Roundtable: tablet computers in the classroom
By Joseph Vaughan
Last April, Prof. Tim Tangherlini (Scandinavian Section) gave a fascinating talk on his use of a Tablet PC in the classroom. Annelie Rugg at CDH had purchased a Lenovo tablet PC for loan to instructors that want to try it out. Since the idea had originally come from Tim, he quickly said he wanted to try it in his classes.
Among the things that Tim discovered: the Tablet PC is excellent for grading papers. Tim asks his students to submit their work to Turnitin.com (available through my.ucla). When it comes back, he can open it on the tablet and proceed to write on the margins. Not enough space in the margin? Just zoom in and write more! The students can zoom in to read the comments when they get their papers back. Say something you see later is not relevant? Just erase it. Want to draw a line from one part of the paper to another? Just use the drawing tools. When you’ve finished, the whole thing can be saved to pdf and sent off to the student.
Tangherlini’s powerpoint presentation is here: navigating-the-tablet.ppt
If you are a UCLA Humanities instructor and would like to test a Tablet PC, contact Annelie Rugg (annelie@humnet.ucla.edu)
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| The Professor | The Tablet |
I asked Tim some follow up questions in email. Here’s what he wrote:
Q. What would you say to a colleague who was considering using a Tablet PC?
The tablet PC has come a long way from the glitchy and unreliable Newton’s of yore. Even but a scant 2 years ago, the tablet was a cumbersome piece of hardware–it generated a massive amount of heat, and one had to “train” the software to recognize your handwriting. In some models, the stylus was tethered to the machine. Ugh.
But now they are light, small (8.5 x 11), there is no handwriting training, and they work remarkably well. The clamshell models with reversible screen are far more versatile than the tablet only models, but I suspect it is a matter of preference. I’m not sure you’d want it as your only machine, unless you (a) don’t mind having fairly elaborate docking stations and (b) don’t do anything that requires high processor speed or lots of memory (ie you wouldn’t want to edit video or do GIS stuff on this thing). It is an excellent classroom presentation platform, a fabulous grading platform, and a very good travel computer.
Q. What did you find most useful about the Lenovo?
The ability to grade using handwriting on electronic papers.
Q. What did you think needs to be improved?
Battery time and foreign language handwriting recognition.
Q. What’s your overall impression of this technology?
This is a keeper–I strongly recommend departments to buy 2 or so for “check-out” to faculty members so they can play, learn and innovate with
this platform.
