Connel Fullenkamp,  Associate Professor of the Practice,  Economics

Connel teaches ECON 51D, Economic Principles, a very large class held in Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center.  Connel uses a tablet PC so that he can sketch and create notes while he is lecturing.  By creating lecture notes dynamically, he is able to quickly respond to student concerns and be interactive. After his lecture, students can download the notes as PDF documents from the Blackboard course site. The image below shows a portion of these notes.  In addition, both the notes and his lecture are saved using DukeCapture, which produces both streaming and downloadable files with audio and video for his students to review.  Students can select the media that best suits their needs.

Connel wondered whether posting these recordings & annotated slides would impact attendance in the class; attendance has not decreased and he is no longer concerned about this issue.  Students have responded very favorably; some have said that they watch after lecture even if they attend because they’re so busy taking notes they miss side comments which end up being important. Others have said that they find being in lectures distracting and are better able to focus on the content outside of the large lecture setting.  DukeCapture reports that lectures have 100 hits each.

Connel enjoys using a tablet PC in his teaching.  He prefers the slate-type, without a keyboard, because it is light and easy to set up. He likes using Windows Journal, because he can use a range of ink colors (and create his own for best projection), and the graph paper background assists him in drawing legible graphs during class. He uses Windows Journal on the tablet PC to produce grading rubrics for his TAs, and to quickly create sample solutions for TAs to grade student work.

see a short video from Connel’s class

Connel began by borrowing a tablet PC from the Duke Digital Initiative, and now his infectious enthusiasm has encouraged other instructors in Economics to teach with tablet PCs.

Watch a demonstration of Windows Journal on YouTube

Economics professor Lori Leachman gave her students an extra aid to achieve “basic economic literacy” in one semester: audio recordings of her lectures, which she made with an iPod. Before exams, students accessed the lecture recordings and reviewed them on their computers or iPods. The students who used the lecture recordings had different methods and reasons for using them. “It is helpful when I know I missed something,” freshman Allison Kenney said about listening to a few of the lectures before exams.

When exchange-student Max Kroiss reviewed the lectures on his computer or iPod, he said, “I am reassured the notes I took are correct.”

Some students used their iPods to make their own recordings of the lectures. A preliminary survey of a portion of the class by Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology indicated that approximately half the students in the class listened to a recording they, or a classmate, made.“I’ve been sick one day,” said Lara Jones, “so I sent my iPod along [to class] and someone recorded the lecture, which is really convenient.” In turn, Jones made a recording of a recent lecture for an absent classmate.

Because the lecture recordings were not meant to substitute for attending class, Leachman used a method that discourages skipping class (it’s at the early hour of 8:30 a.m.!). She didn’t post her lecture audio on the course’s Web site, which also had the graphs and diagrams presented, until a week before an exam. “Who wants to listen to fifteen hours of lecture right before an exam?” she said.

The logistics for making the recordings were simple, Leachman says. She just set her iPod on her podium and started it recording. Leachman emphasized that the iPod “is an accessory to the learning process.”

Freshman Rachel Shack agreed. She has listened to a couple recordings for review, but said, “My notes from lecture are always the most important thing I use in studying.”