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Best Tablet PC For Classroom Instruction?
dostert writes "With all of the recent hype of multitouch notebooks, the Apple Tablet, the Microsoft Courier, and the CrunchPad, I've been a bit curious about what happened to the good old pen and slate tablet PCs. I'm a mathematics professor at a small college and have been searching for a good cheap tablet (under $1000) which I can use to lecture, record the lecture notes along with my voice, and post up video lectures for the class. I have seen some suggestions, but many are large scale implementations at state universities, something my small private college clearly cannot afford. All I have been able to find is either tiny netbooks (like the new Asus T91), expensive full featured tablets (like the Dell XT), or multitouch tablets, that really wouldn't allow for the type of precision mathematics needs. I know a Sympodium device would work great, but we really can't afford to put one of those in each room, so something portable would be ideal. All I've been left with is considering an HP tx series. It seems nobody has created a new tablet like this in quite sometime, and HP, Fujitsu, and Dell are just doing incremental updates to their old designs. Does anyone have experience with this?"
I have a Motion Computing LE1600. Its an awesome little thing.
Check it out. I got it used for around 400$ with a docking station.
www.gainsaver.com
Motion computing is the only place i have found a true tablet PC that is not a just a laptop with the screen turned over.
It was the HP TC1100. Great tablet. It had a half-size keyboard but didn't feel cramped. Sturdy construction and decent enough battery life for being used. Too bad mine got stolen. I'd say it would probably fit your needs as long as you don't require recent connections or bleeding edge performance.
It had great tracking on it and I regret not getting one earlier in my academic career.
Man...I wish I could find the burglar's who stole it.
import system.cool.Sig;
They're slate PCs and they're damn good.
In my experience, Motion doesn't skimp on hardware, is reliable as hell, and the external batteries will LAST - my little brother's old LE1600 still gets six hours of battery life off the primary and secondary batteries with everything on and cranked up to full (and Win7 Professional).
No matter what manufacturer you go with, I strongly urge that you go to Windows 7 for this - the handwriting support is worlds better than in Vista, and that was a hell of a leap from XP Tablet.
They are kinda expensive, though.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Use a chalkboard or whiteboard. The former is a proven, time-tested education solution. The latter is respectable and it's cheap.
...1 year to 18 months. There is a plethora of tablets about to hit the market it seems obvious to me that waiting will yield much more choice and better value. Prices would fall after a handful of competiting products have gotten on the market. This will also put more pressure on netbooks which will become cheaper, and the low end of the full laptop market will ratchet down in price too. Apple, Crunchpad and Microsoft, would be the three I'd seriously consider. A lean towards the latter two depending on what software you want to run.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
At my former employer, I had a company-issue Toshiba Tecra M4. Hard locks were common (OS was XP), especially in tablet mode for some reason. Docking station was a piece of junk. I wouldn't have one for personal use even if it was free.
Don't buy a hp tx (1000, 2000 series). It will overheat, causing the gpu solder to go bad, leaving you with a dead laptop (intermittently I admit). Screens are also incredibly grainy and something has shielding issues, causing the mouse to jump around. Buy anything but a hp.
> It seems nobody has created a new tablet like this in quite sometime
Because it seems nobody really wants tablet (slate) computers. They are really neat and cool, until you have to *use* them. Then you usually find out that the interface is awkward, viewing the screen is uncomfortable, holding them is strange, and typing on a real keyboard is 100 times faster than trying to "write" or touch virtual keys one at a time.
Sure, there are some specific applications where they work quite well... but there aren't that many such applications. So demand is low and prices are high. This is one reason manufacturers started flirting with so-called "convertible" tablets- really just a standard notebook but with a swivel, flip tablet-like screen. Of course, those have issues too- they tend to be more fragile, more expensive, and heavier than just a plain notebook.
Try these guys.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yc2dwco [norhtec.com]
It's a great price at $435.
I'm sure the battery life is greater than average by looking at the hardware.
It certainly is basic.
And yes, it does run Linux.
Pen based input is a terrible way to input information for most uses. Typing a 'w' takes 1 keypress, while writing a 'w' takes 4 pen strokes. Multiply this hassle times every character you ïenter, and the problem becomes clear. Additionally, your computer doesn't have to try and parse what keystrokes make a 'w' when you type it on a keyboard. The icing on the cake is that the pen based parts of Windows XP Tablet (and I'm guessing Vista for Tablets) are awkwardly bolted on over an operating system designed to be run by mouse and keyboard. Long story short, for most uses a tablet will just frustïrate you to tears.
There are some applications where it makes sense, and maybe complicated mathematics is one of them. Check with your academic tech department and see if they have an old one lying around that you can experiment with (our college did), and try to use it for everyday tasks like email and web surfing before you open your wallet.
If a tablet works for you, there are some good deals on old hardware. I got an old Toshiba M200 on lease buyout for $300 a few years ago, and it still runs flawlessly and does what I need. Also, recording audio from a classroom is an entirely separate problem, and you'll do much better using a separate voice recorder with directional recording and internal noise cancellation for that job.
As someone who works in a multimedia department that co-ordinates AV purchases for a government institution (or at least tries to), my advice is to work with your AV guys on this one. Get a comprehensive solution that works for everyone. Otherwise you'll have a situation where you, the keen individual, will have a working solution that only you can use. Others will want one and either do something themselves (badly) or pressure the AV guys into implementing something too fast, too soon. Then whatever you have done will not work with what they have done.
I see keen individuals all the time. Work with the people whose job it is to get this working.
And what the guy said about waiting 12 - 18 months is spot on. Remember how many touchscreen phones there were and how good they were before the iPhone came along? Exactly. The landscape is about to change and adopting new tech now will be expensive. Wait.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
I work at a school district here in California that we've used OEM'd Gateway M285/M295 tablet PCs for a few years, and they've served their purpose. We've got hundreds of these units.
The good:
They do what they're advertised, and thats it. The math teachers like them, and thats about their only purpose.
The bad:
The drivers are funky. They seem to only work well with the factory image (LOADED with junkware). This makes creating and maintaining software images for the units cumbersome, not to mention the seemingly impossible task of finding a virgin version of WindowsXP Tablet Edition. The displays aren't very bright, which is painful in well-lit classrooms. The physical design (especially the keyboard) doesn't seem to hold well to a lot of use. Battery life is decent.
The worst:
The original OEM who we purchased them through has gone belly up. Even though our laptops had warranties, they all mean nothing now. Gateway doesn't support us. And the pens seem to fail at an alarming rate, and cost $79-99 each.
