Bring Your Own Device in the Information Literacy Classroom

Abstract

In the 2013 school year, a team of librarians in the Parrish Library of Management and Economics at Purdue University taught a business information literacy course to approximately 500 management students in eight 70-person sessions. Due to limitations on a set of iPads borrowed from another department, one of two concurrent classes was taught with a set of iPads, while another had a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, where students brought their own laptops or iPads. Focus groups, observations of behavior, and final evaluations were utilized to evaluate the comparative perceived effectiveness of the two technology approaches. This paper consists of three parts: an introduction to both methods of content delivery with a description of the results of the project; a discussion of the relative value of each method; and finally, proposed best practices for where, when and why to use each method for library instruction based on the TPACK (technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge) framework.