The pilot program, which is expected to grow if it is beneficial to students and professors, is designed to expose participants to iPad technology for instructional purposes, said Terri Gustafson, assistant director for the CTT. Funding for the iPads is part of the funds given to CTT from the Libraries, Computing and Technology Office, she said.

“Not only the faculty, but the students will have a good chance to evaluate how iPads are used in the classroom,” Gustafson said. “It might give them ideas of how to incorporate iPads into their own classrooms.”

At the end of the semester, both students and professors will be asked to fill out a short survey reflecting on the use of the iPads and the ways they impacted the course, Gustafson said.

She said the program is relevant to education majors because so many schools at the K-12 level have begun to implement and purchase similar technology for their classrooms, and it will help MSU students to understand what works and what doesn’t once they have graduated and are developing classrooms of their own.

The iPads will come preloaded with educational applications and other applications, such as Skype or Dropbox, or they can come without applications and students and professors can load their own, Gustafson said.

Associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education Randi Stanulis said although she is skeptical of overusing technology in K-12 classrooms, she believes the pilot program being launched at MSU will be a positive experience for participants by allowing them to experiment with different educational techniques involving technology.

She added because MSU is focused on research, she hopes it will evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of using such technology.

“In our courses that emphasize technology, we introduce them to technology,” she said. “(We) not only learn about it, but also evaluate it and understand some of the problems that might happen with it and who could benefit most from using that technology.”

Although she focuses more on making sure her students interact more directly as she is teaching courses related to writing and reading, she said technology could be useful to students working on group projects and learning how to work with partners and students from different backgrounds.

Interdisciplinary studies in social science education senior Brittany Herrington, who is president of Future Social Science Educators, said she thinks the pilot program will be very successful and could see it helping her if one of her 400-level courses participated in it in the fall.

“Those classes are introducing us to student teaching a little more, and we’re in the classroom more than we have been,” Herrington said. “We can take the skills of the iPad we’re learning in class and apply that to our professional development experiences.”