Online Meeting 18th March: background

We are having an online meeting on the 18th March, 2.30 to 3.30.

This will use the Megameeting Software under the University of Bath license. The presenters are;

• Andy Ramsden – an introduction to QR Codes, and why you might wnt to use them
• Hilary Griffiths – outcomes of a user needs analaysis at University of Bristol on Online Submission

Each session will last 10 minuites, with 5 minutes for questions.

Those in the group will have recieved their virtual invite, including the link to test the audio. If you’d like an invite but haven’t been included then please contact a.ramsden@bath.ac.uk

thoughts from the recent WEETHE meeting

The WEETHE Meeting was at the University of Gloucestershire – thank you Phil for hosting it Those attending included Bath, Bristol, Exeter and Gloucestershire.

It was a very enjoyable meeting. The start involved updating everyone of where people were in terms of online assessment (formative and summative). Interestingly, it sounded like there was a lot of common ground, not just in terms of the tools but some trends in terms of supporting specialist software.

After the general discussion, there was a presentation from Phil at the University of Gloucestershire on assessment21. This software focussed very much on the providing efficiency gains for managing large numbers of free text answers. I’ll have to admit it did look very interesting.  It did offer some objective question types, so allowing the idea of mixing short questions and MCQs in an online assessment.

The final section was a presentation by Roger (University of Bath) about the e-tutorial authoring tool, eXe. He summarised his thoughts based on some of his ongoing evaluations, as he demonstrated the tool. There was a very lively discussion as people tried the software. For more information and his presentation (created using eXe), then see http://go.bath.ac.uk/rxlw

The next meeting will be in the spring. The proposed topic is effective uses of desktop conferencing software. This will be a two part event, including the first being a web conference including a number of presentations.

Using Tablet PCs in Higher Education – Manuel Frutos­-Perez

1. E­learning at UWE: An integrated approach to learning technologies support

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/elearning/

We are an academic unit based in the central IT Services of the university. The unit was created in 2003 just as the institution adopted a VLE (Blackboard). Our main remit is to identify, develop and disseminate good e­learning practice across the university. The unusual approach of locating an academic e­learning unit in IT Services has worked really well for us. IT Services staff perceive us as members of the service and are very receptive to our ideas and initiatives. On the other hand, academic staff from the faculties perceive us as academics and are very receptive to our advice.
2. Use of Tablet PCs at UWE: Redesigning the Research Methods Curriculum

http://hptft.uwe.ac.uk/

This project aims to redesign the research methods curriculum for the disciplines of mathematics, statistics and information technology (IT) by integrating online learning support into the classroom. In most online learning environments learning materials are generally provided in one context. Limited customisation is often possible, e.g. changing text colour, but there is little opportunity to change more conceptual elements of the learning context; choosing between graphic, metaphoric or textual modes of navigation, for example. Current research and development work at UWE has created an online e­learning resource, the Research Observatory (RO) that seeks to address this issue.
The RO does enable students to choose the context in which they study materials without requiring duplication of the materials themselves. This curriculum redesign project focuses upon enabling the students to use the online curriculum content in the RO in classroom sessions, and to take an active part in designing appropriate learning contexts for further development of the RO. The pen interface of the tablet computers is the ideal medium for these activities as the students can draw and sketch their ideas, and keep handwritten notes and diagrams in electronic form. The project is funded by Hewlett Packard as part of their Global Technology for Teaching grant scheme. We received our award in 2007.

Tablet PCs used for the project:

• HP Compaq 2710p
• Intel Core 2 Duo CPU @ 1.20 GHz 1 GB RAM 60 GB HDD Windows Vista OS Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset graphics
• Classroom management software: SynchronEyes

Thoughts post session …

My initial thoughts are that the session was a success Thanks to Manuel, Nic and Doug for leading sessions. Something which I thought came through was the desire for tangible case studies and examples of use. Therefore, we all seemed to agree on the idea of developing 12 uses of tablet pcs in higher education. It would be really useful if this document was completed by the start of September. This would be a fantastic deliverable. The other actions are … please add your literature reviews to the comments area in the appropriate posting, assuming I haven’t added them already.

Literature Reviews on Tablet PCs

A task set to the group, before the event was to write a few hundred word review of an article around the topic. The following are those reviews. If people want to add more then please use the comments.

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Using podcasts and tablet pcs in computer science

Kurtz et al., (2007) in ACMSE March 2007, pg 484-489.

I’m going to focus on the tablet PC aspect as the use of tablet pcs in higher education is the topic of under discussion at the WEET-HE meeting this afternoon (West of England e-Learning Teams in HE).

The authors report on a programme which had been re-structured. They replaced the didatic lectures with video podcasts which the student need to watch before attending the small group problem solving classes.

In these problem classes the students were divided into groups of 4. Each group had a tablet pc. These were connected to the wireless network, and they used classroom presenter and microsoft onenote to share and work collaboratively.

A method commonly adopted in the face to face sessions was for the lecturer to provide a presentational slide which included some leading questions. The the groups would need to discuss and annotate these slides (using the pen option with tablet pc). After which they then shared these with the lecturer. The lecturer would then select one to discuss in more length as a context for further discussions.

They also used onenote in a very interesting way – I don’t know enough about onenote to see if this is really obvious. It sounds like it was used as a wiki. They all shared a document, where each group was assigned a page or group of pages. Then they’d create and annotate diagrams and sketches on the tablet pc and share within this one document.

They would also use Camtasia on the tablet pc’s for when the students worked through the solutions. This would capture the visuals and the audio. This was then made available to all students as a set of podcasts.

They suggested that overall the use of tablet pcs to help facilitate a shift to collaborative problem solving was a great help. Infact, they have now doubled the number so studnets can work in pairs.

