Tablet PCs at UNC Chapel Hill

The Carolina Computer Initiative continues to feature their Tablet PC Case Study. It shows uses for teaching and learning.

The pilot included participants from the School of Public Health, School of Education, School of Nursing and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Instructors used the tablets in a number of ways:

- Annotating slides and skeleton notes during class;

- Performing paperless skills evaluation;

- Conducting virtual office hours and discussion sessions; and

- Accepting and grading assignments.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tablet PC Case Study

UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine

11 Reasons Why a Tablet PC is Better

Check these uses of Tablet PCs in class lessons when compared with boards, projectors, etc.

- No need to erase to keep going.

- Can go BACKWARD and answer dangling questions.

- Can archive and share my presentation after class.

- Can easily incorporate rich media into my classroom.

- Can more easily overlay annotations on images.

- Have a million colors at my fingertips.

More reasons why a Tablet PC works better with a projector in a classroom:

- Can make the image HUGE so everyone can see.

- Can face students while writing on projected image, etc.

- Can present from the BACK of the room so students focus more on the content.

- Can take it home or on a field trip.

- Can create video podcasts before (or during) class.

While these are mostly from 1-to-1 settings where all the students and the teacher are interacting through their own tablet pc, there are many examples of what can be done with ONE tablet in a classroom.

Jim Vanides, 11 Reasons Why a Tablet PC is Better, captured July 14, 2009

Tablet PC Better than Paper Pencil

Jim Vanides says Tablet PCs are better than using paper and pencils in the same geology field study class. Tablet PCs

- automatically plot their location in arcGIS software;
- record features as they find them; and
- make measurements on the electronic map, and then immediately compare to measurements they are making in the field.

With a wireless network set up in the field, students can communicate with each other by voice, and let the team leader know where they are automatically (a nice safety measure)

When is a Tablet PC better than Paper?

Online Science Awareness Tool

Faculty of 1000 Biology is the next generation online literature awareness tool that highlights and reviews the most interesting papers published in the biological sciences, based on recommendations of over 2300 selected leading researchers.

It is run by scientists for scientists and provides a rapidly updated consensus map of the important papers and trends across biology.

A must-monitor reference for PreK12 teachers seeking to help students learn with and without Tablet and other mobile PCs current scientific information.

Wouldn't it be great to have an application that would automatically reference these sources while students use their Tablets to complete a lesson that includes any biology content?

What is Faculty of 1000 Biology?

Check out the free 3 week trial offer for individuals, if you can't convince your district to subscribe.

Rational, Scientifically-based Societies

“scientists all around the world must now band together to help create more rational, scientifically-based societies that find dogmatism intolerable.”

Bruce Alberts, Department of Chemistry and Biophysics, University of California at San Francisco Mission Bay; Editor, Science; co-chair, InterAcademy Council (consisting of presidents of 15 national academies of science that advise world leaders; former president, National academy of Sciences; instrumental in developing the National Science Education standards that emphasizes hands-on problem solving, and evidence for claims.

Quote source, May 2, 2005, NAS Annual Meeting Speech excerpts

Thank You for Encouraging Loren

Thank you for encouraging Loren during his health challenges, including the recent removal of a tumor from his brain. He and our family appreciate your wonderful posts and comments on Twitter, FaceBook, etc. They helped comfort us. We look forward to seeing each of you again. Here're links to related posts, if you haven't followed his progress on Twitter, FaceBook, etc.:

Loren's Incremental Blogger

Lora's WhatIsNew

Layne's Technology Questions

Scalable Sound Sensing for People-Centric Mobile Phone Apps

Using the microphone on a cell phone,SoundSense software picks up sounds and automatically classifies sounds as "voice," "music," or "ambient noise."

The architecture and algorithms are designed for scalability. SoundSense uses a combination of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques to classify both general sound types (e.g., music, voice) and discover novel sound events specific to individual users.

If a sound is repeated often enough or for long enough, SoundSense gives it a high "sound rank" and asks the user to confirm that it is significant and offers the option to label the sound.

