Using Tablet PC's Mandatory at Va Tech

Gmail - Engineering Education: CONNECTIONS May 2007: "III. Teaching Toolbox

Take a Tablet

By Corinna Wu

Today�s college kids arrive on campus armed with an array of electronic gadgets. Cell phones, iPods and digital cameras are no longer luxuries but near necessities for staying well connected and adequately entertained. Last fall, incoming freshmen at Virginia Tech added one particular gadget to their back-to-school shopping list: a tablet PC. The university required all 1,400 of its new students to buy one. The tablets look much like regular laptop computers, except their digitized screens can be swiveled around, folded over and written on with a stylus.

But these computers aren�t just high-tech notepads, a 21st century replacement for pen and paper. Engineering faculty members around the country have recognized that this simple write-on feature allows them the opportunity to radically change the way they run their classrooms. Instead of writing on a board or an overhead transparency, they write on a tablet PC over their PowerPoint slides. The students, outfitted with their own tablets (all connected via a wireless network), see the instructor�s writing appear on their computers in real time and can add their own notes on top. Students can also send documents to the instructor for instant feedback. [read more here].

With support from the National Science Foundation, Microsoft and tablet manufacturers like Fuj"