On the flipside, our district is moving to Mac, and thats been working very well. Apple's support for education makes you wonder why the rest of the industry hasn't caught up (its the customer, stupid!). We're at a standstill right now as to what to do with our aging tablets (that we get ZERO support for now). We don't want to get stuck in the same position as before, but Apple is also a proprietary system (but their support is awesome!!!).
I really, really like to see some good web-apps (ala Google Apps), or mutli-platform/open-source software that the students can use.
'/dev/wit' is not available.
I had a Fujitsu T4210 for a few years and after seeing people struggle with LOUSY HP and Dell notebooks, I was very surprised at how zippy that little tablet was. (Can't comment on the latest round of tablets). It was fairly robust as well... survived a 3 ft plunge onto a concrete floor (I wouldn't recommend it as a regular practice though!)
Whatever you do be sure to uninstall the Norton Security trialware that comes with it. Performance will be significantly better.
Here. Let me save the planet a few man-hours of copy/pasting: Link.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The thinkpad tablets are good. Nice battery life, sturdy as hell, linux compatible. The only think I don't like about it is the resolution [the one I've got is 1024x768, can't seem to work with that low a resolution anymore, but I think they offer a new higher res one now],
i've been studying and searching for good devices.... i only recommend to read on this site maybe the one you are fits the gadgets in here... here yu go mr. dosert...http://www.techandgizmo.com
Dont do it. My school had exactly what your trying to do and they got rid of it because it cost an arm and a leg to do it right. I personally like the feature but they basically needed a dedicated room and production crew to do it. (They did it for a while so students could video commute to class). For me as a TA and a student the best solution has been simply use a projector which can project a piece of paper and scan the paper later and post it online. If you really want some kind of video. The best option ive seen is a laptop with power point hooked up to a projector and a external microphone. If you want a tablet esq feature get a usb drawing pad for 100 bucks....itll save you an arm and a leg.... Its funny around here you see a lot of old professors using tablets etc however most of the younger professors use the old fashioned tech. I think part of growing up with all the technology is realizing when not to use it..
I have had a Fujitsu LifeBook T4215 for nearly 3 years as my primary computer. It's still alive and kickin'.
It's been incredibly reliable, still reasonably powerful, and works great in Linux. I'm currently running Fedora 11 x64 and the tablet features worked with zero configuration.
However, I question the effectiveness of using a tablet PC for instruction. Virginia Tech's College of Engineering has had a policy of requiring the tablet convertible format for several years. Very few students use it for taking notes after freshman year where it is required.
Lesson = Technology doesn't automatically mean your students will be better engaged. It usually means they're surfing the internet or playing solitaire while pretending to pay attention in class.
Wherever the tablet PC went, the multitouch will likely follow, and for the same reasons, many I'm sure are posted in here somewhere by others.
I have been using my ASUS R1F-K049E since August 2007 which works like a charm. I got tired of doing "Insert >> Symbol" for all of the greek letters, which for any engineering equation there's bound to be about 5 per line. The operating system that came with the tablet PC was Windows Vista Business, which doesn't have the bloatware and Windows Media Center, so it wasn't as resource intensive. When Windows 7 came out I've been using it since beta, and even with 2GB of RAM it works great.
When you're looking for tablets, be sure to study how the tablet is designed and how it vents. My ASUS has one large vent that vents outward when you're writing (turned 90 degrees) so it doesn't burn your hand when you're writing for hours. Also beware of what's on the side of the tablet as well. If you hold the tablet against your chest while walking around in the halls while writing (or rushing between classes like I do), then you want to be aware of what buttons you're pressing. My ASUS had a problem because I kept hitting the DVD drive's eject button. But I solved the problem by taking that drive out altogether and getting a second battery to put in. It extended my battery life from 2.5 hours to about 8 hours - which is pretty cool if you're on a long plane ride across the US.
Also, I've tried a few tablets out after I bought my ASUS. The old HP ones didn't have very good response when writing and I kept on having to stab the monitor with my stylus to get any response at all. The ASUS one is pretty awesome, but since it's not multitouch, you can't use your fingers. Also the Fujitsu one's pretty good too.
Lastly, only get a tablet PC if and only if you don't require video acceleration. Most tablet PCs only come with 'integrated video", which is only great for business graphics, but anything that has to do with gaming or modeling/CAD work will make your computer lag. Hope this helps.
I work in the tech department for a small public school district with a heavy emphasis on educational technology integration in the classroom (we have a 1:1 laptop program as well). A few years ago, we did an experiment with tablet PCs, where we purchased 5 different models from the major vendors (IBM, HP, Fujitsu, Acer, and Toshiba), played around with them, and then offered them to a few teachers to try out. The only one we had any success with was the HP tc4200, which was given to a Primary teacher who used it extensively for a year.
The Thinkpad was the best unit in terms of 'feel'- it was light, solid, with a good battery life. However, both the first and second models we got were sent back because of poor performance (very slow to boot up, high latency during operation, and a tendency to run very hot). The Fujitsu was too heavy, as was the Toshiba. The Acer (Travelmate C200) was great in terms of performance (dedicated 256MB Nvidia graphics, 2GB RAM, etc), but was a bit bulky due to its built-in optical drive. In addition, Acer's method of sliding the screen up from the slate position was stupid, locking it into one angle when using the unit as a notebook. I'm using that one as a gaming platform now (three years later!). The HP tc4200 was, quite frankly, the best tablet I have ever used. It's light, sturdy (not quite as solid-feeling as the Thinkpad), and quick. The lady who used it said she never felt it was annoying to carry it around her classroom for most of the day. In addition to the tablet, we gave her a wifi-enabled projector, so she could work untethered while moving about, and this worked perfectly.
My suggestion is to get one of the tc4200's- they are dead cheap these days, and you can upgrade the RAM and hard drive easily if you wish. I have seen them for $400. Not only that, but you can even shoehorn OS X onto them if you are bored- I did that with our for shiggles and it was awesome for a few days before I missed my Macbook Pro too much!
Most projectors these days have built-in wifi for wireless projection (at least from Windows computers!), and this can really make a huge difference for instructors.
From a pedagogical perspective, you can even justify the cheap route and buy a bluetooth-enabled Wacom tablet. Sure, you don't get a screen built in, but for $250 you get the mobility of the tablet, as well as all the functionality of the penabled software such as Smart or Promethean offer. You can mark up notes, documents, etcetera and save your notes, email them to your students, and so on.
But my money's on the tc4200.
"Apparatus dignosco occultus, satis non supernus."
Have you considered using a Cintiq? It's fairly inexpensive by comparison, and should work with just about any computer. I haven't used one myself, but I know a few people who swear by them for working in photoshop, so it should offer the precision you're looking for.