SoundSense

Hong Lu, et al. SoundSense: Scalable Sound Sensing for People-Centric Applications on Mobile Phones, captured June 278, 2009.

Computers Make Great Students

"A computer, for instance, can remember everything and work at blinding speed, so it gains a huge advantage by not having to wait for the teacher. And when data appear "in the wild"--or generated for free on the Web--it can be just the thing for the computer as student."

Peter Norvig, Computers Make Great Students: The great leap forward in unsupervised learning. 06.22.09, 06:00 PM EDT

Education's Dirty Little Secret (DI)

Direct Instruction (DI) is the dirty little secret of the educational establishment.

This method ... is the opposite of the favored methods of today's high-paid education gurus, and contradicts the popular theories that are taught to new teachers in our universities.

Direct Instruction ... (has been demonstrated) in the largest educational study ever ... and continues to bring remarkable success at low cost when it is implemented.

One large (5 year comparative) study that parents really should know about is Project Follow Through, completed in the 1970s.

This was the largest educational study ever done, costing over $600 million, and covering 79,000 children in 180 communities.

This project examined a variety of programs and educational philosophies to learn how to improve education of disadvantaged children in grades K-3. ... Desired positive outcomes included basic skills, cognitive skills ("higher order thinking") and affective gains (self-esteem).

The program that gave the best results in general was true Direct Instruction, a subset of Basic Skills.

The other program types, which closely resemble today's educational strategies (having labels like "holistic," "student-centered learning," "learning-to-learn," "active learning," "cooperative education," and "whole language") were inferior.

What the Data Really Show: Direct Instruction Really Works!

People Don't Gain Insights about Ourselves from Videos of Us

People do not read insights into ourselves from watching a video of our own body language. Outside observers watching the same video make revealing insights into our personality.

In other words, "self-perceivers do not appear to pay as much attention to and make as much use of available behavioural information as neutral observers," the
researchers said.

Hofmann, W., Gschwendner, T., & Schmitt, M. (2009). The road to the unconscious self not taken: Discrepancies between self- and observer-inferences about implicit dispositions from nonverbal behavioural cues. European Journal of Personality, 23 (4), 343-366.

Bigger is Faster in Lexical - Visual Word Recognition

People are faster at processing words referring to big things than we are at processing words that denote small things, reported Sara Sereno and colleagues.

This study considers "semantic size," lexical access in visual word recognition - namely, the real-world size of an object to which a word refers. It's a relatively unexplored topic.


Sereno, S., O'Donnell, P., & Sereno, M. (2009). Size matters: Bigger is faster. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62 (6), 1115-1122

Personal Force and Intention in Moral Judgment

Using one's own bodily strength made killing someone less morally acceptable , according to 600 students, than dropping the person through a trap door in front of a train in order to save five others, J. Green and team reported.

"Put simply, something special happens when intention and personal force co-occur," the researchers said.

I wonder how to relate such moral relativism to students considering use of cell phones, etc. as acceptable, not cheating, ways to complete course papers and examinations. Are these positions consequences of school communitarianism curricula?

Greene, J., Cushman, F., Stewart, L., Lowenberg, K., Nystrom, L., & Cohen, J. (2009). Pushing moral buttons: The interaction between personal force and
intention in moral judgment. Cognition, 111 (3), 364-371.

MIT Replaces Large Letures

The physics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolkogy has replaced large introductory lectures with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. Attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent.

Also, students taking the two introductory courses in classical mechanics and electromagnetism meet in high-tech classrooms, where about 80 students sit at 13 round tables equipped with networked computers.

At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard

Teachers Provide Technical Support in School Revisited

If teachers use some of the same procedures that technical support services provide callers, would teachers help students increase learning rates more? I asked this question in 2006.

I think now the answer is a qualified, "Yes." Writing about NESI and a learning efficiency analysis paradigm have helped to continue supporting that answer.

