Initial Experiences and Student Feedback from Lecturing with iPad Kuntinee Maneeratana, Thanyarat Singhanart, Angkee Sripakagorn Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand kuntinee.m@chula.ac.th, fmetsn@eng.chula.ac.th, paiboon.s@chula.ac.th Abstract— An iPad, in combination with the whiteboard, could be used in place of notebooks in lectures of mathematically-intensive, basic engineering courses. The main attractiveness were the 70% cost reduction when compared to a tablet notebook and the ability to annotate on slide files in colors. The main drawbacks were the difficulty in making neat annotation and a low level of manual control. Students seemed to be moderately satisfied. For effective uses, much time and efforts were needed. Keywords-iPad; lecture; feedback, student opinions I. INTRODUCTION Traditional delivering of lectures of engineering subjects had been based on overhead/camera projectors, visualizers, PowerPoint© presentations and blackboards or whiteboards [1]. For more than a decade, modern trends on improving learning tended to focus on the multi-approaches, interactive and integrated outlook, frequently with computer-based media [2] and much less emphasis on in-class lectures. Nonetheless, lecturing had been very effective in delivering a large amount of contents with the ease of achieving minimum requirements of the courses. Drawbacks, such as passive learning and lack of higher level of learning could be reduced with appropriate techniques [3]. There had been many approaches and innovations that could improve in-class activities and engage students, particularly active learning [4], augmented by technological innovations such as clicker voting system [5]. The computer-based presentation by PowerPoint© had been very popular for lecturing [1]. It provided the presentation sequences, presented the information and was even shown to help improving students’ motivation and positive attitude even in the non-interactive format [6]. Compared to the whiteboard, it reduced the time required for lecturers to write down, and students to laboriously copy long derivation of topics or equations which were necessary in a majority of fundamental engineering courses. Yet, studies found that note taking improved the comprehensions and information retention [7]. Guided notes or slides bridged the gap between these approaches via hand-outs with blank spaces that had to be filled in-class. An active engagement window for students on top of traditional lectures [8] was opened. There were evidences that it might help the higher level of comprehension as compared to the completed notes [9] and reduced the gap on the note-taking ability [10]. Even though the guided notes could be used with many presentation tools, the tablet notebook had been very popular as an easily adopted technology [11]. The tablet notebooks or PCs also served in other capacities [12] such as material development, presentation, instructional tools [13] and collaborative learning [14] as well as note taking by students as it bypassed the shortcoming of laptops in which keyboards were not suited to note taking, particularly in engineering subjects with mathematically and graphically intensive nature [15]. For students, tablet notebooks could significantly generate positive impact [16] with proper introduction. However, students could be distracted as found in a study in which a spyware was resorted to gather data [17]. A recent work at the department [18] employed the guided slides with a tablet notebook for presentation and note filling by the lecturer. Using the questionnaire and focus group interview, the results showed much promises in terms of students’ feedbacks. However, the price of a proper tablet notebook, with a rotatable screen and fine-tip stylus, was very high, then around 70,000 Bahts. In just a few years, iPad had exponentially gained popularity with many uses in higher education [19-22], including online and mobile learning and accessibility to all sorts of documents and files, from lectures to research articles [23-27]. In Thailand, the cheapest model of an iPad was available at around 17,000 Bahts. Thus, it might be a much more cost-viable option than a fully-rigged tablet notebook for lecture presentation. II. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY With the support of the Faculty of Engineering, a small group of participating lecturers experimented using iPad in lectures. Lecturers’ uses of iPad were mainly a trial-and-error process as the first time users tried on different options that were available before comparing notes about personal experiences among peers. Students were then inquired about experiences and their opinions. They were also asked about personal ownerships and uses for future consideration. Even though lecturers used iPad in many courses, for the expedience of convenience the population for the questionnaire was limited to the