Niche portable devices are never cheap. Your requirements are pretty low. Why not just shop around for some older (cheaper) tech that needs some love? All it needs to do is record sound. Portable usb microphone? HP Compaq Tablet PC Tc4200 is just a hair over $700 used. How much more power do you need for notetaking/voice recording/video playback/mathmatica? Drop in 2 gigs of ram (the max) and windows 7 and you are set. Judging from prices I doubt any newer models will get much cheaper and will likely hover in the $1500 range or so. Personally I don't see this sort of thing taking off. Graphic designers might drool over the idea, but the average user needs a keyboard. As another has suggested a wacom tablet may be a pretty good compromise, or, even alternatively, a cheap desktop PC with a touchscreen display. Throw in a cheap project and you can do a lot of things. Though not as portable, you could easily put it on an AV cart and wheel it around. It could easily be cheaper than $1000 as long not taking it home isn't an issue. Not as sexy, but I think on your budget you might want to start looking at compromises given whats's on the market right now and what it costs. A $500 laptop and even a $500 touchscreen would meet your needs pretty well. I've reread your question several times now and I can't seem to figure out if your are either buying the tablet for yourself or planning a buy for your department. Hope that gives you some ideas.
zosxavius photography
Biggest Carbon-based Tablet for a child - Big Chief writing tablet.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
For my mathematics lectures I have been very happy with my Wacom Cintiq 12WX. It is portable, has a reasonable surface area for writing, and a nice "feel". My personal preference is for Smart Technologies Notebook 10 software but other vendors, such as Interwrite, have similar products. The Smart Technologies software does require a $300 license when used on a non-Smart branded tablet so together with the $1000 for the Cintiq 12WX my setup is a little beyond your stated budget.
I have had the same dilemma. I teach an algorithms course at UVA; it is math- and proof-centric. I wanted the ability to "write like one might on a black board" but to also record my writing and my audio so that my lectures can be easily posted online for students to review later. I have used several different tools for this task:
(1) Toshiba Tecra? Windows tablet/Powerpoint/Camtasia. I would make my slides in Keynote. Export to Powerpoint. Give lecture on the Toshiba, use Camtasia to record, and then export to a flash and ipod format for the web. The best part of this is that Powerpoint+Camtasia+Tablet is well-integrated. Powerpoint allows you to mark up a slide using the tablet and save the strokes. Keynote and Powerpoint-on-Mac do not have this feature. However, this laptop belonged to a colleague. It was old, faulty, and involved hassles. Fonts would be routinely messed up between Keynote and Powerpoint. I researched new windows tablets to buy, but could not bring myself to buy one. I happen to use a Mac; I feel anxiety and unctuousness when I have to interact with a windows interface.
(2) Instead, I purchased a Wacom Cintiq 15" display. You can connect it to any laptop, and you can write on it like a tablet. It is also pressure sensitive; a pleasure to use. I used this with my Airbook in the following bizarre combo: Airbook-->VGA splitter--1-->projector and --2--> to Cintiq. Thus, I would get one presenter display for the airbook and one screen on the Cintiq/projector that was public. Unfortunately, Keynote did not allow writing on slides. Either did Powerpoint-on-mac to my surprise! I tried various "screen grafitti" applications on top of Keynote, but none of them would allow the markup to be saved. Finally, I came upon the "Jarnal" program---an open source program written in Java---that allows a notebook functionality. You can import PDF files into it and annotate them. Thus, my workflow is something like: Make slides in keynote--->Export to PDF--->open as background in Jarnal--->Lecture. Jarnal can also record the strokes and play them back. However, I found that a screen capture program "iShowU HD" could capture both audio and everyone that was presented. I would then transcode this into flash and post. This worked for 1.5 semesters. Jarnal is sometimes flaky. It does not render PDF correctly all the time. However, it exports your strokes to PDF, and it saves them in an easy to read .jaj file for future processing. We also use jarnal to grade homeworks online and return them online (no paper printing!),
(3) My current setup is this: Axiotron Modbook + Jarnal + Camtasia for Mac. The Modbook is a mac tablet. I thought it would be fantastic, but it hasnt really solved all of the problems. The pen/tablet interface is fine on the Modbook---but a little flaky sometimes. Jarnal is open source; and I really believe in using open source when I can. The recently released Camtastia for Mac works very well, but misses an important feature that the Windows version has: it allows the slides or pages that you use in your lecture to be bookmarked. The Mac version, however, is intuitive to use for me, and I have given 9 lectures so far without too many problems. It is also very convenient to come to class with just a tablet (instead of the contraption in (2)). You can see the results of some of these lectures from say http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~shelat/4102/2009/09/23/l9/#more-179 (skip over the first 15 min which is a guest speaker discussing if you want to see the jarnal/writing part). I do not use keynote animations (only drawings of data structures, algorithms, etc). Thus, the setup is the best one for me overall.
(4) Cheapest and surprisingly good solution: The Livescribe pen. (I received one to try for free, but it is only $129). You must write on special paper with dots. The pen has a camera and a microphone. You can give lecture and use one of those "overhead camera" contraptions that takes a picture of what you are wri
Dumb name but atleast their product has actually shipped. Of course it's an ARM processor so it won't run Windows except for whatever their portable thing is. It's also a little light on ram and disk space but I think if I needed it, I'd just use it to VNC/NX/RDP into an actual workstation to do those tasks. http://www.alwaysinnovating.com
It's basically a pen input that allows you to record voice as well. Perfect for a student or teacher and very afordable.
http://www.livescribe.com/index.html
I have an ASUS R1F and have been really happy with it. You might also consider a standalone tablet, there are several out there that are designed to be used in the classroom, such as the MOBI from eInstruction. Combined with the Workspace software that comes with it, it would meet your goals. Although no multi-touch but the cost is no where near the price of a whole new machine.
MOBI
http://einstruction.com/products/interactive_teaching/mobi/index.html
A notebook is a tablet with useful entry devices (keyboard, trackpad) and a monitor stand (the base), and can do everything else you asked for.
I have the misfortune to have an HP TX, from the 2xxx series. They have massive overheating problems, some of them have cores that won't actually run at the advertised frequency, and worse still, the wacom layer will NOT work properly due to the overheating problems.
The way they're designed, the primary vent is on the rear right-hand side of the laptop. If you use the laptop for a while and it starts getting hot (and boy does it get hot), that vent will screw with the wacom layer, causing your cursor to jump to the lower-right corner of the screen and right- and left-click randomly in that area. Yeah, right there, where the system tray is. You can imagine the problems this causes.
