Teaching, Technology, and Learning

Kenrick is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage. This blog is about his thoughts on technology with an emphasis on tablets, UMPC's, and other technologies applied to education.

If you use Word to write lecture notes with programming code then you've undoubtedly noticed that AutoCorrect sometimes makes 'corrections' that are incorrect. A typical example is a for loop:

for (i = 0; i < 100; i++)

becomes:

for (i = 0; I < 100; i++)

I received a few emails asking for a version of PenAttention that runs on Windows XP (not Tablet PC edition), primarily for folks using an external tablet like a Wacom USB tablet. Apparently the cursor still gets changed to a dot for those using external tablets, but the Tablet PC extensions that the program assumes exist cause the program to crash.

I've updated my PenAttention program to v1.2. See PenAttention for a description of the original program. The changes are:

1) Dialog box that allows the user to set the opacity, radius of the highlight, and color of the highlight.

2) An option to highlight the mouse in addition to the pen.

3) Fixed issues causing flickering and strange refresh behavior in some applications (e.g. PowerPoint presentation mode, Sticky Notes, PDF Annotator).

Thanks everyone for your feedback, interest, and support for this program!

To download the installer for this program click the link below:

I've updated my program to automatically enable/disable the touch scrollers on the OQO Model 02/e2. The original program was described here:
http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/techteach/?q=node/50

The program was created so a right-handed user can ink with the pen without accidentally hitting the touch scrollers with your palm.

Update 5/10/08:An updated version of this program is available that fixes the bugs described in this post.

I've been using my Tablet PC to deliver lectures for years, and I love having the ability to record lectures, mark-up PowerPoint, and write by hand using OneNote. However, it's always bothered me that the pen cursor is a tiny little dot. An example is shown below from OneNote:

This academic year our university switched to the IDEA (Individual Development & Educational Assessment) system for course evaluations. These are the surveys that students fill out at the end of class to evaluate the course and the instructor. They're important because they give valuable feedback to the instructor and are also used for consideration in promotion and tenure.

The IDEA system was developed at Kansas State. It seems pretty good - the faculty member can customize the survey to the teaching model and learning objectives. For example, if my class requires no written papers, then I can rank lower questions about writing. I can also add my own questions, which makes it quite flexible.

4/24/08 UPDATE - I have posted a newer version at
http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/techteach/?q=node/53

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In the past I've complained about accidentally scrolling on my OQO 02 by hitting the touch scrollers with my palm while inking with the pen. I think I have a solution, which is a program that automatically disables the touch scrollers when the pen is detected near the screen and enabled the touch scrollers when the pen leaves the screen. I've dubbed the program the auspicious name of SCROLLMASTER.

Previously I wrote about inkbook, a note-taking program for the Mac and perfect for the modbook. There's a great discussion on jkontherun about other note-taking programs, specifically curio.

The thread is here: http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/03/is-curio-the-an.html

Well, I returned from SIGCSE last week along with a nasty cold so I haven't been quite motivated enough to post some of the things I saw and learned at the conference.

Overall it was quite fun, although tiring. My oqo was a great companion for this trip and let me get online from pretty much anywhere in town and I also got some work done in the airport and in the airplane. When I had a table and needed to do serious typing I used a bluetooth stowaway keyboard and IOGear bluetooth mouse, which worked great. Otherwise, I used the thumb keyboard, which was actually quite handy in the cramped airplane seat. Despite the small screen I was quite productive and carried only a fraction of the weight if I took my normal laptop.