Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) Pilots iPad as a Fieldwork Research Tool - and I'm Involved

Thanks to funding from a Duke Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) “Jump Start Grant,” I am involved with a very exciting project – exploring the use of iPads as a fieldwork research tool for the Duke Global Health Institute (where I am their Educational Technologies Consultant).  First, this fall, the tool will be explored in a master’s-level research methods course (taught by faculty member Jen’nan Read), where students will be learning about qualitative field research, quantitative survey research, evaluations, and interventions.  Students will receive iPads to use throughout the semester and will have the opportunity to use the devices in local fieldwork exercises.  Then, next summer, as part of their global health research projects, some of the students will bring the iPads with them to remote, low-resource settings, all around the world.  Read more about the project on DGHI’s website.

Screen grab from the DGHI article (my quote may make more sense after you have read the first part of the story):

Already a few magazines and websites have picked up the story:

• Campus Technology
• Research
• iMedicalApps.com

I will certainly keep folks up to date.  Because I have linked to several stories about the project, I will not write much more about it here, now.

Currently, I am still exploring applications, working with Jen’nan to come up with fieldwork exercises, having discussions with IT about how we should configure the iPads for students (of course, iOS 4, the new, but still unreleased operating system for the iPad, looks like it might come out right around the time we want to hand these over to students!), etc.

Please feel free to ask me any specific questions – - use the comments section of this post and I’ll respond.