Tablets in Learning and Teaching

If you read the sister blog to this one, the E-learning Blog, you’ll know that the Teaching Centre is running a project next year called Tablets in Learning and Teaching (TiLT).

It’s clear there is a lot of interest in this area among academic colleagues because within a matter of hours after sending out an announcement about the project, I’d had expressions of interest from over 40 colleagues.

There are many ways in which tablets can / could be used, not least by students themselves as a means of engaging with the lecture (eg responding to questions), and I suspect that this will over the next couple of years displace the use of dedicated electronic voting systems. Why would you bother to book 200 handheld ‘clickers’ for a large class if you can do the same thing, without disruption, using technology that many students have with them anyway, ie smartphones and tablets?

One of the modes of use that interests me (and which we’ve been testing over the last few weeks) is the tablet used a a presentation device in the teaching room with the tablet’s display ‘mirrored’ on the projector. I’m aware that some colleagues have already been doing it but, as part of the project, I’d like to investigate then disseminate the most effective methods.

We have 6 iPads available for long-term loan to academic colleagues next year. Please get in touch to request the application form if you’re interested.