AND SO IT BEGINS...

Well it actually began 7 weeks ago. 

And if we are getting pendantic, the true start date was 3 years and 7 weeks ago when I first attended a Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Showcase, as this is when I first came into contact with an iPad. I don't consider myself to be a particularly tech savvy person. I'd never used a mobile learning device, my mobile phone was one of those clam shell phones designed to phone people and little beyond, I still listened to music by putting a CDRom into a boombox, and I had only recently given up on using slide film in my SLR camera. To say the showcase was a shock is an understatement. I had no idea what I was missing. Three years and 7 weeks later, and I own an iPad, an android phone, a digital camera, and a record player (hey sometimes the old systems still work best). 

I've been intending to start this blog for a while, so some of my posts are going to be retrospections of things that have already happened. As Eric Morecame famously said "I'm playing all the right notes—but not necessarily in the right order.", and in much the same way, the posted notes will not necessarily follow a logical order, but I am sure it will all come together in the end.

So what is this blog about?

So was my enthusiasm for the iPads that I decided to get myself a teaching set and create myself all kinds of trouble. This blog will be on all things iPads, with a focus on my attempts to embed them into my teaching activities. My first escapade formed the basis of my MA Learning and Technology Project, which will hopefully be submitted to Keele's very own Journal of Academic Development and Education in the next few weeks. Building on this experience, I am now carrying out my MA Action Research project on the use of the iPad. The project title has had several iterations, but at present it is "iPads and self-guided field tasks: embedding consultancy-style fieldwork scenarios into tutorial sessions as a means of improving the student experience and addressing the ecological skills gap”. This kind of research would not be possible without support from colleagues and the engagement of my students. I particularly want to thank the volunteers who took part in the 2013-14 teaching innovation project on iPads as collaborative tools to enhance field skills in the lab and field, and my current participants on LSC-30043 Conservation Biology who have embraced the use of iPads in the tutorial field activities. My hope is that my students will learn how to read the natural landscape, in this case the lake and formal gardens of Keele Hall (see below), and develop a suite of employability skills that the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management identified as lacking in many graduates today. Only time will tell if I am successful in this endeavour.