TeacherTabletPC

I took a rather unintended two week hiatus. While my daily-posting streak was broken by a lack of connectivity in the dorms at the University of Iowa, my post-Iowa absence was due almost entirely to non-technical reasons. I spent the better part of a week packing up my office, followed by several days of settling into a new (but temporary) office—I’ve stepped out of the classroom and into the realm of textbook publishing for the next two years. The poor functioning of the air conditioner in my home office also didn’t help to encourage me to spend time at the computer writing blog posts.

So, while I’m not going to be in the classroom, I’m still very much involved in the educational community. As I’d said in my previous post on breaking the daily-posting streak, I intend to continue to post with some frequency and I hope that this will still be of use to people. Also, thanks to axelnielk88 for expressing a desire for me to continue posting.

Craig Pringle had the perfect post title, so I had to steal the idea.  Here are some recent posts on some basic tablet functionality:

• Blog:: Craig Pringle – Tablet 101: Entering Text with the TIP
• The Student Tablet PC – OneNote 2007 Tip: Scratch Out
• Working in Ed Tech: Great video on Tablet advantages

Unfortunately, as some of you  may have noticed, my streak of posting at least once a day has come to an end.  This is due in large part to a lack of ready access to the internet while I’m at this math competition in Iowa City, IA.  I am writing this on the X60, using the built-in Bluetooth to connect it to my Moto V710 and Verizon’s Quick2Net (at least, I think it’s called Quick2Net—it’s the service that doesn’t have an extra monthly charge and just uses your regular minutes, but is slower than a 56k modem and that they don’t really advertize at all).

While I’m hoping to return to something at least close to daily posting when I return to a place with simple high-speed internet access, it is getting to be summer and a lot of teaching and education slows down in the summer.  I hope that even if I can’t quite manage daily posting over the summer,  you will still find useful information here.

From GottaBeMobile.com:

Gateway is offering their CX210X Tablet PC for only $899.99 on their website now. Not a bad deal if you are looking to get into the Tablet PC arena without having to shell out a lot of money. … Thanks for the tip on the CX210 Josh.

This is undeniably a good deal for anyone looking to get started in the tablet world. This machine, however, is not one of my favorites. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s one of the few using an active digitizer that isn’t Wacom’s.

Spec highlights:

• Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2350 (1.86GHz, 533MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache)
• Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium (32-bit)
• 1024MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-512MB modules)
• 80GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive
• 14.0″ WXGA TFT Active Matrix (1280 x 768 max. resolution) w/ Gateway Executive Stylus w/ Continuous Sensing Technology
• 24x/10x/24x CD-RW / 8x DVD Combo Drive
• Integrated Intel® 3945 802.11a/b/g wireless networking
• Primary 8-Cell Lithium Ion battery w/ 1 Yr. limited battery warranty
• One type II PC card slot
• (3) USB 2.0, VGA, IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
• 7-in-1 media card reader (Memory Stick®, MemoryStick Pro®, MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital™, xD-Picture Card, Mini Secure Digital®, RS-Multimedia Card™)
• Integrated V.92 56K modem
• Integrated Intel® 10/100/1000 Ethernet Adapter

From jkOnTheRun:

Inking in Instant Messaging is not just for Messenger anymore as Trillian has released the long-awaited ink support. Now you can draw and ink to your heart’s content with the popular IM program. Note that it is in alpha so if you try it let us know what you think about the ink. Thanks to jkOTR reader Steve Moser for the tip!

Unfortunately, it’s not clear to me what kind of support is needed on the other end.  Now if only there were ink in Gaim (across half a dozen different IM services and nearly every major OS, all but a small handful of the people with whom I IM are using Gaim or a derivative thereof as their client).

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get other people who’d just gotten their hands on a convertible tablet to really use it as a tablet. Craig Pringle’s “10 Things to do with your new tablet” is exactly the list of ideas I’d been looking for (see his post for the descriptions that go along with the 10 things):

[H]ere are 10 tips – things you can do with your new tablet to get you started.

