SHUTAP - Ideas selected as Receiving a Tablet PC

 The English department has made using emerging technologies a priority over the past five years and laptop use is almost standard among those who teach the required freshman writing courses. Blackboard is integral to course delivery and to my own in and out of class work on student writing.  I would be interested to see if the tablet pc could replace my laptop in the classroom portion.  Specifically, in the presentation of  an  individual's  work or a selected passage for group/class review, I would like to be able to write over the printed material as it is projected on the LCD I ordinarily use in class (like a telestrator).  I would also like to see if the tablet portion increases my own ability to take notes during presentations and in the in between times when opening a laptop and typing the things I need to remember until I am back in my office may be cumbersome.. I also would like it simply because I always like to try new things, especially if they make my work easier and support my own teaching objectives at Seton Hall.  That is why I am the technology liaison with regard to Blackboard use in ENGL1201 and 1202 for the adjuncts in the English Department.  My work with adjuncts would enable me to pass on whatever nifty things about the tablet's use that I figure out as I am using it this semester.

I will discover more ways to use it, I am sure. but for now, I intend to use it in the classroom where I now utilize my IBM laptop every class (it is required for my students and for myself).  I use it for attendance, for review of homework discussion students have already entered on Blackboard, for library research, for display and analysis of student work or selected texts.  I routinely have my own laptop hooked up to the lcd projector for full class review.  If I get the tablet, I will use it instead of my laptop for this connection and test its write-on capacity as an electronic black or whiteboard.  I am also teaching a new course  this fall, scientific and technical writing, and anticipate using the tablet  for all the same things.  That class, however has some time devoted to scientific notation and proofreading and I believe the ability to handstrike and write on the tablet as it is connected to the lcd projector will be very helpful.

As I stated in the other section, my work as liaison to faculty adjuncts teaching Freshman English will also contribute to a fast dissemination of the uses I will find for the tablet as the semester continues.

In a word, it's about equations. I teach finance, which relies extensively on applied statistics and mathematics. I provide students with summary lectures, and am often frustrated in my attempts to put together quick, detailed summaries, with equations, when I have to rely on Microsoft Word. To me, it has a not-so-friendly equation editor. Alternatively, being able to write the equations and send summaries right away, as the Tablet PC would provide, would be a godsend. It would also significantly improve my ability to respond by e-mail to student questions and concerns about equations, of which I get many because I strongly encourage students to do so. Overall, for me, given my method of teaching and follow-up, the use of the Tablet PC would give me the opportunity to significantly improve the active learning environment I try to provide.

I have two projects in mind. One is for lecture summaries (as discussed above) in Decision Making I (BMBA 9101) and Portfolio Analysis (BFIN 7230), two courses that I'm scheduled to teach this fall. The enrollments would be about 40 for BMBA 9101 and about 30 for BFIN 7230. The second is for distance learning. In August, I am required to begin to teach the MBA finance prequalification course "on line," a course that usually draws about 80 on-campus students. To teach it well to "distant" students, I need to be able to respond effectively and efficiently to their questions, considering that office visits are out of the question. The Tablet PC, with its capability of sending handwritten equations, seems an excellent response to the constraints imposed by normal laptop and desktop computers, and I would really appreciate the chance to experiment with it, especially as we continue to think about distance learning.

I believe the "tablet" concept is great.  There is limited use of a blackboard and a pointer on slides or overheads.  Now, one could have an interactive picture, that mutates into a process.  It's another step forward in bringing the new technology to students, especially in the science/medicine fields.

I teach Clinical Medicine (GMPA6203/PAFY4203) in the fall semester to physician assistant students.  It's ironic that this option is now available for use, I remember saying to myself several times, "I wish I could write and draw on my laptop". 

In this course, there are medical concepts that must be covered that are limited by power point.  Power Point is great, although static.  This course uses a lot of diagrams and pictures that show a process; such as anatomy and function of the heart or lung or eye.  That by itself has been traditionally acceptable.  Now, imagine showing the way the heart conducts electrical impulses by drawing the pathway right on the slide!

There are countless examples involving other body systems; the brain and nervous system, muscles and tendons, intestines and stomach, etc?

Given the correct platform, such as health sciences, I believe this new technology will deliver recognition for our program, school and university, unmatched previously.

Regular laptops are very efficient for anything that can be typed on a keyboard, and for those applications it would not be desirable to give up the standard laptop functions.  However, other applications, such as drawing, recording notes during meetings, and reviewing papers and disserations, are not as easily accomplished using a typical laptop.   Having a free-writing/drawing function would allow electronic creation and storage of notes that are now often lost, or at a minimum create a significant filing problem.  For lectures, the ability to write on a PowerPoint slide makes it much easier to illustrate a point in real time, and this does not require dragging a mouse as does the PowerPoint "pencil" function.  Further, the ability to smooth out rough lines in hand-drawn figures offers the opportunity to create custom illustrations for PowerPoint lectures, rather than spending hours searching for the perfect figure from a textbook or on the internet.  The convertible tablet PC is particularly attractive because it combines the ability to do those things the laptop does best, with those things that are more easily accomplished through hand writing and/or drawing, while offering more efficient storage and recall for handwritten notes.