The only way to prevent this from happening is to disable the wacom layer entirely, in which case you have an expensive, underpowered laptop with a bright screen and a single shoddy hinge assembly. No touch or wacom interface at all. It completely defeats the purpose of having a tablet PC.
I contacted HP about this several times and they refused to admit that it was their problem, despite the fact that numerous other people have complained about it as well. It's a crippling defect. This crappy product and their crappy service have completely turned me off of all HP products. Do not even consider the TX series.
http://www.tenjou.net/
My kid just got an HP TX2000 from eBay for ~$500 to do his flash graphics, college physics, diff-eq's and such. It's a 12" screen, dual cores, has a decent graphics card for a laptop, and seems to work pretty well for him on the whole. When he's not doing his homework, he's playing games on the thing even though he has a new quad-core desktop with whizzy graphics just down the stairs, so clearly the performance is more than adequate. Much to my surprise, I see him using the pen as much as the keyboard, so the pen interface is not a case of "seemed like a good idea at the time." Too soon to say anything about reliability, though. Best of luck in your search. - Tim.
Are we talking tablet or smart boards that can capture your lectures? What about a wii remote and infrared ped?
http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/
cheers
For those of you reading this from the student's perspective, allow me to tell you a story. It's short.
I'm currently a math student. This spring, I took set theory from a professor who eats symbol spaghetti for breakfast. As an experiment I decided to take all my notes on my laptop. Not by drawing with a tablet pen, but just by typing.
And you know what? It worked impressively well, thanks to lyx. Once you learn a few hotkeys and all the \kitchensink latex math names, it's no problem to keep up with a fast paced math lecture. The only thing I couldn't do was draw figures, but seeing as it was set theory this wasn't a big deal.
As for the original question, consider preparing slides beforehand with something like Beamer, or using pen/paper or a small whiteboard under the document camera, before jumping into something as complicated as trying to record everything from a tablet computer.
I've been using the Livescribe since June of this year in my meetings, and it'd be perfect for this use, particularly if you're the lecturer (vs. listening to the lecturer in a large hall).
Livescribe records your handwriting and your audio, synchronizes them, allow you to play back your audio from any point in the recording by touching the spot in the notes later (on the notebook, or on your computer), and allows you to upload the notes and audio to a community site. It does a really good job at recording your voice, and there's room for many hours of it on the pen. It's a good writing instrument (much better than the cheap-ballpoint tip in the "Fly Pentop" which uses the same handwriting technology, but doesn't record audio, isn't as polished an experience).
You'll want the pen, and a few of the hardback journals (so they provide something solid to write on as you pace or stroll).
the 2GB pen (vs. the 1GB) is $199, can find it at any Target, and comes with one Livescribe notebook (you'll need to use Livescribe's special paper, but they offer a number of good, flexible and classy options).
Much lighter than a pentop, and arguably less fragile, less of a theft target.
Only downsides:
These things don't stop the pen from being quite useful. More info at Livescribe site.
i teach economics at the university level, and i have a lenovo x200. it is way outside the $1000 range. it has a wacom screen and the stylus is very precise (we do lots of crazy math too ya know). my normal computer is a mac, but i LOVE this thing. lightweight, LONG battery life (5hrs easily), and very sturdy construction. its currently running vista and i've had no problems (core 2 duo 2.0, 4gb ram)
i'd either save up (or convince them to give you more money - if your university is in the US and receives perkins funding, you might go that route. as long as you teach perkins eligible students, your grant administrator can probably find the cash (it might take bribing them with chocolate though..lol)) or, if there is a PC in the room invest in a wireless/bluetooth tablet that you can just carry to the classroom with you. you are going to have a hella-hard time finding all that you need for less than $1500 (unless you go used - our university wont buy used), and one of those cheap ones will just fall apart. one of my colleagues got one of the $1000 HP offerings and HATES it. a year later, the screen flickers, the battery sucks, and the tablet is not very sensitive.
good luck!!!!
"I want to buy the best , what should I get?"
My advice... wait about... 1 year to 18 months
That is a worthless truism, in effect for the last several decades (if not much longer), and will continue to be true until technology stops progressing. Anyone who answers with an honest opinion on a product actually available on the market has a better answer (in the spirit of the question) than one of "wait".
As far as your sig Mankind can no longer expand quantitatively, we must grow qualitatively, well that may be a laudable goal, good luck with a politically correct implementation.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Wacom drawing tablets are input devices which are designed to let you draw and write naturally. Unlike a tablet PC you don't get to see your notes appear at the tip of your stylus, but it is easy to get used to watching the computer screen as you write. A basic Wacom Bamboo tablet (what I have, and I use it for taking notes and making diagrams) is about $80.
After spending about a week searching for a decent netbook I came across this little beasty:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Notebook/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=3191
10.1" screen and a decent amount of grunt behind it. The reviews I've read on it so far seem to be positive and I've ordered one for myself since the only other option was the T91, which you mentioned. The difference in features between the two was more than enough to justify the higher price on the T1028X, although the clincher for me was the screen.
Since I got mine for under AU$900 it would seem to fit the bill quite nicely for you :)
The Refined Geek - Technology, Finance, Space and everything in between
Definately Windows7 if Math is important.
There are tons of low and mid and high end slate and flip/convertable tablets that are lightweight and you can find older models from 2007/2008 for around $600 to newer top of the line models for as expensive as you want to go.
The trick is the OS, and Vista was a step up from XP TabletPC Edition, and Windows7 is another step forward with some really nice Math input tools.
Here are some of the features, scroll down to see the Math Input Panel...
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/04/23/ink-input-and-tablet.aspx
Also go to YouTube and search Vista Handwriting, you will find several videos of people using Vista with both Tablet PCs, and even Wacom digitizers with Vista and demonstrating how amazing the accuracy is, especially when a human can't read the handwriting, but Vista does just fine. I had a customer that signs her name so that her Capital E looks like a C at first glance, yet Vista and Win7 knew it was an E the first attempt without any training, and that is what is great, as you don't even have to go through a training process, you just start using it, and it adapts and keeps learning on the few things it might miss the first time around.
(Windows handwriting recognition system is based on 'ink' and uses all information gathered from stroke pressure to direction to speed to figure out what letter you are attempting to make, so that even if you have horrible handwritting, it will still figure out what you meant. )
Microsoft has been doing handwriging technologies since PenWindows from the 3.x days, and the XP TabletPC revamp of the technology was a new generation of computer usage. Vista and Win7 continue forward with these features included as standard features in the OSes, and all it takes is having a TabletPC/Digitizer driver installed and the features automatically just turn themsevles on.
