Converging lines: Apple's iPad and active learning in higher education

This paper investigates ways in which convergent devices such as Apple’s iPad can enhance active learning in a higher education setting. The iPad, with an ever-growing availability of educational apps, is often understood as a new technology for learning. The personal nature and portability of the iPad makes creating and presenting multimedia material through innovative platforms such as Prezi and Explain Everything simple. Both innovative and disruptive, the iPad can also act as a convergent device that is an agent for recording, editing, and broadcasting a range of media. Linking these technologies to enable new actions and opportunities presents an opportunity to develop alternative structures in learning. Working in-depth with an instructor and students, we used observation and interview techniques to gain insight into the iPad’s effectiveness at creating a new dynamic for teaching in a demonstration/workshop environment. The experiences and responses of the instructor and students from this case study warrant further research