Paperless teaching at ChungKang College

The Joongang has an article describing ChungKang College’s plan to ride a fad to fame use iPads in all aspects of their education delivery.

From the article:

The university said yesterday that it will start the “i-College,” a system of education featuring the use of the iPad, starting next year. The university said the system will be used in all aspects of education, such as homework assignments, lectures, the submission of homework, test-giving and student evaluations.

The goal is to improve communication between students and professors and make the relationship more interactive.

It’s interesting that they are using a platform that is almost entirely new to Korea, but i definitely applaud the idea.

This is what college management want’s to happen: a 20-year-old takes out his iPad from his bag to check the timetable for his school bus. He uses the time waiting for his bus to skim a draft text of a lecture that day, which pops up on the screen. During the lecture, Kim, with no pen or notebook, sends his homework to his professor via the tablet computer and gets feedback on his work. Later in the day, on his way home, he finds that the syllabus for his next class has arrived in his iPad from the professor. He prepares for the next class by borrowing electronic books from a digital library.

The university said the biggest strength for its “smartcampus” will be to enable professors and students to interact freely and immediately whenever they want, which will lead more students to participate in lectures and improve the quality of classes.

I see Kim sending homework – which is marked the same day – I need an iPad if they offer that kind of productivity.  I see the professor sending a great deal of information to the student (including early drafts of lectures, which I previously blogged about) but I don’t see information transfer that couldn’t happen this year or last year.

I like the idea then, but I don’t see it as revolutionary.  It is said that in each new war, generals refight the previous one.  Here, I see new tech being used just like the old tech, but more portably.  That is a good step forward, but I think one can manage a few strides forward by equipping students with tablets.

Shelly Blake-Plock at Teach Paperless has been using tablets in class for some time now and his whole teaching style has changed.  I do not want to give specific details here because I too am stuck in an information-delivery poor teaching style myself (That is, I use a white- or chalk- board and have intermittent computer and projector capability).  Still, in his American History class -and I am going by memory, so mistakes are possible – his students do not use any textbook but search in class from various online resources and Twitter their findings to their teacher and other classmates.  The teacher still needs to be knowledgable but is more of a conductor than a deliverer of information.

Again, I like the idea and I will be placing a copy of the article on my boss’ desk – anonymously?


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