PS The math formula stuff in Win7 is quite fun, and there are also other pieces of software from Microsoft, like the included Journal or even OneNote from Office that are amazing with a TabletPC. You can even find some really fun physics based 'object' drawing tools from Microsoft Research, and literally draw a ball and have it bounce around the screen or demonstrate gravity or motion.
If you're planning on using this tablet as a teaching tool and nothing else, I suggest getting an used X61 tablet. They're well under $1000 now and they're portable enough to be brought from class to class easily. They're also extremely durable. I'm using a 5 year old T42 right now with no signs of breaking down.
If this were to be my only computer, it wouldn't be a tablet. Nothing currently available that I've seen can fully replace a desktop, or laptop, computer for all the tasks you're likely to want to do with it. Apple may finally change that game, but Apple hasn't arrived yet, and will likely be pricey when it does. I wouldn't want to type in a term paper on a tablet.
Were it me, I'd just get an inexpensive netbook for regular computing tasks, and an iPod Touch for music, video, all kinds of eBooks from Kindle to Stanza, and save the rest of my money for when a good tablet finally does arrive.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I teach chemistry at a small college and have been using the combination of prepared notes in OneNote and the tablet to write on them in class. I use Camtasia to record the lectures and post PDFs of the completed files as well as audio podcasts and screencast videos onto the web for the students. I have a simple Toshiba Portege tablet which serves its purpose very well, although it is taxed by compressing the video. Toshiba still sells a convertible Portege laptop/tablet like what I use for $1200 - I'm sure you could find a used one on ebay for much less.
I would recommend a tablet highly over a dedicated in-classroom solution because it has the flexibility of moving from classroom-to-classroom, as well as recording some dedicated online-only lectures at home (like I was just doing tonight).
Check out http://webs.anokaramsey.edu/aspaas/2061/ for the stuff I've been doing. This is for a hybrid (half-online) organic chemistry course that only meets one day a week for lecture and lab. A course like this probably wouldn't be possible without the tablet handwriting and screencasting tech.
I've had experience with HP, Acer, Fujitsu, Itronix, Toshiba, and Motion Computing. Our customers have purchased hundreds of tablets and I hear it when they don't work as advertised.
Do youself a favour and get a convertable with a built in webcam. I've seen refubished ones on Ebay for around $600.
The expensive ones are better but not usually worth the extra money. You can replace an Acer or Fujitsu three times for the price of a high end Toshiba or Motion machine.
Avoid machines with 1.8" drives like the plague. They are SLOW and usually around 80GB.
Make sure it supports 2GB ram, 1GB is usually enough though.
A 4 hour battery really lasts for 2 hours.
Price out replacement batteries. You will need to replace it every year. The ones I bought off Ebay are as good as the OEM ones for 1/2 the price.
Make sure it is visible in bright light and sunlight.
Call the support line before you buy to see if you get through. I found Acer support the best YMMV.
Slate tablets are useless.
I have not used Livescribe recommended by another poster. But it seems to me you will not be able to record your audio unless you actually walk to the blackboard with your tablet. Of course if you are always in tablet mic range then it might be okay.
Another thing is quality. You can get a pin mic (see audio technica brand or there are others) and voice recorder (they all have sd cards and usb these days, the most popular one for business will record 1000 hours or less at MP3 quality, best I am told is Olympus but there are other brands and some are pretty small).
This might give you better quality and you can pin the mic to your lapel or shirt front while slipping the recorder in your pocket. But if you can indeed just use tablet for all drawings and always be near it you might have good enough quality plus be able to synchronize. Of course this assumes you have a way for the student to play it back. I think personally it would probably be much better quality if you do this:
Create written course notes in advance with nicely written equations etc. on your tablet
Draw on blackboard with tablet and record that, give this and the advance notes to the students on your course website.
Use voice recorder to get high quality sound and dump the sd card to your website. Verbally say which page of notes, or blackboard drawing, you are talking about.
Optionally have a video camera synched to voice recorder, depends on how animated you are and how important are the gestures at the blackboard. Maybe not so important.
Then organize the files on your site, with a wiki or blog and maybe a rss feed to let people know when it is updated. Maybe scribd would be useful too.
I saw some info at
http://www.slideshare.net/hebertm3308/interactive-classrooms-presentation
and http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listweb20s.html
From a student.
Don't do it. If you want a new toy buy one and play with it, but leave it out of the class room.
I've been through several "let's get all high tech with the teaching" initiatives, and they all failed miserably.
The vast majority of the class ended up suffering through the mandatory attendance lectures and took notes from the book instead.
There is no concept in mathematics at that level that you cannot teach with a stick and a large patch of dirt.
Indoors, a chalkboard will do.
Any additional complexity or whizz bang gadgetry is at best a distraction and at worst a complete waste of your student's time.
I used a Thinkpad X61 tablet pc for note taking and lecture recording while doing my bachelors in EE, and still use it as a regular notebook and note taking now as a grad student. I recently loaded Windows 7 on a SSD and it flies. The screen's 1400x1050, so no screen real-estate complaints here. Most of the time I type my notes, but when I need to write down equations and diagrams, I flip it around and draw them, then go back to typing when I need to. It's fast enough to be a regular use noebook, especially with the new SSD. I love it. The sad thing is they don't make 12.1 inch IPS high res screens anymore, as the latest incarnation, the X200 tablet, uses a 1280x800 screen that's far inferior. Still I think it's worth a look.
Don't use technology as a crutch to prop up poor teaching skills.
As a Fujitsu reseller, I've shipped quite a few of their tablets over the years, both slate and convertible. We have a Primary school in Cornwall successfully using Stylistic slates with kids on a daily basis, but price has always been the issue. They have currently got a convertible thing called the Lifebook T1010, which is sub-£1000 (we're nearly at parity, aren't we...), but its battery life is crap and it lacks the modular bay of the T5010. Upcoming to launch alongside Win7, however, is a T4x10 range, which looks a lot better. Should be reasonably sub-£1k. As an alternative to the Sympodium, try the Interwrite iPanel. Cheaper, better and doesn't have nasty SMART software... And if anyone can tell me why the keyboard on my old Lifebook T3010 has died after I spilt a cup of tea on it...
We recently deployed some in-house high-tech classrooms with video/lecture recording in Truman State, MO. Professors and students *love* it. There were some advanced math courses going on and the students really like the ability to interact in-class as well as review the lecture after each class session.
