As part of an effort to enhance the educational experience and continue its goal of being one of the most connected and innovative campuses in the world, Seattle University (SU) introduced the use of iPads across several Core courses in unique ways last fall. The program, a collaboration between SU and Apple, made use of campus-wide 5G service made possible via a partnership with T-Mobile.
Incorporating iPads allows for a robust active learning infrastructure to create a more complete, modern and collaborative curriculum, thus improving the student experience.
Teaching Professor Dominic CodyKramers used the iPad in a course called Creative Expression and Interpretation: Creating with Sound, where he taught first-year students a unique way to think about using everyday sounds to create music. He said that the final performance, in which students performed a “symphony of sound,” wouldn’t have been possible without the iPad.
“What I’d done in the past was more of a narrative piece that they did individually,” CodyKramers said. “The iPad allowed for creating a live group collaborative piece. It was exciting to try something new, and fun to think outside of the box by adding more technology to what we were doing.”
Last summer professors went through training and set about developing ways to incorporate iPads into their curriculum. In her course, Inquiry Seminar in the Humanities: Reading the Posthuman, Associate Professor Kate Koppelman, chair of SU’s English Department, used the technology in teaching the novel Frankenstein. Using Apple Books and the Apple app, Freeform, she found that it allowed for a more dynamic and collaborative learning environment.
Among the uses of Apple Books was highlighting and making notes on the text. Koppelman showed the class how to develop a system of color highlights to denote different types of notes that could easily be referred to. Freeform also allows for copying and moving text to other documents easily. “We also used the search function a lot,” Koppelman said. “If we were looking at a particular quote, you’d type in a section of the quote and we’d be able to go to that section in the book.”
For the class, Inquiry Seminar in the Social Sciences: Politics of the End, Political Science Professor Patrick Schoettmer asked his students to examine some of the biggest challenges facing society and how those subjects are shown in the media and popular entertainment, including video games. Schoettmer said that one thing the iPad allows for is standardizing the class, providing everyone with the particular game or content being discussed, rather than only some people having access.
Schoettmer and Koppelman both agree that the iPad allows their classes to run more efficiently. “In social sciences, you’re doing a lot of map sharing and data analysis,” Schoettmer said. “[The iPad allows] the ability to get each student center stage at a snap and have them walk you through a map. They don’t have to walk up or log into the main computer—they already have it there. You just step away and let them see the screen and you can talk more quickly about the evidence and what they’ve found.”
In CodyKramers’ class, students learned how everyday sounds can be used to produce music. Whereas in the past, students might bring in items like rocks, cans and other found objects to create sounds, the iPads allow for a more mobile experience that let the students engage more with the campus and area community by using the device to record the sounds that they heard.
Back in the classroom, they used the Apple app, GarageBand, to learn to manipulate the sounds—making them louder or quieter, fading them from one side to another—and practicing creating a “symphony of sound.” For their final, they put on a performance demonstrating that symphony.
Using a digital prize-wheel on CodyKramers’ iPad—an idea suggested by a student—volunteers would “spin” the wheel and whatever category it landed on, for example, “traffic,” “nature” and yes, even “bathroom” (who knew flushing could be so melodic?), the students activated that sound on their iPads, thus creating the symphony.
“It’s something they’d never done before, very outside of the box, but they seemed to have a good time with it,” CodyKramers said
While modern technology is sometimes criticized for making people more insular, using the iPads in class creates a more collaborative and communal experience.
Both Koppelman and Schoettmer point to the Freeform app as a valuable tool in helping bring the entire class into a discussion in a more visual, free-flowing way than simply taking notes on a laptop or walking back and forth from a whiteboard. “I can put it up on the screen as they’re doing their work so groups can see what’s happening as it’s happening,” Koppelman said. “I could watch what was happening (in their groups) and make connections—this group is talking about this and your group is talking about that—and have them talking to each other.”
Schoettmer agrees that Freeform allows for more interaction than similar tools like PowerPoint. For example, he would break up the class into four groups, position them in different corners of the classroom and give them each a component of what they were discussing. The groups worked through the available information and, using Freeform’s shared board, they looked for links between their subject and what other groups were doing to find connections about, for example, technology and the causes of climate change.
“Over time, they figured out what the themes and points were and effectively delivered the same message I would have done. But they figured it out themselves rather than me just telling them,” Schoettmer said. “That was a much more productive way. This kind of lecture seemed to stick with them a little better.”
By Mike Allende, Senior Director of Strategic Communications, Seattle University