New RPL course requires use of iPads, focuses on social media

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Many professors would cringe at the idea of students using any technology during class time.

But that’s the point of RPL 400N: Special Issues in Leisure Services.

It is the first requiring students to purchase or rent an iPad, Apple’s tablet computer released in April. Students in “Digital Media in Recreation, Tourism and Events” are also required to be savvy users of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites.

Daniel Bracken, associate director of the Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching, instructs the course with Michael Reuter, director of distributed computing and technical operations. He said the special topics course began this semester because recreation majors returning from internships did not have some of the skills employers expected of them.

“They were asking them to put videos on YouTube and do some media campaigns through Facebook and Twitter,” he said, “and they just hadn’t had any of that as coursework.”

Throughout the course, students will edit video and audio, disseminate projects through a social medium and study the dynamics of search engines, Bracken said.

The iPads are used to read course materials, listen to and watch podcasts and submit quizzes, projects and tests.

Bracken said students have been receptive to the iPad.

“There’s a convenience factor to having access to so much information right at their fingertips,” he said.

Students can rent iPads from the CMU Bookstore for $100 a semester, Bracken said.

Temporary journalism Instructor Pat Lichtman designed a special topics course to explore social media, but only recommended students purchase an iPad.

Students explore basic concepts of new media in JRN 397A: Social Media: Reputation, Image and Interaction.

Lichtman lectures on the importance of social media and search engines. She said iPads will be required for the course next semester.

“I’m not promoting iPads as the ‘be all and end all,’” she said. “I encourage my students to look it over, try it out and get familiar with what it can and can’t do for you and go out and look at some other things too.”

Impact on textbooks

Marion freshman Will Thompson bought an iPad in the first week of his first semester at Central Michigan University. He said he prefers the convenience of the tablet computer to a heavy book bag.

“The (textbook) I have has links to any Internet website you need right on the page,” he said.

Thompson uses the pages application to write papers and downloaded the manuscript application to take notes from his textbooks.

Romeo junior Kevin Richmond bought an iPad to store electronic textbooks for his classes the first week it was released.

Richmond also uses the pages application for schoolwork and transfers his files with MobileMe, an Apple program allowing him to access his documents on other computers after writing them with his iPad.

“I’m pretty into Apple products,” he said. “They all seem to work together pretty well.”

Joey Bradley, a Macintosh computer consultant for Apple, said physical textbooks will eventually go digital.

The electronic textbooks feature embedded video and audio clips and links to supplementary websites, Bradley said.

“(The iPad’s) light weight and convenience is going to make it much more widely used,” he said.