A few thoughts I had while reading this included;

yes, I like the idea. I think it would work really well in most disciplines. I’d like to bring this approach into some of the one of workshops that we run. I’d imagine that it would be very liberating. For instance, there is no reason why we’d need to be in pc labs. However, I wonder just how easy it is to master the tablet pc in pen mode so that this apporach would be effective. This is opposed to getting stuck on a technology barrier.

Also, I’m not sure that this would scale particularly well. Therefore, it would be very interesting to see how it works when students work in pairs as opposed to groups of 4. I’m thinking that so much learning will be going on within the gropups that reducing the size might dilute the learning experience. Also, this ey is a lot more material that has to be managed by the lecturer and students. Perhaps this is a case when “fewer is better”.

They make reference to another article which looks interesting;

B. Simon, R. Anderson, C. Hoyer, J.Su, Preliminary expereinces with a tablet pc based system to support active learning in computer science courses, ITICSE 2004, pp 213-217.

Utilization of tablet PCs in Electromagnetics education

iJET International Journal of emerging technologies in learning, 2007 Vol 2 (2)

This paper reports on student perceptions of the effectiveness of tablet PCs as a teaching and learning tool, as recorded in an online survey of students of electromagnetics at Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan. It starts by giving an overview of tablet PCs and some examples of their use in university teaching. It then focuses on use of a Tablet PC by instructors as a presentation device linked to a projector. This allows them to annotate Powerpoint slides thereby making their presentations more dynamic, spontaneous and interactive. This was the most highly rated application by students in the survey. The tablet as a presentation device was felt to be particularly useful in courses or topics which required drawing of diagrams, images or charts as well as those using mathematical symbols and equations. Almost 60% of the students agreed that the use of the tablet PC increased their interaction with the instructor. It doesn’t appear that students themselves used tablets but unfortunately the paper does not go into detail about the nature of the interaction.

A New Face for Time-Honored Ideas – Lessons from the Tablet PC Project at the University of Virginia

The following relates to a presentation delivered at the Tablet PCs in Higher Education Workshop in 2005, in Seattle, Washington. Whilst the presentation is nearly three years old, it provides some useful information and data that is [still] relevant for an institution investigating the use of Tablet PCs in HE.

The presentation, A New Face for Time-Honored Ideas – Lessons from the Tablet PC Project at the University of Virginia, details a pilot of Tablet PCs in three different classrooms. Four hundred Tablet PCs were deployed in three courses: Statistics, Cognitive Psychology and Biochemistry. The following key points were highlighted during the presentation:

• The pilot programme was a partnership between Thomson, the University of Virginia, Microsoft and HP.
• Hybrid print and digital solutions were developed in consultations with teaching staff. All students bought the course text at the beginning of the course, but the teaching staff used digital solutions to teach at least part of the programme.
• Microsoft PowerPoint slides were embedded within Microsoft OneNote files and made available for download. In lectures:

• o Instructors annotated slides
• o Instructors recorded voice clips to be attached to slides
• o Students annotated slides using their Tablet PCs
• o The Instructors annotated, recorded slides were made available for download by students following the lecture

Pilot highlights

• Response to the Tablet PCs was overwhelmingly positive, learning to active learning within lectures.
• Extent of student use of Tablet PCs and response of students to Tablet PCs correlated strongly with instructor engagement
• Instructor engagement was catalytic – spurring students to use Tablet PCs in their other classes
• New technology increased options to develop individual learning styles – “hand to head practice builds long term memory”
• HP established a discounted price for Tablet PC purchase by students and departments
• Tablet PC seminars were developed for several other areas, with hands-on workshops arranged for both staff and students

Tablet PCs in Higher Education Workshop in 2005: http://tinyurl.com/2zvec8
Presentation URL: http://tinyurl.com/4ebxwn

Follow up comments (NRP)
• Were Tablet PCs used to facilitate collaborative activities, for example, for group course work?
• In addition to the Microsoft PowerPoint/OneNote combination, was any additional software (for example, a graphical wiki) used for either individual or collaborative working?
• Could Tablet PCs have been used in conjunction with other technologies such as audience response systems or mobile phones to enhance collaborative working?

I note that this study took place during 2005, and that technology has moved on since then e.g. the introduction of wireless networking on University campuses.

Beyond the tablet PC: using the tablet PC in a collaborative learning environment

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1292428.1292445
Source Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges archive Volume 23 , Issue 2 (December 2007) table of contents Pages: 84 ­89 Year of Publication: 2007 ISSN:1937­4771
Author Jean H. FrenchCoastal Carolina University, Conway, SC
Publisher Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges , USA

This is a short and useful entry level article about the use of Tablet PCs in education. It gives descriptions about the technology and its potential for use in education. It points out that the main advantage of a Tablet PC is the additional use of a stylus for input. This might not sound like a significant difference (e.g. when compared to a laptop) but in reality it changes completely the way you interact with the machine, making it more flexible and personal.

The article states that Tablet PCs are used in education as tools of convenience and collaboration both in and out of the classroom. From a staff perspective they can be used to mark assignments visually. Students can take electronic notes without having to type, and they can also annotate files provided by the lecturer.

The article concludes that the use of Tablet PCs together with classroom management software can provide increased student interaction, immediate feedback and integration of student materials into face ­to­ face sessions.

Working up ideas for using tablet pcs in HE

This post will allow us to work up some ideas and examples of how we might us Tablet PCs in Higher Education. As discussed at the meeting, it would be very useful if we had  12 ideas for using Tablet PCs in HE, including their use by staff (say as a presentational aid, or for marking), or by students.

Could people please use the comments area to outline their ideas. The format shuould be title (the idea), then description (the use, or case study). If these cross reference to the literature review then state this. All evidence to support these ideas will be greatly appreciated.