The Apple iPad has brought about a sea of change that is very noticeable among people’s reading preferences. The desire to read from paper has given way to that of using the iPad for reading e-books, and that includes text books. With that in mind, Yale university has joined this wave by giving an iPad 2 to each of its students in medicine. The news from the university’s daily paper says it all, “Yale School of Medicine students’ backpacks just got a whole lot lighter.”
It’s not only the academic side of the university utilizing the iPad, but the sports field and the training side is also slowly adopting the iPad. The first signs of this being Tampa Bay Buccaneers giving out an iPad to all its professional players instead of the usual paper playbooks that they were distributing until now.
As far as Yale and its medical faculty goes, the plan is quite extensive—to be able to provide all the relevant data including the medical curriculum and patient information to the students via their iPad2. They can then carry the entirety of their medical texts to the clinical labs and thus have the information available with them at all times.
“It’s portable, it’s wireless, it’s responsive, it’s interactive and it will provide tremendous opportunities for our students to engage with the material,” said Richard Belitsky, deputy dean of education at the medical school.
It is not only during the term of their course at the university, but also thereafter that the students would retain the iPad. The university hopes they use the device effectively until they have gathered enough experience to go off on their own.
The Yale Daily News printed this bit of news: “The school spends about $100,000 each year to copy, collate, and distribute course materials.” It is quite evident that the university is also gaining a lot in terms of financial saving. This saving would surely over ride and outweigh the initial expenditure of $600,000 that they are incurring to purchase the iPads.
“We’re trying to be innovative in ways that enhance the learning of our students,” added Belitsky. “We don’t just want to be innovative; we want to make use of new technologies if they provide our students opportunities to learn more effectively.”
The iPad is here to stay and especially so amongst the medical fraternity. Given its portability and the many faceted applications that are available that can help medical staff, there are also the features wherein one can lock the device from prying hands and eyes by the help of very secure applications. Yale has recognized these facets of the iPad and very intelligently adopted the device in its folds.
via yaledailynews
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
