TeacherTabletPC

From a post on Techdirt:

There’s been plenty of talk over the years about how computers will replace textbooks in the classroom and how students will just look stuff up online instead of having to tote around books. A fair number of schools give students laptops, but now, some of those programs are being stopped because they’re not having any positive impact on students’ education. That’s not very hard to believe, since it sounds like many of the programs cited in the original article basically just threw laptops at students, and made very little effort to work them into the curriculum in a meaningful way. [emphasis added] This point has been clear from the outset: simply giving kids computers (or people in developing nations, as with the $100 dollar OLPC) isn’t going to do much. Computers, internet access and other technologies should be seen as useful tools, not silver bullets for education. Making them available is too often seen as a quick fix by politicians and administrators, but not creating some sort of plan around them essentially ensures long-term failure once the shine of being oh-so-high-tech wears off.

The New York Times article linked to by Techdirt was also cited on The Student Tablet PC and Engadget.

From Working in Ed Tech:

One-to-One Institute’s Leslie Wilson did a great job identifying the main pitfalls of a 1:1 and how to avoid them. I heard her speak last week at the Intel Visionary Conference in D.C. She previously organized all the professional development for Michigan’s Freedom to Learn program.

The savvy 1:1 administrator:

• Tells stakeholders why school is pursuing a 1:1
• Provides relevant research (One-to-One offers this)
• Stays well-informed on trends and best practices
• Eats his own dogfood i.e. uses the technology himself
• Stays available and willing to work through issues
• Makes PD a priority each year of the program i.e. budget!!
• Ensures consistent communication with parents
• Chooses relevant assessment metrics and uses rubrics to measure progress each year

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this clear and concise of a list and I’m hoping that people trying to make 1:1 computing happen read this and follow it. The One-to-One Institute looks like it’s got a lot of good resources, too.

From CENTRAL OHIO SOURCE – The Daily Reporter, Inc.:

While many manufacturers offer extended warranties, they most often do not cover accidental damage or theft, and that’s where Columbus-based Safeware, The Insurance Agency Inc. enters the picture. The company is one of only a few in the nation that specializes in insurance for portable electronic items such as laptops.

…

The firm offers coverage for not only laptops, but also desktop computers, smart phones and the fast-growing segment of tablet PCs, where users can actually write or click on the screen using a pen-like utensil.

“Tablets are becoming very common, especially in the medical field or in construction out on job sites,” Cole [marketing manager for Safeware] said.

…

“A lot of schools are into one-on-one stuff, almost doing away with books, and they have a lot of liability with kids taking (laptops) out of the classrooms. Sometimes you have kids as young as fourth-grade handling them,” Cole said.

Brophy College Prep in Phoenix looks like they have gone to 1:1 computing and are heavily invested in Tablet PCs.  They have a Tablet PC blog on their site, though the level of activity seems fairly low.

TabletPC2.com now has a review of the HP TX1000 Entertainment Tablet PC:

The first thing that comes to mind in terms of the HP tx 1000 is that its fun to use. I can’t put my finger on exactly why its such a pleasure to have around or to use but it is. What I can tell you is that it has a beautiful screen and the best sounding speakers I’ve heard on a tablet pc. Combine that with with all of the easy to use features and it makes it hard to put it down once you start using it. Another interesting thing I couldn’t help but notice was that people using the tx 1000 always seem to have a smile on there face.From the hard core experts at the 2007 Microsoft MVP Global Summit to my friends 3 year old twins everyone who tried this machine enjoyed using it.

Though I’m still living in an XP world, anyone using Vista might be interested in GBM How-To Series #7 : Using Vista Pen Flicks:

Flicks are a new Vista feature that allow you to navigate documents or change data using only your stylus. So you may ask, what’s the difference between a gesture and a flick. There are only eight flicks available. Up, Down, Left, Right, and of course, the four diagonals and they are not bound by the input panel. You can use a flick anywhere on the tablet screen.

Thanks to a post on GottaBeMobile.com referring to meeting notes posted at Multi-faceted Refractions, I learned that a group of interested educators met in the north suburbs of Chicago this past week to talk about Tablet PCs and other related technologies.  In poking around there, I found the Illinois Educator’s Tablet PC Roundtable Google group and the page there about the meeting.  Somehow, this all slipped past me and seems to have happened quietly among a group of teachers with no intersection with my own varied professional circles.  Hopefully, this group will lead to greater tablet use in the classroom.

From Five Days of Announcements at Project Honey Pot:

On Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 10:54am in a court in the Eastern District of Virginia, Project Honey Pot filed the largest anti-spam lawsuit ever. Seeking more than $1B in statutory damages, the suit was brought on behalf of our members. It targets a huge swath of spammers. If you’ve harvested email addresses or sent spam in the last two years, chances are you’re on our radar screen and we’re coming after you.

e-Lab-book.com is a blog about the electronic lab notebook. From the about page at e-Lab-book.com:

This site is a log of my quest for the next step in the evolution of lab science. Scientists have historically been on the cutting edge of technology. However, recently the technology sector has diverged a bit from the ‘lab’ scientist.

Why are we still using pen and paper to record and organize our data?
Why do we write out all our protocols and data by hand?
Why do we then copy stuff into excel for calculations?

The Tablet PC is here and ready to use. It gets better all the time, but is certainly ready to help streamline laboratory science today.

I found out about this relatively new blog from an article on SciScoop.com, which gives some pros and cons to the idea of an electronic lab notebook. You’ll have to read the full article for details, but to summarize—Pros: Templates, Collaborate, Data Access, Organize, Data Backup, Super Calculator, Infinite Colored Pens, Camera; Cons: $$, Write Speed, Battery, Scanning, Chemical Spill!

Mostly, these posts run along the lines of product announcement rather than actual review, but here are some excerpts and links anyway. From my perspective, it’s another convertible that’s just a little heavier than I’m willing to carry around and has the unnecessary internal optical drive.

jkOnTheRun: Gateway announces new Tablet PC- E-155C

I get a lot of early announcements about upcoming products, almost always under embargo until the OEM is ready to have the product officially released. Normally I don’t have a problem honoring those embargoes but this new Convertible Notebook from Gateway is so sweet that I had a hard time keeping this to myself. The new Gateway E-155C Convertible Notebook is a 12 inch widescreen packing, Core 2 Duo spinning, dual digitizing Tablet PC with an internal optical drive. Weighing in at 4.5 pounds the E-155C is light enough to be used in most mobile settings and the powerful hardware components will handle any task with ease.

GottaBeMobile.com – Gateway’s New Convertible Tablet PC: The E155C

With a lot of the Tablet and UMPC world focused on the Intel Developers Conference, Gateway has jumped back into the Tablet PC game with news of the release of its newest Tablet PC, the E155C. We’ve been seeing hints of this for awhile here at GottaBeMobile.com, but now the news is out. The E155C is a Core 2 Duo convertible Tablet PC with an active digitizer and touchscreen capabilities. According to Gateway, “the E155C is designed to compliment Gateway’s desktop-replacement M285 Convertible Notebook.”

Laptops Blog » Gateway released new convertible Tablet PC E-155C (noteworthy much more for the pictures they have than for their minimal text)

Gateway introduced their new Tablet laptop E-155C. This thin and lightweight PC combines the “Tablet” (by allowing to input information using Stylus), and a laptop with a touch screen.

Gateway E-155C is a Thin & Light Convertible notebook : Specs, reviews and prices.

An amalgamation of style and functionality, the Gateway E-155C draws it juice from an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and uses the new Microsoft Windows Vista as its Operating System. One also comes across a a biometric fingerprint reader and Wacom digital pen with digital eraser.