HP Grant Supports Expansion of Tablet PCs into Humanities and Social Sciences
The Teaching Center, in collaboration with faculty in the Departments of Education and History and the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) facility, has received an educational grant from Hewlett-Packard (HP). Washington University was one of 10 U.S. institutions of higher education to receive this grant in 2007. The grant supports the expansion into the humanities and social sciences of teaching methods developed in a Department of Chemistry-Teaching Center project that was supported by a 2005 HP Technology for Teaching grant. The 2007 grant includes $15,000 in cash, plus HP technology valued at approximately $107,000—including forty wireless tablet PCs with DVD-CDRW optical drives, two 20-unit tablet PC carts, two wireless access points, one DesignJet 24" poster printer, one PhotoSmart digital camera, and two multimedia projectors. More information about the HP Technology for Teaching Grant can be found at http://www.hp.com/go/hpteach.
The 2007 HP grant supports a project entitled, “Enhancing Student Learning using Spatial Technologies, Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, and Group Work.” Collaborators on the grant are Aaron Addison (GIS Facility), Gina Frey (The Teaching Center), Tim Parsons (History), and Keith Sawyer (Education).
The aim of the project, similar to that of the original project in Chemistry, is to allow students in the humanities and social sciences to use tablet PCs during class sessions to develop skills used by practicing researchers. More specifically, the project will enable the students to use tablet PCs to perform active-learning exercises that can improve their learning and group work that can help them develop skills essential to effective collaboration.
During the fall 2007 semester, one set of the tablet PCs will be used as a “mobile GIS lab” for in-class GIS training in courses that are using GIS applications. Aaron Addison, the coordinator of the GIS facility, will be responsible for the in-class training and the scheduling of the mobile lab.
Using the mobile GIS lab in this way will allow for the fall 2007 semester to serve as a pilot period for the use of tablet PCs before the project is fully implemented during the spring 2008 semester. At that time, it will be implemented in two courses: Education 204: Introduction to the Learning Sciences (a core course in the Learning Sciences minor) and International and Area Studies 180: International Development (a core, freshman-focus course in the International Leadership Program).
In the Introduction to the Learning Sciences course, the specific goals for the HP project are as follows:
- Increased student understanding of computer-supported, collaborative-learning (CSCL) software and environments. The use of tablet PCs will give students the opportunity to use CSCL software and environments during class. Students will be able to implement immediately the instruction provided by the professor and to use the software independently while they have the opportunity to ask questions. In previous semesters, students examined CSCL environments solely through literature reviews and class discussions.
- Improved final projects involving the design of computer-based learning environments. Improved learning of CSCL software and environments should lead to improved performance on final projects, in which students are required to design their own computer-based learning environments.
- Improved group collaborations during learning activities. Students will assemble in groups while they work on the tablet PCs in class. This strategy will increase the capacity of students to collaborate as they work on the computers and will allow the instructor to observe and facilitate that collaboration.
In the International Development course, the specific goals for the HP project are the following:
- Introduce students to current spatial techniques that are used to analyze, present, and simulate international development problems. Previously, students used traditional literature searches to analyze international development problems. The project will allow them to analyze, present, and simulate these problems using GIS and the tablet PCs.
- Foster more effective collaborative work between team members as they design proposals that present practical solutions to international development problems. The tablet PCs will enable the students to work during class on their group projects, allowing the instructors to observe, facilitate, and improve group dynamics, thus helping the students work toward more effective proposals.
- Increase class participation via linked classroom discussions. The tablet PCs will enable students to add contributions, comments, and edits directly to maps, documents, and proposals being discussed by the class. Based on what was observed in the original project in the Department of Chemistry, it is expected that class participation will noticeably increase.
Assessment of the project will involve 1) comparing the spring 2008 students’ performance with the performance of students during previous years and 2) gathering student satisfaction responses via surveys.
Faculty interested in utilizing the HP tablet PCs in their classrooms should contact Gina Frey, director of the Teaching Center.
To learn more about the University’s commitment to becoming a leader in the use of GIS for research and teaching, see http://gis.wustl.edu.