Fujitsu Tablet PCs In Education

A Talkative Class Is Good
At the Crescent Girls' School at Tanglin Road, the Secondary 1 geography class is noisy. The girls are busy talking to each other. It's like none of them are paying attention to the teacher. And that's good. That is a tablet PC-based lesson in progress. The girls are part of the 355 Secondary 1 students at Crescent Girls' School, who are using the Fujitsu LifeBook T3010, a convertible notebook, under a pilot programme initiated by the Info-comm Development Authority of Singapore and Microsoft to harness technology for education.

In addition, about 20 teachers in the school are using the Fujitsu Stylistic ST5010, a slate Tablet PC, for teaching.

Supported by the Ministry of Education, the programme aims to transform the educational landscape in schools in Singapore by providing a creative way to teach and learn.

That's why in the classroom, the teacher does not mind when the students converge into groups of two or three - in fact, that's the natural thing to do.

Their geography textbook has been digitised and Fujitsu has helped to download it, and other digitised textbooks, into the students' notebooks that run the Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet PC Edition.

The operating system, among other things, provides the inking ability for students to draw an write on the screen, in addition to typing.

For example, in geography lesson, the teacher can e-mail a map to the students' Fujitsu notebooks. The LifeBook T3010 runs on the Intel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology which comes with built-in wireless capability. And the school is wirelessly networked too.

The students can also log into the Internet immediately in the middle of the lesson if that is what the teacher wants them to do - to find information from a particular website or somewhere on the World Wide Web.

The teacher can put up instructions on the "blackboard" - only in this case it is the teacher's Tablet PC display that is projected on the screen. And on their Tablet PCs, the students work away with a stylus. They tap around on their colour display. They write, draw and even type on their keyboard if they need to. They show each other what they have discovered or how to solve a problem. They talk and discuss.

But if the teacher wants the students' undivided attention, he can freeze all their screens from his Tablet PC with one click. He can also see what's happening on each student's note book display from his tablet PC. He has absolute control.

But lively interaction, collaboration and creativity are being brought forth through the use of the Tablet PCs. That is why it is all right if its is a noisy, talkative class. It's a good thing.

'Professor, I disgree with you!'
That is what Dr Themin Surwardy, Associate Dean of the School of Accountancy, would love to hear his students say in his class. That is because Crescent Girls' School and SMU students are getting brand new Fujitsu LifeBook T3010s that come wireless-ready as they run on the Intel® Centrino™ Mobile Technology, and also use the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system. The 33 year old teaching assistant professor at the Singapore Management University (SMU) is championing the use of Tablet PCs in teaching and learning.

After a pilot test with about six Tablet PC-based notebooks, he observed that his third-year accountancy students are livelier during lectures.

"Especially when they are free to project their work or ideas to the whole class using the Virtual Canvas learning environment," he said.

Virtual Canvas was a pilot scheme rolled out last October. It encompasses the use of Tablet PCs, smart projectors and the Microsoft Office 2003 platform.

There is also an intranet so that lecturers can upload teaching materials and their notes with annotations for students' future reference.

Dr Surwardy is the champion for SMU's use of the Virtual Canvas, Tablet PCs smart projectors and other new technology.

During a lecture, a student with the Fujitsu Tablet PC with its wireless capability can send a request to the professor asking for control of the smart projector which is also wireless. If the professor agrees, the student gets the floor. The student can then project his work wirelessly to the screen and make his arguments to the whole class.

That is why Dr Surwardy doesn't mind hearing any of his students say, "Professor, I disagree," and ask for the projector.

Students, he said, are fond of taking notes by typing into their notebooks. Students are so brainwashed into using the keyboard that they have forgotten that a picture can help them understand much better.

Dr Surwardy said: "I am trying to take them away from the looking down and typing to looking up, drawing and writing. We are continuously looking to enhance our learning environment. We are committed to create an interactive class environment."

So, stating this academic year, first-year students can buy the Fujitsu LifeBook T3010 Tablet PC - the first T3010 Tablet PC - the first time that SMU has asked the winning supplier to provide such notebooks as an option.

And the response has been overwhelming, according to Fujitsu. About 35 percent of the total units sold as of end-July were Tablet PCs. And this number could be growing.

Dr Surwardy is so pleased with the results in the pilot test conducted that he has championed the use of Tablet PCs for his third-year accountancy students. That's because the third-year students would have brought their notebooks in their first year and would be unlikely to buy a Tablet PC.

And he would also use his classes to conduct a research on students' interactivity in class as well as collaborative work outside class and students; study habits, pre- and post-Tablet PC usage, he said.

There are a lot of steps in teaching accounting, he explained.

"Previously, I would write on an overhead projector and prepare blank forms. Or use PowerPoint. With inking from the Tablet PC, I can write and annotate, the students can fill in the blanks for me. We can walk through issues. The students learn better when they can see."

Reproduced courtesy of Computer Times