The interactive equipments we used are pretty cheap, but you will need to talk with the AV/Instructional design guys in order to set them up. We used the equipments from Smart Technologies to provide an large, beautiful interactive whiteboard. It's not very expensive and is under $1000, provided you already have a projector in the room - and you have a huge, wonderful thing to write on. If you want to go with an even cheaper option, Smarttech provides a thing called the AirLiner to provide Wacom tablet alike functionalities over bluetooth (that you can use while walking around the class and hand to students as well!) The deal? They come with a software suite that is specifically designed for classroom use, which is not groundbreaking but is really a joy to use. Basically it will turn the whiteboard to a notebook and a presentation platform with as many pages as you like with as many types of multimedia contents as you like. Then it will export lecture notes to a PDF file that you can provide the students to download and review later on. The software also runs on Linux and Mac with no problems at all if those are one of your concerns.
For audio capture, again you really need to talk with the AV guys, if they have some decent clip-on wireless microphones laying around. We use a dedicated system to capture the audio (and classroom video also) but I imagine the same functionalities can be achieved by plugging the receiver into the computer, and record the audio using a software application such as Audacity.
I really think you should reconsider the good old blackboard. I have probably attended 500 lectures, and the top 10 have either used a blackboard or nothing at all. I think the fundamental principle for every good lecture is a common focus between the lecturer and the audience. This would be impossible if you had your eyes on your tablet while the class was paying attention to a large screen. The lecturers activity level is another important factor. Technology makes the lecturer more passive, and the subject more boring. This is why so many power point presentations is a drag.
this a great tablet, used mine daily for 4 years before the graphics chip partially failed, (probably the ball grid array) 12" 1440x1080 screen with integrated wacom tablet.. writing looks and feels like a fineliner pen, dedicated vram. can ebay them cheap now performs great with extra ram used it teaching graphics.
Or you could bypass the issue all together and go with a "digital paper" solution. I think the questioner is mistaken asking "what is the best tablet PC", and instead should be asking "what is the best method of achieving what I want". Solutions like Oxford Papershow use a form of patterned paper (very faint) that you draw on with a bluetooth-enabled pen, and it then transforms pretty much any computer into a tablet. You have to use it to get a real feel for it, but it's incredibly easy to set up (at least the Oxford Papershow tool) and you can use it on as many or any computers you want. Arrive in lecture theatre, plug in USB dongle, spend three minutes setting it up and you're good to go. You buy the initial device (pen and USB dongle combo) for around UK£100, I think. Then pads of the special paper are around UK£10 for a pad of a 100 sheets, I think. It's an expense, but it's upfront and works out okay actually. Certainly better than a lot of ongoing licences depending on how much you use. You can even print out copies of your slides onto the special paper in advance so that you're drawing on your powerpoint slide or whatever. The whole thing can be recorded, you can use it as a normal interface like a mouse, it's really surprisingly good.
The above sounds like a sales pitch. I have no connection to the company though our university is now trialling the product. I would rate it as better than spending the money on a tablet for a lot of people's needs. Windows only so far as I know, but I could be wrong.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I'm not sure why the story mentions "the Apple Tablet" as such a product doesn't exist, and is only a hallucination in the fevered minds of rumormongers.
Moreover, why the obsession with tablets? They can be kind of neat for some things, but I think the submitter is too attached to a particular form factor, or a fantasy of how things should be, rather than actual usefulness and educational outcomes.
... and then they built the supercollider.
The Dell XT and XT2 and the HP TX all use roughly the same digitizer, though apparently different revisions in each. I have used a XT and XT2, though mostly in linux. I can say that I've seen multitouch function in windows, though I can't comment about stability for more than a few seconds of play. Between the two, the xt2 is an incremental improvement: its considerably lighter, a bit faster, and the hard drive moved from an obscure "standard" to a SATA connector (which may more convenient for long term maintenance). The one advantage of the xt is that its now considerably cheaper. If your primary usage is as a tablet, the dell laptops do not have a rigid latch to hold the lid in place, just magnets and rubber bumps/guides. It stays pretty well, but the sturdy latch on the thinkpad convertibles is better for prolonged use as a tablet.
To stay within the $1000 a x61t might be an option. I got mine half a year ago for roughly 800â, so I think it should be possible to get one in the US for that figure in USD or less. Only thing I'm not sure about, is whether you can find a place where new ones are still sold, they have been phased out. The shop where I got mine doesn't offer it anymore....
Touchbook http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
I don't know if you are platform dependant yet this makes a great deal for you if you want a tablet like device.
Another option is Notebook, which is a Mac app. I can record lecutures. It really functions like a real life notebook. http://circusponies.com
Why dont you use the Nokia N900 for all your stated purposes.
Given that it is running a variant of Debian Linux (Maemo), and has a 5MP Carl Zeiss camera (which has provably excellent video recording , it takes care of your video needs.
It is also multitasking, so you can switch on your video recorder and flip to your notes.
Given its pre-release price of 650$ (without contract) and the fact that the developer market for Maemo is a given, considering it's Debian roots, I'd say it makes for a pretty decent solution for you.
You need to look at educational technology companies rather than laptop manufacturers.
All of these companies Prometheanworld.com, Smarttech.com and eInstruction.com are doing some amazing things. Whether you get an Interactive Whiteboard, a slate or something in between they are certainly popular with schools in the UK and US. I think about 70% of classrooms have an IWB in the UK now, so I don't think you'll be breaking new ground.
If you wanted to advertise (or hype up) the existence of a certain Microsoft tablet which was under development... maybe a great idea would be to write an article for Slashdot like this:
"With all of the recent hype of multitouch notebooks, the Apple Tablet, the Microsoft Courier, and the CrunchPad, I've been a bit curious about what happened to the good old pen and slate tablet PCs. I'm a mathematics professor at a small college and have been searching for a good cheap tablet (under $1000) which I can use to lecture, record the lecture notes along with my voice, and post up video lectures for the class. I have seen some suggestions, but many are large scale implementations at state universities, something my small private college clearly cannot afford. All I have been able to find is either tiny netbooks (like the new Asus T91), expensive full featured tablets (like the Dell XT), or multitouch tablets, that really wouldn't allow for the type of precision mathematics needs. I know a Sympodium device would work great, but we really can't afford to put one of those in each room, so something portable would be ideal. All I've been left with is considering an HP tx series. It seems nobody has created a new tablet like this in quite sometime, and HP, Fujitsu, and Dell are just doing incremental updates to their old designs. Does anyone have experience with this?"
Well done.
Can handwriting recognition be used only as an indexing tool? There is no point in changing what you actually see in the handouts.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone's comments. I'm going to look further into a lot of your suggestions, but I see a few problems with some of them. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but these new "multitouch" devices won't support pen type input...right? They're basically going to work like a big iPod Touch, where you'll be using your fingers to navigate. Second, I looked into Wacom, because their add ons are extremely precise, but I believe I'd have to write while looking at the projector screen. To me, this is unacceptable, since I can't see my class (which, at 8am, is a HUGE advantage to actually face the class!). My college could like to increase the number of "remote" classes we can teach, so I need to get onboard soon. Odds are I'll try out one of these machines around $1000 and then apply for some grants to try to implement some of your "better" suggestions. I've been combing blogs and sites for two weeks trying to find some good info. I should have known better and just posted this to slashdot in the first place! Thank you everyone!