Writing and reading educator and our advocates blogs also helped me to formulate the question, again respectfully, if teachers talk too much during lessons, and thereby limit student learning efficiency? That could be an interesting master's thesis topic or empirical study, as Roger conducted in the middle 1960s.

If teachers use some of the same procedures, would that help students increase learning rates more?

Teachers Provide Technical Support in School

Do Teachers Talk Too Much?

“Rationed Learning: …'Yes, but … ' ” Report Revisited

Read Tablet PC Reviews before Deciding "Which One"

Be sure to check out Tablet PC Reviews for authoritative comments about variations among Tablet PCs. A useful stop for those assembling a short list of hardware to submit for approved purchases. Yes, they've been around for awhile and have a reputation for reasoned reviews.

Tablet PC Review

Bentley University SOTA Tech Connects Tablet PCs

This spring, Campus Prowler rated Bentley College one of the best computer networked campuses.

The state-of-the-art technology (SOTA) is visible no matter where you are on campus, ... at least one computer in each classroom, ... there are power and network ports for each individual student’s laptop in about half of the classrooms on campus. In the front of each classroom, there is a computer that is hooked up to a projector which allows for both professors and students to showcase educational material, pull up a Web site, or run a PowerPoint demonstration on a large screen in front of the class.

College Prowler - Bentley University

Bentley has collaborated with HP to allow students to work with their new Tablet PC to conduct research on Tablet PC use and acceptance.

ITEXPO West

ITEXPO registration still open. Learn how to select IP-based voice, video, fax, and unified communications to purchase or resell. Buyers, sellers, resellers, and manufacturers meet to forge relationships and close deals.

What: The World's Communications Conference!

When: September 1-3, 2009

Where: Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA

Check out details

Register

Speed School Recommends the HP EliteBook 2730p Tablet PC

For Fall 2009, Speed School, University of Louisville, is recommending purchase of the Tablet PC through iTech Xpress. By 2011, all Speed School students should have Tablet PCs.

The recommended tablet for Fall 2009 is the HP EliteBook 2730p.

It fulfills all hardware specifications set by Speed School.

The tablet is available at a discount for Speed School students and warranty repair service is available directly from iTech Xpress. For tablets under repair, a loaner tablet will be provided for tablets purchased via iTech Xpress.

I use an HP 2730! It's traveled thousands of miles and produced I don't know how many hours of work without a hitch (except for my mistakes).

(Yes, I know I posted about Speed earlier.) Some redundancies count!


JB Speed School of Engineering

Tablet PC the Ultimate Tool for Mathematics

Fred Feldon of Coastline College offers a set of slides introducing why he thinks Tablet PCs are the ultimate tool for mathematics learning and teaching.

It's a great introduction to uses of Tablets for learners, teachers, administrators, board of education members, and taxpayers.

It'll save hours of research while preparing that proposal to use a Tablet in your classroom, to justify it's value for teaching to a concerned parent, as well as to warm up board of education members to spending resources on Tablets during hard financial times.

Thanks, Fred, for an useful, understandable presentation!

Download slides free

Free Digital Textbook Initiative Complete Submission List

The California Learning Resources Network announced that it has received 20 free digital textbook submissions for California’s Free Digital Textbook Initiative.

They received submissions for all eight eligible subjects.

Eight entries come from the CK-12 Foundation, which creates open source Flexbooks for K-12 education; six entries are from college professors, five of whom have doctorates in their subject areas; and Pearson Education has submitted four textbooks.

The 20 entries include three Biology/Life Sciences and four Calculus textbooks.

CLRN’s science reviews will be conducted over the next few weeks by the Humboldt County Office of Education.

The Kings County Office of Education will review mathematics submissions.

I hope these reviews include content validity, learning efficiency criteria, and identifying which electronic communication formats these digital texts match.

Will these digitized images fit on the screen of a Tablet and other mobile PC? Work with Microsoft XP operating system, Vista, Windows 7? With an iPhone, a Palm?

Can a student with a disability use them?

CLRN will share more about the review process.

Review results are scheduled to be released on August 10th.


California Learning Resources Network

List of submitted digital textbooks for review