The Teaching Grid, Wednesday, November 30th 2011 (week 9) at midday

Session led by Nick Wake, Senior Teaching Fellow, WBS

During this session, Nick Wake will talk about the development of a bespoke smartphone app - iTutor - and how he has used it in his teaching.

Nick adds: "One cannot help but notice the extent to which our students rely on electronic gizmos to run their lives. Be they Android devices, iPads, Blackberrys, iPhones, iPods, PCs or Macs, our students have them all. There has to be a reason for this – and in the absence of research one could speculate about why these devices have come to such prominence.

"Whilst I insist that all electronic devices are switched off during lectures and seminars (my experience is that students use them for social networking and not pedagogic purposes), I also recognise that different students have different learning styles and that using these platforms to support student learning is going to be beneficial.

"In this session I will introduce an app specifically designed to be run on mobile devices – iTutor.

"iTutor is a mobile app that runs on most smart phones, tablets and PCs/Macs and is based around the idea of flashcards. The system allows academic staff to load up ‘decks’ of cards either as a complete set or week-by-week to coincide with a lecture series." Book a place at Window on Teaching