1. Install Vista …
2. Make a Mind Map …
3. Ink on a PDF …
4. Take some notes …
5. Do some drawing …
6. Read a book …
7. Ink in Word …
8. Ink on PowerPoint Slides …
9. Ink Instant Messages …
10. Most importantly of all – Have fun!

At school, there’s been a lot of talk about what can be done differently with an online course management system (particularly Moodle, since one new faculty member has extensive experience with it) and to what end.  Having heard what some of my colleagues have done with asynchronous discussion online outside of class, Jim Vanides’s experiences with online instruction seemed to fit right in:

In my “spare” time (not related to my work at HP), I teach an online science course designed for elementary teachers.  … I have previously taught the same content in the form of face-to-face workshops offered through an NSF-sponsored “local systemic change initiative” grant that funded teacher professional development in the Silicon Valley (California). Converting these workshops into an online (asynchronous) instructor-led 6-week course has been a fascinating experience. The content was identical, but I had to entirely redesign the learning experience. What was more surprising was the difference in discourse – in some ways, the discussions were BETTER than when I taught the same material face-to-face.
If you’re interested, check out the May issue of ISTE’s “Learning and Leading with Technology” magazine. My article, “Online Learning that Works“, is a free PDF download until September.

As I play more and more with my review X60, I am increasingly concerned that my reviews will turn into I-hate-Vista notes rather than actual assessment of Lenovo’s hardware offerings. Especially given that I was only given one 8-cell battery and one AC adapter with the X60 (versus the two 8-cell and one 4-cell batteries, stand-alone battery charger, and 2 AC adapters I use with my X41 to consistently achieve all-day and often two-day computing), battery life is high on my list of Vista concerns. So, here are a variety of relatively recent Vista Battery Life links:

• Sneaking Suspicion Dept.: Vista Battery Life Sucks kizo interesting info (May 4)
• Humor: Microsoft Vista Laptop Battery Enhancement Kit – In Stock : Meandering Passage (May 5)
• TechBlog: Vista, Aero, battery life . . . and Doom (May 5)
• nullstream weblog – UMPC Vista Battery Life Comparison Summary (May 9)
• jkOnTheRun: Microsoft weighs in on Vista battery life issue (May 15)
• Incremental Blogger: Aero consumes 1-4% of battery life (May 15)
• jkOnTheRun: Freeware of the Moment- Vista Battery Saver (May 15)
• jkOnTheRun: Vista Battery Saver first impressions (May 16)
• GottaBeMobile.com – The Vista Battery Conversation Continues, an App Comes to Our Aid (May 16)
• jkOnTheRun: Battery life in XP: 4 hours. Same battery in Vista: 3.5 hours (May 16)
• Save Your Windows Vista Battery (May 18)
• Techlogg.com – Five easy ways to improve Windows Vista battery life (May 19)

Since I’ve been asked and I thought it might be generally useful for people to know…  Near as I can tell, this requires OneNote 2007 and Word 2007, but I haven’t tried it extensively since I’ve only got the 2007 trials on my review X60 (my own X41 is running 2003).

In OneNote 2007, create the blog entry on a single page.

If you want handwritten stuff to stay handwritten, select it and go to Tools > Treat Selected Ink As > Drawing (otherwise it tends to turn into plain text, which isn’t so good if your handwriting is as illegible as mine can be sometimes).

Go to File > Send To > Blog.  This will send you off to Word 2007, where you configure your blog settings, do any final editing, and actually post the thing.

From The Tablet PC Education Blog:

Tom Farrell uses PowerPoint slides to summarize how faculty use Tablet PCs for 1:1 computing in the College of Business and Information at Dakota State University.Farrell described the tablet PC as a “smartboard on steroids” while speaking to faculty at Arkansas Central University.

Dakota State University students are issued tablet PCs (convertible laptops).