I just got word a little while ago that Pepperdine’s Instructional Technology division has chosen me to be among the faculty and staff testing the first wave of iPads on campus. Aside from the obvious “Yippee!,” this news brings with it heightened responsibility to think about how to use the device in class. As Chris Brady and I have briefly discussed via Twitter, use cases for faculty differ from use cases for students. In my case, I’ll have access to both a MacBook Pro and an iPad. How shall I use each of these?

Currently, I carry my MacBook Pro (issued by Pepperdine) and my iPhone (personal purchase) to class, along with my physical Bible. I use Keynote for presentations, and like the iPhone’s Remote app for controlling Keynote slides, though it has some limitations—not least among them being the short battery life of the iPhone when you’re using WiFi constantly. Thus, I often end up using a Kensington Bluetooth Presenter Mouse instead of the iPhone app.

I’m very impressed with the Pages, Keynote, and Numbers guided tours that Apple provides, but I don’t think I want to use the iPad as a presentation-output device. To my way of thinking, you defeat the purpose of a mobile device if you tie yourself down with cables. Therefore, right now I think I will probably continue to carry my MacBook Pro to class, and I will probably run my Keynote presentations from that device.

So, what will I do with the iPad? Lots of things, I think:

• If the iPad has a Remote app for Keynote, or if the current iPhone Remote app works on the iPad, I will probably try using that to control my Keynote presentations—but only if it’s very reliable at picking up the connection again if I exit the app while the Keynote presentation is running on the MacBook Pro. The current version of Remote isn’t very good at that, in my estimation. If the iPad offers this functionality at a level that I find satisfactorily reliable, I will use it, and will enter any necessary notes as presenter notes in Keynote.
  
  
• If the bullet above doesn’t work out, I’ll still use the iPad for any notes I might need to consult during class—probably in the form of Pages documents, but perhaps in the form of PDF documents, depending on what types of PDF reader functionality exist for the iPad at and soon after launch.
• I will also be happy to access the biblical text on my iPad instead of using a paper copy, especially given the bookmarking, annotations, highlighting, and search options available in my preferred iPhone Bible reader, the aptly-named Bible Reader from Olive Tree (warning: auto-playing video on the home page).
• Having a second web-capable device in the classroom will enable me to interact with students in new ways, such as accepting questions via Twitter—currently hard to do given the way that Keynote and PowerPoint “take over” the machine in order to do what they do. I understand why Keynote and PowerPoint work this way, and I like what they accomplish—but without a second mobile device, that makes the laptop a one-trick pony for the duration of the slideshow. I often interrupt my Keynote sequences to switch over to a web browser (tip: use Spaces to do this without actually exiting your slideshow) to show something on the screen, but I monitoring a Twitter stream while simultaneously presenting with Keynote or PowerPoint has never worked for me. With the iPad I can envision doing just that (especially if someone will make a Twitter client with hashtag-aware push notifications).

I’m sure there several other uses that I haven’t yet considered or haven’t taken the time to detail here. I’d better stop now, because I have plenty left on today’s to-do list. But I did want to put this out there to get some conversation started. If you know of other places, educational websites for example, where this conversation is already ongoing, please hook me up!

I’ll head out tomorrow for BibleTech 2010 (or BibleTech:2010; the organizers/publicizers can’t seem to decide whether to use or omit the colon) in San Jose, California. On Friday, I’ll make a presentation on my efforts to “digitize” the introductory Hebrew Bible/Old Testament classroom.

Are any Higgaion readers attending BibleTech 2010?

The management of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport likes to call their facility “America’s friendliest airport.” One element of that friendliness: Sky Harbor offers a generous selection of electrical outlets as well as free wireless internet throughout the terminal. Props to Sky Harbor!

My current scholarly project has me investigating the “reception history” or Wirkungsgeschichte of the book of Genesis in Western culture. This investigation necessarily involves forays into the history and criticism of art, literature, music, drama, and other expressions of elite and popular culture. I try to keep an awareness of my utter dilettantishness in these fields always close at hand, and I approach them with trepidation. An article I read a few minutes ago drove this point home once again.

This particular article—which shall, along with its author, remain nameless here—focused on allusions to Genesis 11 within a particular short story. The author claims that “biblical commentary on Genesis 11.i–ix … bears an uncanny resemblance” to the short story in question. Although the article appeared in 2003, the author cites no source, either in biblical studies or literary studies, later than 1974. (I wonder whether a long delay intervened between the authorship and publication—without revision—or whether the article might be a reprint.) The only actual commentary cited is the 1952 Interpreter’s Bible on Genesis (the author of the article in question does not name the author of the old IB commentary), though one might consider Nahum Sarna’s Understanding Genesis to be a commentary. Otherwise, the author cites only a few encyclopedia articles (c. 1955–1975) as sources for understanding “biblical commentary on Genesis 11.i–ix.”

To me, this experience raises once again the question: How can I explore a discipline other than my own, in a scholarly publication, without looking like an ignoramus? How does one exercise quality control in the selection of sources from a field one does not really know as an insider?