Tutorial: Tablet PCs in Higher Education and Research (half-day)
Leaders: Joseph G. Tront and Jane Prey

Tablet PCs will be provided to facilitate hands-on exercises during this tutorial.

Tablet PCs are one of the newest innovations in the computing and communications world. These devices consist of a standard notebook PC configured with a screen (tablet/slate), acting as both a display device as well as an input device. A stylus or pen is used to input standard mouse-type commands as well as gesture commands and electronic ink drawings. By using Tablet PCs, instructors are able to increase their effectiveness by making more dynamic presentations and by including active exercises into their classroom environments. Tablet PCs also facilitate better and more natural note-taking by students and easier after-class review of course material and notes.

Several software packages are available to support the pedagogical needs of the university classroom as well as typical group collaborative environments. Classroom Presenter, DyKnow, WriteOn and MS OneNote are examples of some of the packages that provide excellent classroom presentation capabilities. These packages also allow for a highly interactive environment with both teacher-student and student-student bi-direction real-time interaction. See www.ee.vt.edu/~jgtront/tabletpc/ to download tablet PC software.

In this tutorial faculty will receive a hands-on introduction to the use of OneNote, Classroom Presenter, WriteOn, ChemPad, VectorPad and Math Journal along with a rudimentary three dimensional drawing package called 3D Journal. We will provide sufficient instruction for faculty to have a basic competency with the technology. Most importantly, we will show various pedagogical practices that we have found helpful in using these technology tools in the classroom over the past four years. Active learning exercises for various disciplines will be emphasized. Based on individual disciplinary preference, participants will develop short active learning exercises starting from the development of goals for the exercise, through the desired student interaction, and ending with the exercise assessment and improvement strategy.

Learning Objectives - Tutorial participants:
* Will be able to use Tablet PCs to significantly enhance the teacher-student and student-student interaction in the engineering learning environment.
* Will have the understanding of how to transform their classrooms into a much more active learning environment.
* Will understand Tablet PC technology well enough so that they can begin to convert their PowerPoint presentations into notes capable of being used in a real-time electronic ink environment and make more engaging presentations.
* Will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the course transformations produced by the introduction of the Tablet PC and new pedagogical techniques as related to the overall course learning objectives.

University faculty members from a broad spectrum of disciplines can benefit from attending this tutorial. The desire to improve teaching and learning through the appropriate use technology is the only prerequisite. Participants should also be willing to partake in the lively discussions that this tutorial generally invokes. The tutorial will be at a level that will allow faculty members who have a minimum of technology training to participate; must have ability to develop PowerPoint presentations.

Joseph G. Tront (jgtront@vt.edu) is a professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. He has had a leadership role in the NSF sponsored engineering education coalition called SUCCEED where he was the director of the center for computing and communications for the nine university coalition. In his work in education digital libraries, he is the editor for NEEDS and is co-editor for the engineering collection of MERLOT. Dr. Tront also serves as editor for the Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education - an international award competition aimed at recognizing outstanding non-commercial courseware for use in engineering education. He has published articles in various venues describing the appropriate use of technology in higher education. He is developing tools and techniques for using Tablet PCs in the classroom where his work is sponsored by Microsoft and HP. He is currently playing a lead role in Virginia Tech's Tablet PC Requirement initiative in which all entering engineering students are required to own a Tablet PC. In 2005, Dr. Tront won the Excalibur Award for Excellence in Teaching with Technology. He has presented this workshop at over 25 venues for audiences comprised of university educators.

Jane Prey (jprey@microsoft.com)is an Academic Innovation Manager at Microsoft Research. She spent 11 years as a faculty member in the Computer Science Department at the University of Virginia. In addition, Jane spent 2 years as a Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and her PhD from the University of Virginia. Jane is an IEEE CS representative and the chair of the FIE Steering Committee as well as a former member of the ACM SIGCSE board.