Here’re some newer and older comments about the utility of Tablet PCs in schooling and education. Teachers seeking funds and grant writers may find these sources useful in preparing competitive proposals.
Money! Money! Money! Are you prepared to compete for it? Microsoft announced Requests for Proposals 2005 as a catalyst to encourage educators to apply resources toward the revising, updating, and validating curriculum and pedagogy in conjunction with tablet technology in higher education. Deadline for submission of proposals: December 19, 2005, 5:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (-8 UTC/GMT).
Kendrick Mock offers a professional paper about the utility he discovered of a Tablet PC for grading, preparing lessons and lectures, and delivering information in his computer science courses. It provides a simple way to integrate live, handwritten material with slides and figures prepared in advance. His overview of Tablet PCs in schooling remains useful.
Seton Hall offers Thinklets (small programs) to assist students with mathematics, computer science, and other science and non-science related areas. The university’s faculty also offer tips and tricks for using a Tablet PC in education.
JumpingMinds offers the MathPractice Skill Pak bringing together four handwriting-enabled math practice applications into one bundle: MathPractice, FractionPractice, NumberPractice, and CoinPractice, plus MathPractice Starter too! Each program is designed exclusively for the Tablet PC and uses advanced digital ink-technology so you can handwrite solutions to math problems just as you would with paper and pencil.
Lest we forget, teachers, Microsoft offers the Microsoft Education Pack for Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.
Lanny Arvan at the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign said earlier I’ve got to believe that anyone who does notation intensive stuff or simply likes to do formative thinking with a hand written approach would like to use a Tablet PC.
THOMAS J. FITZGERALD reviews the growing status of tablet PCs for the masses. They have taken hold in some segments like education and health care, and computer makers continue to introduce models with features for broader markets. … Soon some will have touch screens. In addition, prices of tablet PCs have been declining along with computer prices in general, and the price gap with notebooks has begun to narrow.
The Institute for Information Technology Applications of the U.S. Air Force Academy offers an overview of their Tablet PC project.
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University reports that it is conducting a Tablet PC project aims to introduce FET learners and tertiary students to the benefits of teaching Mathematics with the Tablet PC technology.
Martin L. Shoemaker enthusiastically offers an outline of Tablet PC tools.
Dan Gordon reviewed the use of Tablet PCs in the University of California’s Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center newsletter article From Medieval Studies to Computer Science, Tablet PCs Are Showing Pedagogical Promise.