Can the use of an I-Pod improve the learning and teaching process for design students

DS 62: Proceedings of E&PDE 2010, the 12th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education - When Design Education and Design Research meet ..., Trondheim, Norway, 02.-03.09.2010

Year: 2010
Editor: Boks W; Ion, W; McMahon, C and Parkinson B
Author: Forkes, Andrew D
Section: LEARNING SPACES AND TECHNOLOGY
Page(s): 570-574

Abstract

With the adoption of virtual learning environments (VLE) such as Blackboard, the ability for students to capture content from lectures for reviewing has been improved, however, with the advent of
ubiquitous devices such as I-Pods and mobile phones with the ability to deliver movie style content, the opportunity for multiple viewing of teaching materials has increased significantly. This is due
mainly to the portability of the products and the ability for them to store lifestyle choices such as movies, music, television broadcasts, and podcasts. If so, why not utilise mobile devices to re-deliver
the lectures they need to understand and build on for future project based work? Students today may have to manage significantly more activities in their lives than ever before, with a considerable amount of students having to work part time to supplement their academic endeavours, this unfortunately may steal time away from their academic “self managed time” and promote surface learning rather than a “deep dive” approach to projects. 30% of students who participated in LSBU’s research “Survey of higher education students’ attitudes to debt and term-time working and their impact on attainment “ Universities UK 2005 were averaging more than 20 hours work per week. Some of the symptoms of low attainment may be that they do not have the time to focus on their study by “traditional” means alone. Utilising mobile technologies such as IPods for viewing the content from lectures and demonstrations could increase the opportunity for students to access the content. This does not negate the need for “live” interaction with their academics, but allows students to fit smaller chunks of self-managed time around their lifestyle and play / pause / play content to increase transmission of the information. The research is looking at the pedagogic benefits of the increased opportunity of learning time bought by the portability of hi resolution multimodal lectures, which are supported by the student’s personal classroom notes. The research has been driven by an initial questionnaire, which will be followed up with mobile media ready lectures which students can use to “prototype” the process. A second questionnaire is then given to the participants to review their appreciation. There is also insight into the practical realities of reproduction of lecture content into mobile ready formats. This is an important aspect if the content has to integrate static slides, text, animations, YouTube style movie clips and web links that allow the students to expand their knowledge by further research into the subject matter. An exploration of any benefits of the mode of delivery can be fed back into the live lecture itself, with the possible improvement of the initial lecture content itself.

Keywords: New design education paradigms, Best practices in design education

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