The following is a list of applications I would like to test with a tablet PC:

1) As chair of the department I attend many meetings that require noting taking either for myself or to memorialize the discussion for those attending. If the hand-written character recognition software is effective, and I understand it might not be, this would be an efficient way to gather and distribute this information.

 2) At 4 lbs it is more portable and convenient than a laptop.

 3) In general I hope this device replaces the notepads and scraps of paper I currently use to organize myself. I suspect this device will provide, finally, a central repository for the day-to-day data I collect.

1) Use in the classroom. Can this be used instead of the laptop? In the fall I will be teaching 2 sections of the freshmen MIS introductory course. Part of this class teaches productivity tools (Excel, Access). It would be nice to have one device where I can display both the software I am teaching and be able to hand-draw explanations to student questions.

 2. I want to use the tablet in one class session as a talking point for state of the art technology. Specifically I want to have a class assignment where the students will be challenged to describe a business problem that the tablet could solve. While I could assign this without showing them the tablet, letting them see it in use would be better. I do not plan to allow them to use it out of the classroom.

They enable display, recording and distribution of graphical information at the speed of normal drawing which far exceeds speed at which such info can be entered through the keyboard.

Esp. in the teaching of Biblical Greek and Hebrew.  Currently these biblical language classes are the only classes at which I am precluded from using my laptop and LCD effectively, and am constrained to use a physical blackboard, because of the impossibility of entering Greek and Hebrew text effectively through the keyboard.    I have frequently speculated on the possibility and costs of attaching a device to the laptop which would enable me to display handwritten data on an LCD projector.    The tablet PC would allow me to gage the effectiveness of the technology in teaching these languages. 

In a laboratory setting students and researchers write in a permanently bound laboratory notebook which serves as a record of experimental plans, calculations and results.  Conventional laptops cannot readily emulate this laboratory notebook, in large part due to the inherent difficulties in typing from a keyboard, which is cumbersome, time-consuming and doesn't lend itself to the types of experimental calculations that need to be performed.  Accurate laboratory records are critical to scientific research, since experimental interpretation requires detailed records of experimental design, execution, and observations.  The resulting experimental data, the calculations associated with the data and the graphical presentation of the data form the backbone of research papers and presentations.   Much of the biotechnology industry, which plays a significant role in New Jersey's economy and serves to employ SHU graduates, has already made a transition to digital record keeping, data storage and in drug approval submissions to the Food and Drug Administration.  In order to provide our students with the most advanced training possible as preparation for their possible entry into the biotechnology job market, it is essential that they are exposed to technology that they will encounter in the workforce.  The tablet PC will undoubtedly be a key element of future laboratory notebooks, and serve as a crucial resource for both industrial and academic scientists. 

Frances Mae West, an SHU Clare Boothe Luce scholar, will be the undergraduate assigned to use the PC tablet.  Mae is active in my laboratory's experimental research, as well as being involved with other key research activities, such as the Biology Department's weekly journal club, which is sponsored by Dr Sulie Chang, the departmental Chair.  As an active undergraduate researcher, Mae will use the PC tablet alongside of her normal laboratory recordkeeping, experimental design, calculations. observations and  data analysis (which is currently done manually).  A side-by-side comparison of the manual record keeping with the digital PC tablet will allow us to determine if the PC tablet affords a more efficient and streamlined means for executing research and maintaining research records than that of manual data recording.  In addition, Mae will be using the assigned tablet PC to bring pertinent scientific literature references into her research record (not currently possible with the manual laboratory notebook), as well maintain a daily log of relevant research articles.  Finally, Mae's participation in Dr Chang's weekly journal club will allow her to act as a liason between the weekly speaker and the biology students that attend this seminar and ask questions.  The ultimate goal of this project is to see if the tablet PC provides a possible substitute for the laptop in the experimental laboratory and in seminars.  

The difficulty with working in a mathematical science such as physics is the difficulty of inputting equations and diagrams.  This is obviously greatly simplified with a tablet PC.  Making the input simpler will lead to a more fluid, timely and complete transfer of ideas to students and research collaborators.  For instance, when creating solutions for homework assignments, the use of Microsoft equation editor is very slow, sometimes leading to a delay in providing solutions to students and making shortcuts necessary, resulting in a lack of needed steps in derivations and diagrams.