The Nokia N800 linux tablet has both touch and tablet screen. How did they realize that, I do not know. It seem that they left this concept on the newer N810 which only has stylus. All the new gadgets indeed seem to have only touchscreens for fingers and no stylus. They want us to write by fingers! Well, not really. They now only address the entertainment and browsing and social media..... I face the same problems as you. What I do is to use Macbook with an external Wacom drawing tablet. One can scribble equations and small drawings, exactly as I would do on the blackboard or on paper. Mac has this fantastic screen capture (but you must reprogram the hotkey, otherwise your fingers get confused by command shift 3 or whatever they had as default) and you paste the drawings quickly into OpenOffice or any other software which can import pictures directly. It is not really designed for such use, but it works...... It is a pity that the designers do not follow us who are doing real mathematics or physics (or chemistry) work. The entertainment and "user experience" seem to be the only leads the designers follow - except naturally the typing. But it takes time to type an equation, while it takes no time to write it.
Take a look at the Fujitsu Stylistic Line. They offer slate tablets in addition to traditional tablets. We just picked up several at work and they're very cool devices. The latest model, 6012 I believe, starts around $2000, but I'm fairly sure you could find previous models that are more in your price range. I'll also say that if it counts for anything our experience with their support staff has been better than most companies I've dealt with.
I work at a university for technical support for the Math Dept. also. We just got 14 Lenovo x200 Tablets that have been really good. They are little expensive, but all schools should have some form of technology fee being charged to the students that goes to a pot for the colleges to buy stuff for teaching purposes. If not, then that must be a tiny school then. The school should spend the money on something with better quality, that last 2-4 years, not something that'll break in 1-2 years. I'm not saying Lenovo is top notch, but we had a contract with them, so we got a deal on the 14 tablets.
At our school we distribute Lenovo Tablets (now the x200) to all students majoring in the sciences, with great success. It is sturdy, fast, the battery lasts long enough, and the pen features work well. Only drawback is the external DVD. I myself teach mathematics at the College level using a Toshiba M400, which is just great: fast, reliable, and it has a great solution for a sturdy hinge mechanism that does no wobble at all.
As software I use a program called DyKnow (http://www.dyknow.com), which let's you deliver your lecture in handwriting mode via projector. If students brought their own laptops to class (Tablet or otherwise) they can "join" my session and have my lecture notes delivered to their screen in real time, where they could add private notes to my slides as I broadcast them. I can even share control of the screen with any student(s) to allow for class participation where I can pose a question and have one or more students work it out with me, while everyone watches. DyKnow adds features like quick polling, supports group work, lets students submit their own work (like an in-class quiz) to me electronically, and can record your voice and synchronizes it with your notes during later playback. It even has an optional feature to "lock down" other laptops that have joined a session so they can only use programs from an approved list. Also, if a student can't make it to class (H1N1 anyone?) they can join my session in real time from their room.
The program is free but to use the interactive classroom features you need to have a server license for yourself and the students. We use a hosted solution, so there is little overhead on our side. I've been using DyKnow exclusively for all my math lectures for two years now, and the students absolutely love it.
I'd highly recommend you check out Classroom presenter from the University of Washington. It's what I and some friends have used previously with our tablets (currently a tc4200 but previously a tc1100) to give in-class presentations.
I do security
Fujitsu makes the best tablets hands down, but they are pricey. If you want a cheaper tablet, Kohjinsha makes netbooks that have flip around screens that turn into tablets. I don't know if they are sold wherever you happen to be living (America) but they are cheap and good.
They may not cover all your needs, but hey...
Taste good, very cheap, awesome experience, great user interaction an you'll feel good after eating one
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
Not sure if this will help but FWIW:
http://learn.bowdoin.edu/computer-science/tablets/index.shtml
> Round Table Project Executive Summary
> For the Round Table Project, Professors Adriana Palacio and Stephen Majercik re-designed the introductory-level computer science course to become an interactive, problem-based learning class. By making use of HP Tablet PCs and Dyknow software, the instructors increased the engagement of students with a wide range of knowledge and skills. The primary goal of Round Table was to facilitate a positive learning experience for students, who have varying degrees of exposure to computer science, in order to encourage prolonged study and interest in computer science.
The HP tx line has an overheating problem that fries the wifi/motherboard, and HP refuses to issue a recall. Also, they're tech support on the issue is terrible, and any repair leads them to re-image your hard drive. At least that's what they did to me.
I am currently a college student, and am at least minoring in math (Considering a double major). When I started I was 10 years out of high school and had forgotten so much that I had to start way back at Math 055 (Basic Algebra). Since then I have taken, in succession, Intermediate Algebra, College Algebra, Trig, Calc I, Calc II, Calc III, Linear Algebra, Proofs, ODE, and am now in Discrete Math. What I have discovered for myself, and from discussions from other students is that we learn the most and the best from instructors that use a good old fashioned chalkboard. It slows you down enough that we can take good notes and still follow what you are doing, it gives you something big enough to clearly point at when you are talking about a piece of what you are doing, and it largely prevents you from just displaying preprepared notes that you post online afterward and hope we manage to follow. If you feel we should have material supplemental to our notes and the textbook, make a handout or post such material online. Math has been successfully taught for ages using a chalkboard. Perhaps there are improvements that can be made to how we teach math, but believe me, switching to a tablet PC is not one of them.
Then you usually find out that the interface is awkward, viewing the screen is uncomfortable, holding them is strange, and typing on a real keyboard is 100 times faster than trying to "write" or touch virtual keys one at a time.
The problem is most people don't know where or when to use slate tablets despite the fact that there are plenty of situations where they do excel and because of that they often compromise by using a Smartphone in those situations or just waiting until they get stationary. If you are comparing them to a notebook then that is probably the first mistake. If you are at a table or a desk you probably don't need a slate tablet. However if you are standing, walking or in a situation where you need to hold your pc with one hand, then using a notebook is not only awkward, strange, and uncomfortable, but it's dangerous. Basically tablets allow you to use a full pc in situations where you can't easily use a notebook. It's not a rare situation because smartphones attempt to do the same thing, and as much as people love their capabilities, smartphones just don't work for many types of applications. Consequently many smartphones have been moving in the direction of a slate tablet. It's almost as if they are working backwards towards a technology we already had.
