OK, now it really is time to start updating regularly. The iPad trial is underway. We have four academic staff members and two students involved as principals in the trial. Two of the staff members and one of the students did not own an ipad at the trial commencement and were given an iPad in order to participate. We will be hearing from them shortly in regard to their initial experiences and impressions of the iPad2.

We have 12 iPads for student use during the trial. Between 8 and 12 of these are available to use in a structured way during lab sessions, tutorials, clinical skills sessions and lectures. Individual staff members have their own projects to evaluate whether the iPad is a useful and constructive tool, but in all cases we are looking at whether a set of medical school owned (as opposed to invidually owned) iPads are a useful tools and a worthwhile investment. We will report on each of these projects and the apps they use on an individual basis as the trial proceeds.

I am administering the trial and responsible for the initial setup of all the equipment, and working out the details of syncing, provisioning and the other logistical elements in running the trial. The iPad(2)s were purchased prior to the release of iOS 5.0 so we had to buy hardware to enable simultaneous syncing and charging. I have yet to get the syncing to work! So I have been manually syncing each of the 12 as needed.

Early student response and feedback from using the iPads in the dissection room has been good, but as yet it is too early to tell if this is a response to the novelty value or the educational value. A quick check on each of the iPads after their use shows that every app on the device had been started, even though only a couple were relevant to the work at hand. Whether this represented simple curiosity or whether it reflects the iPads being used as a distraction when students should be dissecting or working with specimens remains to be seen. More anon.