Purpose -This study aims to examine the experience of 31 university students who were issued tablet PCs for their use during an academic year. The primary research problem which drove this project revolved around the student perceptions of the benefits of technology to provide opportunities to restructure their learning experiences. Design/methodology/approach -The students were surveyed twice during the year and they were invited to participate in either individual interviews or a series of focus groups. A number of lectures were also visited and observed. The survey results provided quantitative data regarding student usage of the technology. The interviews, focus groups and observed classes provided data around the reasons why the students used the technology in the ways they did. Findings -Little evidence was found to support a contention that meaningful learning with technology had occurred and, in spite of their comfort and familiarity with the technology, there is no evidence of changing attitudes with respect to meaningful learning on the part of the students surveyed in this study. Research limitations/implications -A major application of this should be directed towards similar studies focused on combining the redefinition usage potential of new touch interface-driven devices, such as the iPad, with a new pedagogical approaches to support learners to use the technology as cognitive tools. Originality/value -It is important to note that the introduction of a new technology, even if it makes a wide variety of affordances available for use, cannot by itself, instigate redefinition of learning tasks to allow for meaningful learning to occur.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a novel undergraduate course on serious game design and development that integrates both game and instructional design, thus providing an effective approach to teaching serious game design and development. Very little effort has been dedicated to the teaching of proper serious game design and development leading to many examples of serious games that provide little, if any, educational value. Design/methodology/approach – Organized around a collection of video clips (that provided a brief contextualized overview of the topic and questions for further exploration), readings, interdisciplinary research projects and games, the course introduced the principles of game and instructional design, educational theories used to support game-based learning and methods for evaluating serious games. Discussions and activities supported the problems that students worked on throughout the course to develop a critical stance and approach toward implementing game-based learning. Students designed serious games and examined potential issues and complexities involved in developing serious games and incorporating them within a teaching curriculum. Findings – Results of student course evaluations reveal that the course was fun and engaging. Students found the course fun and engaging, and through the successful completion of the final course project, all students met all of the course objectives. A discussion regarding the techniques and approaches used in the course that were successful (or unsuccessful) is provided. Research limitations/implications – It should be noted that a more detailed analysis has not been presented to fully demonstrate the effectiveness of the course. A more detailed analysis may have included a comparison with, for example, past versions of the course that was not based on an online problem-based learning (PBL) approach, to better quantify the effectiveness of the course. However, such a comparison could not be carried out here, given there was no measure of prior knowledge of students taken before they took course (e.g. no “pre-test data”). Originality/value – Unlike the few existing courses dedicated to serious game design, the course was designed specifically to facilitate a fully online PBL approach and provided students the opportunity to take control of their own learning through active research, exploration and problem-solving alone, in groups and through facilitated class discussions.

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