done better or more efficiently with the mobile device)
The proposed area of investigation focuses on areas completely unique to the type of device (ie, something that could not be done with a laptop)
evidence of an existing base of knowledge or interest
Proposal suggests very little foundation of knowledge or interest currently exists
Proposal is based on a basic foundation of knowledge and interest
Proposal is based on an already existing foundation of knowledge and interest
