Learn how to leverage iPads and OER to improve student success, save students money, meet digital literacy goals, and make technology accessible for all. For the last three years at Northeast Mississippi Community College, students have been able to purchase an iPad for use in the classroom. In the Fall 2018 semester, students will have to opt out of the program and 93% of courses will use e-texts or open educational resources (OER). Since the Fall 2015 semester, student textbook costs have been reduced by over 50%, and student success has increased.
This session will teach attendees how to implement a 1-1 program and how to move to open educational resources, including instructions on how to avoid common pitfalls in order to democratize technology and to increase digital literacy. In the Fall 2015 semester, Northeast Mississippi Community College piloted a progam in which students purchased iPads for classroom use. Their purchase was voluntary, and the take rate was approximately 60% for entering students. The take rate dropped in subsequent years, but remained around 50%. In April 2016, the college realized that allowing studens to opt-in privileged those students who had the means to purchase the device. Consequently, the college made a commitment to ensure each student would have an iPad by moving to an opt-out model that will begin in the Fall 2018 semester. The 2017-2018 academic year delivered professional development to all faculty through a learning academy led by faculty champions.
Instructors were issued an iPad in the Fall 2015 semester to supplement instruction and were given the charge integrate new teaching and learning methods into their courses. Many faculty embraced the opportunity and developed new ways of delivering material and assessing learning. Some of these facutly became the champions who formally trained other faculty, but most importantly, the champions grew buy in throughout the last three years at the lunch table, in the hallways, and between meetings as they discussed how the device was helping students in the classroom.