Benefits and Challenges of the iPad Initiative Among the UAE Students Presentation

Topic

This project is a serious step to realize how beneficial or challenging the idea to use iPads in education can be. The iPad initiative has been introduced to the UAE students and teachers in 2012 (Gitsaki, Robby, Priest, Hamdan, & Ben-Chabane, 2013). Within a short period of time, the importance of gender, age, motivation, etc. factors cannot be ignored. The audience should know how beneficial and dangerous the chosen initiative can be. It is necessary to understand what kind of challenges and benefits are connected with the iPad initiative that is spread in the sphere of UAE education today and decide if it is reasonable to make the chosen initiative available to more UAE students.

Research Questions

• Current situation in the UAE educational sector
• Students’ and teachers’ attitudes to the idea of iPad usage
• Female and male opinions
• Test results as evidence of how the iPad initiative works
• Benefits or challenges prevail
• Any further investigations

This project is a serious step to realize how beneficial or challenging the idea to use iPads in education can be. The answers to the following research questions will be given after research is conducted:

1. What is the current situation in the educational sector of the UAE?
2. What are the stated differences between the attitudes of students and teachers to the iPad initiative in the UAE?
3. Do the UAE female and male students have different attitudes to the use of mobile devices in the classroom?
4. Can in-class tests help to compare the level of understanding the material learned by the students, who participated in the iPad initiative, and the students, who did not know about the initiative?
5. Do the benefits of the iPad initiative prevail over the challenges caused by the use of mobile technologies in education in the UAE?
6. What are the further investigations that may be done in the chosen field of study to comprehend the worth of the iPad initiative in the UAE?

Arguments

• Students like to use mobile devices
• Tutors and students save their time and efforts
• Current technological progress
• Necessity to educate people how to use iPads in education
• Importance of consideration female and male differences

There are many arguments that can be used to prove that the analysis of the iPad initiative among UAE students is a crucial step that should be taken. For example, it is impossible to neglect such facts as:

• Many students are eager to use mobile devices as frequent as possible because they like the results they can achieve in a short period of time;
• Students, as well as tutors, have a wonderful possibility to save their time and efforts exchanging educational information and instructions via special devices and deprive themselves of repetitive answers and continuous explanations;
• The current technological progress cannot be ignored; students and tutors have been already using various technological devices to meet their educational purposes, now, they need to know how to use them in classrooms.
• People should learn how to succeed in using iPads in classroom, and the idea to educate students and tutors how to search and keep the required material has to be developed (Khan, 2014).
• Still, it may happen that male and female students have different attitudes to this initiative. It is necessary to study the peculiarities of the chosen concept and clarify what social or personal factors may contribute this difference.

Plan of Work

This plan of work helps to understand how to organize research and investigate the topic of the use of iPads in education in the UAE. There are six main stages to be taken. Still, they can be improved in the process as soon as the researcher wants to make some contributions:

1. Clarify several pairs of hypotheses to work on (alternative and null);
2. Start a systematic review of the educational sector in the UAE (visit the libraries and surf the web);
3. Talk to students and tutors of Zayed University about participation in research (provide potential participants with the letters of consent and ethics statements;
4. Conduct interviews and questionnaires
5. Create a coding system and analyze information take from different research instruments (it is possible to use tables and Excel for the analysis)
6. Answer research questions on the basis of the interviews, questionnaires, and systematic reviews.

Research Methodology

Mixed research on the basis of

• Literature review
• Educational statistics
• Interview (qualitative research)
• Questionnaires (quantitative research)
• is offered in the project

The preliminary literature review is one of the methods used to understand the topic under consideration and get an idea of the situation in the educational sector of the UAE. It is also possible to use the statistics of the university the students of which will be interviewed and questioned (Zayed University) and get to know more about the ratings, grades, and the level of knowledge before and after the implementation of the iPad initiative. Qualitative and quantitative research methods (interviews and questionnaires) can be used to offer credible information and create a solid basis for possible further investigations.

Instruments

In addition to the systematic review of the already done investigations of the iPad initiative among the UAE students and tutors, it is suggested to use such instruments as interviews and questionnaires.

With the help of the literature review, it is possible to analyze the current situation in the educational sector of the UAE and understand how the iPad initiative has been implemented.

Questionnaires are offered to students to clarify their attitudes to the use of mobile devices and understand how the gender factor differentiates the answers.

Interviews with tutors turn out to be a good opportunity to learn how tutors define the level of importance of this initiative and ask them to share their personal experience with the iPad implementation in the classroom.

Factors

There are many factors that should be considered while investigating the concept of the iPad initiative among the UAE students. There are several dependent and independent variables that have to be mentioned in research:

• Independent variables are:
  • Gender differences (male and female students introduce their opinions about the worth of the iPads in education);
  • Age differences help to divide the participants into several groups: young students, graduates, and teachers;
  • The current technological progress and the possibility to use mobile devices in education.
• These factors influence a number of dependent variables such as:
  • Student and teachers’ satisfaction in an educational process and the opportunities they get;
  • Student motivation to work harder and use a variety of sources available via iPads;
  • Time to complete tests and homework, clarify the instructions, share their explanations, etc.

Conclusion

• iPads change the way of how new material
• Implementation of iPads is explained
• Gender and age differences are considered
• Governmental support is considered
• Benefits and challenges are defined

With the help of the chosen research methods, it is possible to answer all research questions and offer the explanations to the points that are identified. At the end of the work, it should be possible to:

1. Evaluate how iPads in classrooms can change the way of the introduction of a new material;
2. Explain the methods of how iPads can be implemented in different UAE universities and colleges;
3. Underline if there are the differences between male and female attitudes to the iPad initiative;
4. Introduce the level of the governmental support;
5. Describe the benefits and challenges of the initiative under consideration.

References

Gitsaki, C., Robby, M., Priest, T., Hamdan, K., & Ben-Chabane, Y. (2013). A research agenda for the UAE iPad initiative. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, 10(2), 1-15.

Khan, M. (2014). Technology is key in modern classroom, UAE educators say.The National. Web.