Teaching, Technology, and Learning

This research prototype from Gizmodo looks pretty sweet:

Update 1/03/2010:Download the latest version from here

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).

Update 1/03/2010:Download the latest version from here

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:

OneNote is probably the pen-enabled application I use the most on my Tablet PC. I use it for delivering lectures and taking notes in meetings. For others, it might be Journal, Evernote, GoBinder, or some other note-taking application.

If you're considering the purchase of a modbook (or waiting for the rumored Mac Tablet) then you'll probably want some type of note-taking app for OS X. Mage Software's inkBook might be just the ticket. It supports all sorts of pens, brushes, and highlighters along with searching of notes using inkwell's handwriting recognition. You can also copy and paste and print to PDF.

InkSeine is a note-taking application that will be released by Microsoft Research on February 15. It is probably most useful as a project management and information management tool. A notebook page can serve as a central place to link to or store snippets of data from documents, web pages, and notes. You can also perform some interesting search capabilities from an InkSeine page.

In Ken Hinckley's blog, Twelve Days of InkSeine, he posts about the merits of using InkSeine for giving presentations:
http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/archive/2008/0...

A Tablet PC book that I helped write two chapters for is coming out in June.

It's geared toward K-12 but is applicable to higher education as well. There are chapters on what is a tablet PC, single-use in the classroom (one tablet primarily used by the instructor), 1:1 usage scenarios (every student is using a tablet pc in the classroom), and deployment issues when you have entire classrooms and student populations using the tablet PC.

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Tablet PCs in K–12 Education

Edited by Michael van Mantgem

With contributions by Dave Berque, Edward J. Evans, Tracy Hammond, Kenrick Mock, Mark Payton, and David S. Sweeney.

At our last department meeting (for which I was absent) our chair revealed that he had received at least six complaints from students about math faculty using Tablet PC's to deliver lectures.

PowerPoint has a feature called "Presenter View" that, not surprisingly, is useful for giving presentations. On PowerPoint 2007 this is an option under the Slide Show menu. Check the "Use Presenter View" box to enable it.

Presenter View expects your computer to be connected to a projector (or external monitor) where the projector is enabled as an extended desktop. This mode doesn't work if the external display mirrors the laptop display. When giving a presentation, the laptop's screen shows a small window of the slide content, navigation controls, and notes. The external or projected screen shows the full slide without the notes or navigation.

Last semester I used OneNote's shared sessions as a way for my class to collaborate among groups during an in-class group exercise. If you're not familar with this feature of OneNote, it's basically a way to share the same notebook with multiple computers. Any of the participants can modify the notebook, add new pages, etc. and the results are broadcast to all participants in near real-time.

It's pretty easy to set up. More information on setting up shared sessions is here: http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc4/v38/kath38o.htm

This article was in my local paper today, written by Eric Gwinn of the Chicago Tribune:

Choose a PC for school: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/columnists/chi-mxa0731digitalju...

Sadly, there is no mention whatsoever of tablet PC's. Shouldn't a tablet be a strong contender for a college-bound student? Have tablets failed to make it in the mainstream, even for an article on laptops for school?