Pedagogy & IT Practice

Wake Forest University is well-known for technological innovation. In the mid-1990s, the university pioneered a program to distribute IBM ThinkPads to all students.

More recently, it tested the use of Pocket PCs for pedagogical, student-life and administrative applications. This year, in a set of pilots called MobileU, the university is evaluating the effectiveness of Pocket PC phones, devices that double as a cell phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA).

Administrators and academicians hope the phone function will encourage more students to carry and use the Pocket PCs.

“Our major goal is to find a good device that students will use, that will fit in with their lifestyle,” says Nancy Crouch, assistant CIO. “Since almost all of them have cell phones, this might fit well.

The pilot uses two virtually identical products –Siemens' SX66 from Cingular and the Audiovox PPC-6600 from Sprint–because neither carrier could provide enough mobile devices to meet the university's needs. When they are outfitted with Wake Forest's growing library of applications, the PDAs are nicknamed “Mobis.”

Off the shelf, the phones come equipped with Pocket PC versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, and calendar and address book applications. They will soon include PowerPoint as well. In addition to phone service, they offer instant and text messaging.

Wake Forest University, which is located in Winston-Salem, N.C., is testing the Pocket PC phones in three pilot programs:

• Eleven students use Mobis as representatives of Wake Forest University's Technology Quarters, where students with a special interest in technology live. This pilot will evaluate student innovation.

• All 45 students enrolled in a basic chemistry class have Mobis. This pilot will help determine the academic potential for the device.

• An additional 50 students, chosen from a pool of volunteers among the remaining at-large population, are testing the device as general users.

The school lent the devices to the students in the chemistry class and Technology Quarters. The at-large students purchased the Mobis from the school for $250, which was below the retail cost of the device.

Pedagogical Applications

Bob Swofford, professor of chemistry, was chosen to lead the pedagogical part of the project. “Basically,” he says, “I'm a target of opportunity since I'm a gear head.” He hopes his Mobi will help him avoid “50 minutes of yammering,” which represents the traditional class process.

Swofford's primary-use Mobi application, ClassInHand, was written by the university's IS research and development group. After he lectures on a major concept, Swofford uses the application to request that students use their Mobis to access the Web server that runs on his Mobi. Once there, students use radio buttons to anonymously answer a multiple-choice question. Swofford attributes this concept-testing approach, known as “ConcepTests,” to Harvard Physics Professor Eric Mazur.

Unless the online polling clearly shows that a comfortable majority of the class understands the concept, Swofford asks the students to turn to a neighbor who had a different answer and duke it out verbally for a few minutes. “That's when the class erupts in bedlam,” he says. “That's also when a lot of the learning happens.”

During student discussions, Swofford strolls around, injecting a comment here and responding to a question there. At the end of the debate period, “I've got them hooked,” he says. “Everyone is paying close attention to me, waiting for the answer.”

The Mobi device has other advantages over traditional classroom procedures. For example, it allows students to transmit questions and answers electronically, and–if the student prefers–anonymously.

Barbara Arinci, a freshman from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., who takes Swofford's course, points out that with the Mobis, “We are able to answer his questions in class more honestly because we do not have to feel embarrassed about raising our hands and getting the answer wrong.”

The only downside to the device for Arinci is common to some electronic devices: If she forgets to power it off, the battery runs down at inopportune times.

One major reason the school selected this model over a Pocket PC without a phone was to encourage students to carry it around like their cell phones. However, many students don't use the Mobi's cell phone function. Arinci's parents carry her on a mobile phone family plan, and she can't afford to get her own account for the Mobi.

At first, Arinci thought carrying it around would be a problem, but the Mobi fits–along with her cell phone–in her smallest purse. And since Arinci has a lot of phone numbers stored on her Mobi, she tends to tote it along most of the time.

The Mobi is also helpful for students who, because of physical factors, prefer e-mail or text messaging to phoning. Catharine McNally, a senior art history major from Winston-Salem, N.C., uses a cochlear implant to help her hold telephone conversations. But doing so takes a lot of concentration and energy. “Having a handheld e-mail, Internet and telephone [device] appealed to me greatly,” McNally says.

In order to maintain good communication–and to replicate some of the immediacy of a voice call–McNally says she always responds to e-mails quickly. She used to carry her ThinkPad around for that purpose. “But that got to be a hassle. I had to find a place to set it up and connect to the Wi-Fi.” She finds the Mobi more practical, since it lets her know in real time when a message comes in.

Gaining Acceptance

Despite the benefits of the system, Swofford sees a few disadvantages. First, size matters–and a Mobi is a bit larger than a traditional PDA.

Swofford also points out that in order for the university as a whole to gain major academic benefits from the Mobis, professors have to be willing to use them. He says preparing the questions for the students to vote on is not particularly daunting, but neither is it trivial. So faculty acceptance of this extra work will be a strong determiner of the Mobi's ability to enhance the academic process.

Swofford believes the primary factors that will determine acceptance include whether students use them as their cell phones (something difficult to gauge, since students will have to return the devices at the end of the semester), and the number of academic and nonacademic applications written for the device.

Swofford thinks a Mobi's ability to control a PowerPoint presentation on a notebook and to run the interactive Web site that students access as part of the ConcepTests will enhance the pedagogical value of the device. Professors can also send outlines of their lectures or post other materials on a class Web site hosted by the university's server with a Mobi. He is also looking forward to the ability to send Rich Site Summary feeds to his on-the-move students on their Mobis.

However, many at Wake Forest believe the key to the success of this project will be the students' use of Mobis as their cell phones. And that will take time. “With all the different plans and all the vendors, it's going to be a challenge to get everyone on the same plan or even group of plans,” says Anne Bishop, director of research and development.

Wake Forest University is now in the process of preparing to gather information based on surveys and interviews with users. If the data turns out to be positive, the organization may decide to distribute the devices broadly. If not, it may look for an alternative or wait for one to come on the market. “It's always difficult to continue to chase new technologies,” says Crouch. “But we feel that's an important part of our jobs. If we decide against Mobi, another technology will soon be on our horizon.”