Dear Sir
As a student at Manchester Medical School (MMS) I was interested to read the article by Doherty et al. (Citation2015) which considered three future trends in Medical Education. I was particularly interested to read their views on the use of tablet computing at the current time and where this might lead in the future.
At MMS we are provided with iPads in the third year of study, the beginning of our clinical education at no cost to ourselves (the students). The iPads are distributed in order to standardise the teaching of the core curriculum at the numerous hospital locations, to enable students to continue with their learning regardless of location and to provide an innovative learning experience (Mooney et al. Citation2014).
I feel that my learning has benefitted greatly from the use of my iPad. The advantages to the students at MMS range from the ability to utilise any dead time travelling to and from placements to the ability to access textbooks all the time, without having to carry them around the wards. However, whilst spending time with other students it has been interesting to see how each student utilises their iPads differently in the hospital. Some students use it all the time and in every situation, whilst other students use their iPads solely for administrative tasks whilst in hospital.
By providing iPads to all students MMS has addressed the problems that Doherty et al. (Citation2015) raise in their article regarding the equity of using tablet computing as a core part of the curriculum and of students owning different devices. However, it has highlighted new problems, such as how to ensure that all students utilise their iPads to their full capacity to ensure they are not wasted.
Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the article.
References
- Doherty I, Sharma N, Harbutt D. 2015. Contemporary and future eLearning trends in medical education. Med Teach 37(1):1–3
- Mooney J, Byrne-Davis L, Cappelli T, Dexter H, Taylor M, Moffatt L, Lumsden C. 2014. Implementing mobile learning with iPads in higher education: A large scale case study. UCISA (2014) Good Practice Guide. Mobile Learning: How Mobile Technologies Can Enhance the Learning Experience, 18–23