Best Tablet PC For Classroom Instruction? 176
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 $1000) which I can use to lecture, record the lecture notes along with my voice, and post up video lectures for the class. I have seen some suggestions, but many are large scale implementations at state universities, something my small private college clearly cannot afford. All I have been able to find is either tiny netbooks (like the new Asus T91), expensive full featured tablets (like the Dell XT), or multitouch tablets, that really wouldn't allow for the type of precision mathematics needs. I know a Sympodium device would work great, but we really can't afford to put one of those in each room, so something portable would be ideal. All I've been left with is considering an HP tx series. It seems nobody has created a new tablet like this in quite sometime, and HP, Fujitsu, and Dell are just doing incremental updates to their old designs. Does anyone have experience with this?"
Motion Computing (Score:4, Informative)
I have a Motion Computing LE1600. Its an awesome little thing.
Check it out. I got it used for around 400$ 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.
Try Motion Computing. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
NorhTec? (Score:2, Informative)
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.
We use(d) Gateway M285/M295s (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:I had one once! (Score:3, Informative)
I have a tx2. I've had it for about four months. The digitizer (pen) broke after a month - but I called HP and they overnighted me a new one no questions asked and I haven't had an issue since.
Other than that it's been great - the hinge is pretty sturdy and the screen has held up pretty well. It (the screen) has a screendoor effect - but all tablet PC's have this to some degree due to the touchscreen and digitizer layer. Keyboard feels pretty good for a laptop as well. The only downside is pretty poor battery life - I have the 8 cell extended battery and if I don't turn the screen brightness down and do something processor intensive I'm looking at two hours of usage. If I turn down the screen and put it on power saver mode I get 3-3.5. Get the 8 cell battery - I can't even imagine what it's like with the 6 cell.
Oh... and the other downside is the HP bloat. It took about two hours to get it all uninstalled. One example of the insanity of the bloat - a 60MB TV tuner/scheduler program is installed by default on tx2. A tuner is not even an option on the laptop (and the software does not support a USB tuner or similar). Positively brilliant: good design trashed by poor software.
Of HP, Dell, Fujitsu, Fujitsu seems the best (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Try Motion Computing. (Score:3, Informative)
Speaking from an ICT integration perspective... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
4 ways I have tried this for CS4102 at U. VA (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:My advice... wait about... (Score:1, Informative)
The best tablet I owned I have been using nonstop for two years, in work as an IT professional, and in three years of college (I only had this the last two). It's the Lenovo x61 tablet, which was replaced by the x200. Here's a link; let me know if you have any questions:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087¤t-category-id=329576204C9E42289967E79E0E7C9A2D
Re:I had one once! (Score:2, Informative)
Actually you can buy HP's usb tuner that works with the tx series (I know, I have it) and it works with the included software if you install HP's driver from the disk that comes with it.
Do NOT get a HP TX. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:I had one once! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lenovo x200 (Score:3, Informative)
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've been doing this for years. (Score:3, Informative)
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/ [anokaramsey.edu] 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.
Re:Try Motion Computing. (Score:3, Informative)
Seconded... I have been using a Motion Slate for years in the classroom and I LOVE it.
I think a key aspect to good virtual whiteboards is using an active digitizer. I just sit back and draw on the slate and it comes up on the wall so nicely... My students love it.
Keep in mind though, that the slate form-factor is (IMHO) mostly USELESS in any setting other than a classroom... they are extremely clunky to use anywhere else. So something like a Lenovo X200 convertible tablet is ideal for someone looking for full computer functionality... When I'm not teaching, my Motion tablet is in my locker... waiting for me to need it for it's one special task.
Thinkpad X200 Tablet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Do NOT get a HP TX. (Score:2, Informative)
I'll second that.
In the school district where I work, we bought some HP tx1000 tablets for the math department. After a few weeks, they refused to use them, and we had to replace them with Gateway TA-6 and TA-7s.
The biggest difference I found was that the tx1000 series laptops don't have the same touch screen as a tablet. The screen works similarly to a Palm touchscreen (the stylus is simply a piece of plastic, and you can interact with the touchscreen using your fingers.) However, I found the screen is highly inaccurate, and loses calibration faster than an old cheap joystick. After the screen broke and I had it replaced, the touchscreen won't even calibrate at all - it thinks it's a couple inches to the right or something.
Our math teachers use Gateway tablets and they're satisfied - the Gateways are more solid, the hinge is better, and the Wacom touchscreens are orders of magnitude better than the shoddy HP trash.
However, the silver lining is that the HP tablet is small and light - the screen is about the size of a US letter sheet of paper, and the machine is lighter than the Gateway tablets we have. Of course, that doesn't really mean anything if the touchscreen doesn't live up.
Oh yeah, and my experience with HP tech support... well, it left a lot to be desired. As in, I desired that I'd bought a Dell. Or had splinters driven under my fingernails.
So, I can't really tell you what to buy, but I can tell you what *not* to buy. Don't buy HP. The last decent product they made was the 48GX. Everything after that's been crap, IMHO.
Re:Lenovo x61t (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Motion Computing (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Do NOT get a HP TX. (Score:3, Informative)
Between this and the problems [hp.com] with most of the rest of the HP laptops we see coming in at work my opinion of HP has gone from bad to worse in the last couple years.
Re:Motion Computing (Score:2, Informative)