About 25% of the University of Hartford students own and use an eReader and most would use theirs in the classroom, if feasible. In order to investigate the use of eReaders as a novel technology for education in Engineering courses, Professor Ladimer Nagurney of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering recently received an Educational Technology Grant from the Office of the Provost at the University The goal of Professor Nagurney's research project is to integrate the eReader technology for not only the course text, but also to include the course handouts and lecture slides on the device.
During the Fall 2011 semester, Professor Nagurney will loan Kindles to several students in three of the classes that he will be instructing: BE 401 - Biomedical Instrumentation, ECE 440 - Digital Signal Processing, and ECE 423 - Communication Engineering, for part of the semester. He will be putting lecture slides, handouts, and assignments into formats that can be displayed on the eReader, in addition to placing them on Blackboard for all students.
As part of the project, he will be asking students for feedback on accessibility, convenience, readability, and legibility, and overall ease of use. From a faculty member's perspective, he will be investigating the ease of preparing materials for the eReader and how it compares with the effort required for preparation for posting on Blackboard.
In addition to the support from the Provost's office, Professor Nagurney has received complementary eReader copies of one of the textbooks for the Fall semester.
Since use of eReaders is expected to increase in the future, this project will provide new insights into developing Engineering and Science Course materials for use on eReaders and keep the University of Hartford students at the leading edge of this new technology.
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