A professor is teaching a Project Management course at the
 University which uses the iPad instead of textbooks.



We’ve been hearing for years about the mythical ‘paperless’ office,
which has yet to appear, but a year-long study of eReaders in
 classrooms at Notre
 Dame is now underway, to study the feasibility of paperless
 courses.



The first phase of the study involves assistant professor Corey
 Angst’s Project Management class, with all 40 students in the course 
being loaned iPads from the school for the semester, which will be
 used instead of a textbook in the classroom.



"We want to know whether students feel the iPads are useful and
how they plan to use them. I want them to tell me, ‘I found this great
app that does such and such. I want this to be organic…We have an
online Wiki discussion group where students can share their ideas.” -
Angst”

Angst is a part of Notre Dame’s ePublishing Working Group, which is
 evaluating the creation, distribution, consumption and usefulness of
 electronic course materials in an academic setting by examining the
 usefulness of the iPad as an eReader. The group’s larger goal is to 
design an “ePublishing ecosystem” serving the faculty, students and
 staff by making it simple and inexpensive to create, distribute,
 share, read and annotate eMaterials.



The students in Angst’s class are encouraged to not only use the iPads
 for coursework, but to use them for music or games, in a bid to have 
them feel a sense of ownership of the devices. Students are encouraged 
to sync the iPads with their personal iTunes accounts.



The iPads will also help the students manage real-world projects, such 
as helping South Bend’s Center for the Homeless establish a guest-run 
coffee shop.

“They will meet with stakeholders, plan a strategy and write a
 detailed work plan for how to get it done in seven weeks. And, I 
expect the students will rely on the iPads to develop creative ways of
 collaborating with their teammates. They can share documents, 
timelines and to-do lists, and show sketches to their clients. The
 possibilities are endless.” - Angst

The biggest downside for the students is they won’t get to keep their 
iPads, but will need to return them to Notre Dame to be used as pilots 
in other courses later in the academic year.



To see how this study progresses, follow the updates on Angst’s blog

via Notre Dame

Image: Ben Atkin at Flickr