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| A Matter Of Necessity |
November 10, 2003 |
By Poonam Khanna
Fifteen years ago, a university studentfinishing an all-nighter would have to scramble across town to a campus dropbox to hand in an assignment before a 9:00 a.m. deadline. At that fateful hour, the department secretary would empty the box and all assignments collected thereafter would be stamped a day late and docked marks.
Today, students rushing to meet a deadline can keep working almost to the last second, knowing there’s no need to dart over to the campus. Now they click a button at 8:59 a.m. and send the assignment on its electronic way.
Not only are many students getting access to computers these days—for many, computers are actually a requirement of their studies. Some universities and colleges are introducing mandatory programs in which students must lease a laptop from the school.
And this is changing the way both teachers and students operate.
TEACHING TRANSFORMED
A mandatory laptop program allowed the physics department at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., to completely transform its first year program, said Peter Williams, an associate professor of physics at the university.
The program was a typical 100-series course delivered to students via lectures and labs. But according to Williams, there is substantial teaching literature that says the lecture isn’t a very effective teaching method, and students complained that the labs, which incorporated practical work, were unrelated to the material in the lectures.
This changed for 20 of the approximately 120 students who recently streamed into Acadia University. Though they all came in with similar marks, these particular students finished the academic year with higher grades, on average, than their classmates. That’s because they participated in a pilot program which used the university’s mandatory laptops to redesign the way students are taught.
The students didn’t divide their time between lectures and labs. Instead, their program integrated the two into a new studio-based curriculum in which the students performed practical experiments. Instead of using a ruler and a stopwatch to calculate the properties of a ball rolling down a ramp, the students connected their laptops to sensors to capture data. Then they used spreadsheet programs to create charts.
Prior to the implementation of this teaching model, students spent so much time collecting and tabulating data manually, there was little time left to draw conclusions.
At the end of the class, students would often wonder about the results they got.
Students now participate more and spend more time doing experiments, and with that success, all first year physics students have now left the lecture halls for the studio. And they are enjoying the participatory nature of the classes.
“It’s like going into a kindergarten class,” Williams said.
But it’s important that teachers not just use technology for technology’s sake, said John Kutcy, general manager of education at IBM Canada in Markham, Ont.
“It’s not just a way to deliver assignments to students, but another tool through which students can gather information and learn. Using computers to create graphs, for example, can make understanding math easier for those students who are visual learners.
At Durham College in Oshawa, Ont., about 20 per cent of the students are expected to lease a notebook, and Judy Moretton, the academic vice-president, knows the teachers have finally grasped the value of technology because they’ve begun using it selectively.
“They don’t use it every class, [just] when it makes sense.”
Professors in the school’s accounting course, for example, put aside laptops when it comes time to discuss accounting dishonesty and then pick them up again when it comes time to teach taxes. Instead of filling out paper forms, students go online and use government tax resources.
Instead of using examples written in textbooks, they go online and visit financial sites of public companies.
“[The accounting professors] recognize that it is one tool in a bag of tricks and not to be used exclusively.”
THE DOLLAR DOWNSIDE
While they open up new teaching avenues, mandatory laptop leasing programs have one obvious drawback: cost.
Students already struggling to get by are now being saddled with yet another fee, and many are understandably upset.
Others, like Jennifer Di Penta, an honours biology student at Acadia who is headed for medical school next year, see the value in such an initiative.
Di Penta believes laptops are an expensive necessity, and said it was convenient to receive a laptop with all of the software preloaded and a support centre at hand.
The best part of the program, she said, was the courseware management suite, which allowed students to access notes online and download them before class.
During class, students could take notes right onto the PowerPoint presentations, if they chose.
This year’s laptops also came equipped with DVD players and CD burners—a favourite with students.
Schools say such programs are a practical approach to teaching. The Ontario College of Arts and Design (OCAD) is currently considering a mandatory laptop
program for its graphic design students.
“They [need] to do their work on computers. And currently they’re sitting in empty classrooms trying to describe to faculty what they’re doing (on their PCs),” said Lenore Richards, dean of the faculty of design at the Toronto-based college.
But to equip every classroom with the necessary desktops would mean hundreds and hundreds of computers, Richards said. It’s cheaper for the school to have
students bring laptops with them.
According to Bill Muirhead, the associate provost at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), mandatory laptop leasing programs are the only way to go. Otherwise students fight to use the limited numbers of desktops schools are able to provide to them.
Asking students to purchase laptops on their own, rather than leasing them from the school, is also impractical, Muirhead said. Mandatory laptop fees are
treated like tuition and are tax deductible.
Students asked to buy a computer wouldn’t have the same tax advantage.
Also, schools need to control the technology students use in order to prevent compatibility issues.
At UOIT, students get a fully loaded PC with specialized software worth a total of about $4,000, plus 24-hour support and a guaranteed 24-hour turnaround on technical support for a total fee of $1,480 per year. The university shares in the cost of the program by providing the infrastructure and maintenance.
And mobile technology is also changing the campus itself. UOIT will provide students with wireless access points in popular areas such as cafeterias and libraries, and new residences will come with high-speed Internet access.
The University of British Columbia is also future-proofing by enabling the entire campus for wireless access. Though the university has no mandatory laptop
programs, 3,000 students and staff have already taken advantage of the wireless capability in the six months it has been operational.
Web education
Acadia University http://www.acadiau.ca
Durham College http://www.durhamc.on.ca
IBM Canada http://www.ibm.ca
OCAD http://www.ocad.on.ca
UBC http://www.ubc.ca
UOIT http://www.uoit.ca
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