TeacherTabletPC

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

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.

So, I think if I use statement-size “paper” in OneNote, I’ll manage to stay within the margins of this blog…

So apparently I can blog from OneNote 2007…

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!

Teaching With Gadgets: Planning With A Tablet

Microsoft has place some excellent templates that you can download into OneNote. I have created my own templates that very closely resemble my planning pages in my paper day planner (which I tossed long ago). If you are using a Tablet PC then I suggest making your notes in ink. Leave them in ink as it is searchable in OneNote and it just seems more intuitive than typing. If you have a notebook PC or a desktop, simply type in the template.The wonderous thing about this is that you can archive your entire year in June and start a new file at the beginning of the next year. Simply make sure you have a section called “Planning” and tabs for each month of the year. Add pages for each of the days in the month. I actually have templates for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I can curl up in my chair and write using the wonderful ink system. I even add voice notes using the built in voice recorder to add more detail. Finally, if I’m ill (I haven’t missed a day in 11 years) I can simply select a page and e-mail it to our school admin assistant to print out.

While my teaching isn’t organized around this kind of planning, I am sure the Tablet PC would be good for all sorts of written lesson plans. I have, however, used my tablet to write out directions for colleagues who were subbing for me—the ability to seamlessly combine bits of handwriting, clips of worksheets, Virtual TI screenshots, etc. is very handy.

From GottaBeMobile.com:

Josh Einstein, the developer of TEO 3.0, has created a nifty new application for OneNote. The OneNote Calendar gives you a calendar view of all of your notes, allowing you to view them by when they were created or modified. There is a preview pane that allows you to view your notes. More good news. It is free.

A note for those of us that use Firefox—the install page just doesn’t seem to work in Firefox, so you may want to try IEtab or (ugh) MSIE.

• InkLearn is a tool for learning to write in Chinese—this looks very cool; I wish I’d had something like this when I was learning Japanese (from “InkLearn has a Home”).
• Lenovo is offering a free tablet pen for doing a survey—I strongly recommend having a second pen available just in case, since without the pen the tablet isn’t terribly useful; I personally use a Wacom-Cross pen nearly all of the time and keep the OEM pen as a backup, but I did the survey to get another spare anyway (from “Got a Lenovo? Get a Free Tablet Pen!”).
• Tracy’s thoughts on moving back to OneNote and how she uses it with Journal, et al. (“Sliding over to OneNote…again”).

Since it’s the end of the quarter and I’m pressed for time (even more than usual), here’s some quick OneNote stuff (mostly ON2007), via Daniel Escapa’s OneNote Extensibility & More Blog:

• Sort Pages PowerToy
• Sort Sections PowerToy
• Note that using a 0.25 tip (new default in ON2007) means no pressure sensitivity
• List of 23 entries on various blogs all about OneNote

on10.net did a video intro to OneNote 2007 with Daniel Escapa of the OneNote Extensibility & More blog.