HIS299: Exploring the past with the future

Jennifer Jossendal is teaching History 299 on World War II with a new twist: The class will be taught on iPads.

With the help of a grant from the KC Foundation, Jossendal is able to offer iPads to a limited number of students at a greatly reduced price. Students will be able to get their iPad for $250, a 50 percent discount. As long as students can pass HIS-299 with a “C” or better, the iPad belongs to the student. Students who fail to meet this requirement will be charge the full amount of the iPad.

In the class, the iPad is used to view ebooks, take notes, watch documentaries as well as write papers. When students come to class, all they need is their iPad. “Everything is on [their iPad], they don’t need to carry around binders or notebooks. Everything they get fromwill come to [them] on the iPad,” Jossendal said.

The class is on Monday and Wednesday from 1 to 2:15pm, but Jossendal stresses that as the class is not a traditional class; students will need to spend a large amount of time on classwork outside of class. In the past, students have coordinated a time to watch documentaries from home and have a discussion afterwards on Twitter. There have been people from all over the world who join in on the conversation, but the Twitter conversation can be restricted to only those who are in the class. Students also use the iPad to use Google Earth. Google Earth allows students to virtually visit historical World War II sites. Google Earth also includes terrain and elevation changes, making the experience even more real. In some cases, students can actually “walk” through the historical site.

Jossendal has made an effort to find applications and ebooks that are cost effective to students. There is only one App that is not free. The App is Pages, Apple’s version of Microsoft Office. Pages costs $10. Some apps include iBooks for reading and highlighting ebooks, Netflix for streaming documentaries and apps for recording lectures and guest speakers.  The ebooks that Jossendal has chosen to use in the class are between $5 and $15.

Students will also be required to read ebooks and articles outside of class. In a regular class, there might be one chapter of reading per week, but because there is so much to cover, students in 299 might be assigned two or three chapters per week. “One of the things students really like is ... they can immediately dictionary a word they don’t know,” Jossendal said.

Although the class uses iPads heavily, the class is still focused on the history. Jossendal wants students to see that the iPad is a “tool” to help bring history to life and engage students in the content.