Read about Northeastern University EdTech Center's Mobile Learning Initiative on MacLearning

November 2011

Article by Alicia Russell, Director of the Educational Technology  Center

Northeastern University's Educational Technology Center recently began offering iPad2s to faculty as part of a Mobile Learning Initiative.  This initiative grew out of an earlier program aimed at giving faculty members the opportunity to experiment with new technologies for teaching and learning by providing them hardware (digital recorders and digital cameras), and instructional design and digital media support.

To launch the Mobile Learning Initiative, the EdTech Center sent out an RFP inviting faculty to describe what they wanted to accomplish with the new technology, and how they would measure their success. The EdTech Center was specifically looking for proposals that described how faculty planned to use features and functions unique to the iPad and not available on a laptop. Project goals needed to go beyond using iPads simply because of their portability. Additionally, EdTech Center staff were interested in helping faculty explore ways they could use the iPads in different disciplines. Faculty iPad recipients were asked to keep a blog, in which they first detailed their project and goals, and then write about what they learned at different points during the semester. They would also join a cross-disciplinary learning community composed of other iPad recipients that would meet for a luncheon at least once each semester to share successes and failures. After successfully completing their own projects and presenting their experiences to other faculty members at an EdTech Center-sponsored teaching and learning event, the iPads would be theirs to keep, and it was expected that they would continue exploring new ways to incorporate the iPad into the classroom. 

The original article can be found at MacLearning.org.