 The main purpose for obtaining the tablet PC is that I will use this platform to deliver my lectures rather than using an overhead projector or chalkboard.  I think the tablet PC will allow for greater ease, specifically in allowing the lecturer to more dynamically select colors, employ graphic effects such as fill effects and using on the fly importing of sprites and images into the lecture as well as fixing mistakes.  I will save these lectures and post them on Blackboard for students future reference.  I will also use the tablet PC to create solutions to homework sets.  In Physics 1001 I give weekly quizzes and plan on giving review sessions the night before using the Blackboard virtual classroom software.  I am currently building a research laboratory along with some physics and physics/engineering students and we will make many mechanical drawings this summer for onsite and offsite machine shops.  I would like the students to test the usability of the tablet PC with CAD software packages.

I am excited about the ability to draw on the screen as if it were a piece of paper. My current laptop is limited in many applications, particularly those involving statistical formulas or diagrams of experimental designs, because the formatting requires time and effort.

When I read about the tablet PC's and the test project, I immediately decided to apply for one because so many of the methods courses that I teach in the Psychology Department involve writing experimental designs as diagrams to which we add cells, etc., or involve statistical formulas that are not easily typed. I teach Statistics, Experimental Psychology, and Seminar in Psychology, three of the four courses in the Psychology major research sequence, and can think of so many times when I could have used a tablet PC rather drawing on an overhead transparency or on the whiteboard. 

As I noted above, I teach methods courses in the Department of Psychology. This summer, I am teaching Statistics and could use the tablet PC right away to demonstrate computations using the tablet PC and the proxima projector. In the fall, I am teaching Seminar in Psychology, the capstone course of the major. It requires each student to develop his or her own research proposal, and involves the use of statistics and experimental design. I would like to use a tablet PC to teach the statistical and experimental design procedures that students will need for their proposals. In addition, I would like to use the tablet PC for in-class discussions in which a student presents his or her design or proposed statistics. In these discussions, the students brainstorm and suggest changes. With a tablet PC, I could update the designs/stats easily and all the students could observe the changes. In summary, my major project would be the improvement of my seminar.

 Tablet PC is a great tool that combines the functionality of a PC and blackboard  during lecture. This will add a new dimension to the innovative teaching that will make the lecture presentations more exciting and effective by using a wide range of software  packages as one uses the tablet PC. Students are likely to benefit more from this new technique.

On a light note, my dusty fingers make my laptop's keyboard dirty since I use the combination of the blackboard and laptop during lecture. The tablet PC will keep my fingers clean since I will not use the board and chalk anymore. 

In teaching physics, I constantly write equations and sketch drawings on the board. Tablet PC will allow me to combine my written materials with the lessons and modules that I have prepared under CDI4 in class. Excel, Interactive Physics, Java and web animations are among the potential tools that I will use in conjunction with tablet PC during my lecture. Each lecture will be posted on the web for students.

Last semester, I asked some of my students to share with me their lecture notes. They sent me their notes electronically that included no drawings or equations. Careful examination of these Word documents revealed two major problems. (1) Student notes were incomplete and, in some cases, were skipped parts of the lecture. (2) Segments of some of the notes were wrong. The best solution to overcome these problems is to make my notes available to students.  Clearly, posting of the tablet PC-collected lecture notes on the web will  eliminate these problems.

 I think tablet PC's are more useful than regular laptops because they will boost my productivity. They allow me to interact with the computer in additional and more natural ways. My work requires developing technical drawings, mathematical graphs and mathematical formulas. It is very difficult and time consuming to enter this kind of information through a keyboard. For the same reasons, being able to annotate papers by hand is very useful to me.

 I also believe that tablet PC's are more useful for meetings and collaborative work. Tablet PC's could be used in a network environment to exchange hand written text and drawings. It is often much easier and much more efficient to convey ideas through hand written text and drawings than through typed text.

 There are three areas where I would like to test the tablet PC:

 I don't use a laptop in the clinical setting of our Health Services office; I have a desktop PC.  I think that a tablet PC offers you the versatility of a conventional laptop, but with increased portability and ease of use. One has the ability to quickly "write" documents in the familiar "longhand" handwriting, with an easy conversion to text.

 In the clinical setting of our primary care outpatient office, I thought that I might be able to utilize the Tablet in obtaining my patient interview [handwrite the progress note], and then convert to text, print, and place on the medical record .  I thought that this process might be a "gentle" transition to electronic recordkeeping.  I also felt that I would use the Tablet PC for note taking at various Continued Medical Education conferences, with easier dissemination to fellow staff persons.  I think that using the Tablet PC would be extremely helpful with my University Committee work as a member of one of the Self-Study groups for the upcoming Middle States Accreditation.  As the Chair of Health/Counseling's Website Committee, and as the "webmaster" responsible for the technical posting and ongoing revision of our Website, I felt that the Tablet PC would allow me to easily work on the Website, and I would be able to easily transition between the office and home use. I think that the Tablet PC would facilitate communication and lecture preparation in my role as a Clinical Professor in the College of Nursing and as an Instructor in Graduate Medical Education's Masters in Athletic Training program.

Last Modified: May 2004
Maintained by: Math/CS @ SHU (bgw)