Do NOT purchase an HP TX-series laptops. They contain the well-known Nvidia GPU Defect that will quite literally cause your system to degrade from overheating just after a years' (standard warranty) time.
The best part is, HP has been -paid- to fix this problem for their customers, and yet they refuse to believe the TX-series is flawed. Just look at the Support Forums link off of HP.com and see how many complaints this dismal-of-a-company is getting. What a debacle.
I can tell you that as a MS in ICS student, I wouldn't have passed my courses or comprehensive exam if not for my Toshiba Tecra M4 combined with JPG exports of classroom slides and M$ OneNote. (drag and drop the JPG slides into OneNote, then mark them up -- all while recording using OneNote)
I haven't seen it posted yet, but I strongly recommend the Toshiba Portege M200.
Pros:
-Cheap, cheap, cheap. You can get an M200 on eBay for less than $300 after shipping. I've seen them for as low as $200.
-Highest screen resolution by far of all tablets. (1400 x 1050) (There are a couple of others with this resolution, but they are rare and a lot more expensive and/or plagued with hardware issues. The Tecra M4 suffers from a common video card burn out problem, and the Levono models are in the $1000 range if you can find them.) Some people don't like such a high resolution screen because it makes text and icons quite small, but I find it very comfortable and I really appreciate the gobs of extra screen real estate such a high resolution translates into. It also lends itself well to graphic arts.
-The model is durable and reliable. These are solid machines with an excellent track record and no hardware issues of note.
Cons:
-Drivers can be a fiddle to get working properly.
-Screen does not have a wide viewing angle and the screen protector has a 'graininess' to it which some find annoying. (I don't).
-No internal CD/DVD drive.
Other than that, the Portege M200 is a great little starter computer. I picked one up just to experiment with and it has become my machine of choice. My desktop system sits idle now as my entire workflow has moved over to the tablet. I use it for graphic arts and design, and I have it mounted to my drafting board with a raised skirt to make the screen flush with the table surface, and an external keyboard mounted above it. It works very well.
Cheers!
Here at Penn State several of the electrical engineering professors use IBM tablets. They're nice and tiny, last all day, and are possibly the best teaching tool I've come across. I personally own a Toshiba tablet, and while it was pretty good for a while, the hardware has failed constantly. The support was pretty good, but the computer is struggling now that the 3 year warranty is up (dead accelerometer, pen pressure sensitivity not working, screen is wobbly, fixed the CD-ROM myself). I've heard a lot of good things about the IBM models, namely the x61 I believe.
My one tip? For God's sake, don't be that teacher that sits through class endlessly trying to figure out how to use it. Don't introduce it into your classroom until you have the routine down. I had one professor that decided to use it for a signals and systems review, and at least half the time spent was him trying to figure out how to use the computer. He was more of a side walk chalk on the board kind of guy...
I teach using a refurbished Lenovo X200 convertible tablet; I got it for $930 from CDW-G using our university discount. It has some weird quirks, but it is a reasonable machine.
You can spend a lot more on an X200 that has all of the accessory features, but I see a new one on CDW-G right now for $971 (and we get a few percent off that).
I prepare the background slides in LaTeX, and hand out a partially blank lecture; this has some titles and the main results. I then annotate the lectures using PDF annotator, save the annotated version, and post both to the website. It is also straightforward to use PPT to record the lecture with audio.
The student reviews have been positive on this approach; it avoids some of the frantic writing to record derivations and main results, but also avoids the canned nature of pure-presentation teaching approaches in which students just sit back and watch you magically work out relationships and problems. You can adjust the percentage written and typeset in advance between 0-100%.
You can see how it works out here:
https://courseworks.columbia.edu/cms/outview/courseenter.cfm?no=ELENE3106_001_2009_3 (this semester)
https://courseworks.columbia.edu/cms/outview/courseenter.cfm?no=ELENE3106_001_2008_3 (last year)
Right now my employer, the largest college in the state is heading towards using Mobi tablets from eInstruction. http://www.einstruction.com/products/interactive_teaching/mobi/index.html Very much like a wireless Wacom tablet, the only thing you need is a computer with a USB port for its RF adapter and a way to show the video out of the computer. The software that comes with the Mobi has all that is needed for a electronic whiteboard,annotate power points, pdfs, etc. We are buying them at the educational price of $400. And as mentioned in the replies above most classes now have a ceiling mounted projector and computer in each classroom. Just install the software and you can take the Mobi from room to room. It also charges over USB.
That was two years ago and since that time, it has replaced a more powerful desktop and laptop (the heavy 15") to become my primary PC for email, web browsing, light web editing or coding, and light gaming. I use the other two when the demands exceed what the little laptop can do. It really excels in a few areas:
1) Graphics: In the past, I used a USB tablet for art or photo editing, but it didn't feel natural - I wasn't looking where I was editing.
2) Notes: It's very natural to fire up One Note (or similar app) to take notes during a meeting. I'm not killing trees and it's easy to organize my notes in my documents. Plus, I can go back and edit the notes after the meeting to clean things up. 3) Browsing: If I'm just wondering around on the web, I'll often go into tablet mode and click through the web. On the rare occasions that I need to type a search term, I'll use either recognition (OK, but not thrilling) or the on screen keyboard (slow but more accurate.) It's a relaxing and enjoyable for me. 4) Pen games: I'm addicted to several pen-based games that are almost impossible to play with a mouse. A crossword puzzle using handwriting (with good recognition) is an absolute blast! However, it's not well suited to programming, web design, 3D gaming, or other high demand uses. It simply lacks the power for that, so I'll switch to the desktop and other laptop for those uses. The flip-top (swivel-top? Convertible?) gives me the best of two worlds. I can use it like a standard laptop when doing email and other common office tasks, but can easily convert to tablet mode when needed. Unlike some other comments, I've found the tablet PC to be reliable and well-built. A little care goes a long way, so flipping the screen around at a moderate pace goes a long way to preserving the cables in the pivot. I'm an IT manager for my department and support several professors who use tablet PCs as virtual white boards and then record the session with Camtasia or other capture software. They then post the work to the class website, so the students can play back the equations at their own pace. It greatly improves student retention of the math work. Overall, I'm very impressed and use the little tablet as my primary PC. It's not perfect (lacking an optical drive, moderate power, and just 2 USB ports), but it does the job for me.
motion makes a good tablet. I had the LE1700 and it worked really great. TabletKiosk also makes a good slate tablet Sahara i440D and it switches between pen and resistive touch screen. I saw it demonstrated at a tradeshow and it was sweeeeeet but expensive. http://tabletkiosk.com/products/sahara/i400s_pp.asp