iPad (and other tablets) Coffee Club @ UoH

Image source: @olaojo15

The first ever University of Huddersfield ‘iPad (and other tablets) Coffee Club’ held this week was a success.

Feedback from one of the attendees provided in Yammer the following day was

 “This was a really good event, well worth attending – and the carrot cake was nice too.”

25 colleagues booked to attend the event and 17 showed up. It seems that colleagues are really busy at this time of the year. Most of the attendees were iPad users and there were 2 Android users as well. A colleague who didn’t own any tablet device came to the event because he was planning to get his own iPad soon and was eager to learn more about the device.

Southampton’s iPad (& Alternative Devices) Coffee Club

Image credit: Tamsyn Smith

I travelled to the University of Southampton last week to attend the Centre for Innovation in Technologies and Education (CITE)’s iPad (& Alternative Devices) Coffee Club which was co-facilitated by Fiona Harvey and Tamsyn Smith.  I am piloting a similar scheme at the University of Huddersfield (UoH) this academic year because the BJET project findings revealed that UoH colleagues were struggling to maximise the use of their iPads for academic practices. There is a demand for institutional support to help them gain the knowledge and skills needed to use their tablets effectively. I believe that the iPad (and other tablets) Coffee Club is a great informal way to support colleagues’ effective use of their iPads.

Writing up

Image credit: @olaojo15

The second iPad BJET survey closed last week and 56 academics completed it. 84 academics completed the first survey. I believe that the drop in respondent numbers has to do with the time of year.  Most academics are very busy with teaching and dealing with their final REF submissions. I have to write up a journal article for the British Journal of Educational Technology (BJET) based on the project’s findings as part of the funding requirement.