Tomorrow, the University of Bath is hosting the first Western e-Learning Meeting, featuring Heads of e-Learning and Learning Technologists from the Universities of Bristol, Exeter, Gloucestershire and UWE. The focus for the session will be the use of Tablet PCs in Higher Education… which is perfect since I often work with a Toshiba Portégé M700-100, as referred to in an earlier post.
Some of the attendees will be presenting about the use of Tablet PCs at their institutions, and I hope to share my reflections sometime in the next couple of days.
In preparation, colleagues have been asked to prepare a short overview about an article about the use of Tablet PCs in Higher Education – I’ve chosen a presentation, I’m afraid! My overview appears below.
The following relates to a presentation delivered at the Tablet PCs in Higher Education Workshop in 2005, in Seattle, Washington. Whilst the presentation is nearly three years old, it provides some useful information and data that is [still] relevant for an institution investigating the use of Tablet PCs in HE.
The presentation, A New Face for Time-Honored Ideas – Lessons from the Tablet PC Project at the University of Virginia, details a pilot of Tablet PCs in three different classrooms. Four hundred Tablet PCs were deployed in three courses: Statistics, Cognitive Psychology and Biochemistry. The following key points were highlighted during the presentation:
- The pilot programme was a partnership between Thomson, the University of Virginia, Microsoft and HP.
- Hybrid print and digital solutions were developed in consultations with teaching staff. All students bought the course text at the beginning of the course, but the teaching staff used digital solutions to teach at least part of the programme.
- Microsoft PowerPoint slides were embedded within Microsoft OneNote files and made available for download. In lectures:
- Instructors annotated slides
- Instructors recorded voice clips to be attached to slides
- Students annotated slides using their Tablet PCs
- The Instructors annotated, recorded slides were made available for download by students following the lecture
Pilot highlights
- Response to the Tablet PCs was overwhelmingly positive, learning to active learning within lectures.
- Extent of student use of Tablet PCs and response of students to Tablet PCs correlated strongly with instructor engagement
- Instructor engagement was catalytic – spurring students to use Tablet PCs in their other classes
- New technology increased options to develop individual learning styles – “hand to head practice builds long term memory”
- HP established a discounted price for Tablet PC purchase by students and departments
- Tablet PC seminars were developed for several other areas, with hands-on workshops arranged for both staff and students
Tablet PCs in Higher Education Workshop in 2005: http://tinyurl.com/2zvec8
Presentation URL: http://tinyurl.com/4ebxwn
Follow up comments (NRP)
- Were Tablet PCs used to facilitate collaborative activities, for example, for group course work?
- In addition to the Microsoft PowerPoint/OneNote combination, was any additional software (for example, a graphical wiki) used for either individual or collaborative working?
- Could Tablet PCs have been used in conjunction with other technologies such as audience response systems or mobile phones to enhance collaborative working?
I note that this study took place during 2005, and that technology has moved on since then e.g. the introduction of wireless networking on University campuses.
