A multidimensional approach to adopting iPads in medical education

The University of Western Sydney (UWS) draws on a diverse population of students, many of whom come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. In a bid to improve digital access for students in an increasingly blended learning environment, UWS distributed over 11,000 iPads to first year students and academic staff at the start of 2013. The School of Medicine at UWS implemented several different strategies to see which would best foster student engagement and effective iPad use: Student centred collaborative learning Student creation of digital content Interactive exercises during lectures, and A student-centric approach to course administration. As the start of the year coincides with the start of first semester in Australia, these initiatives were introduced as soon as the students commenced study in medicine. Action based research based on observation of students' behaviour and student surveys was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies. It is anticipated that these innovations offer cumulative benefits for student satisfaction beyond the advantage of each individual strategy. For example, providing regular updates of course information encourages students to retain their device at all times, which ensures widespread iPad availability for interactive exercises in lectures and small-group collaborative learning. This paper discusses the implementation of these strategies and early results from student feedback.