his "study" just makes me mad! :censored: :realmad: There were so many problems with the setup for that study that I find it hard to believe that they actually got $$$ for it. It really looks like they did little or no homework on the subject of technology in the classroom in general and Tablet PC's in particular.

Just casually noodling around the internet they could have found some great information about using Tablet PC's (or the less powerful IMHO laptop) in school such as the Maine Laptop Study/Initiative and a report on it done by The Mitchell Institute and Microsoft's Tablet PC's in Education pages.

The potential to use Tablet PC's to transform the classroom into a creative and collaborative learning environment with "high academic standards" (had to put that it for the Governors out there) is HUGE, since they are a much more powerful tool than a mere laptop

At a minimum, they should have:

• Used a whole school for the study! Collaboration among teachers and students could be awesome -- and paperless!
• learned about the tool they were about to test (it's potential uses, what's been done, etc.)
• trained the students and teachers better (especially for slates)
• purchased a bump case or two (or maybe training better would've helped the reliability issue?)
• given the teachers at least a month to put their heads together and brainstorm on how to adjust thier curriculum. This would keep students engaged in what's going on in the classroom and not "chatting or surfing" during key parts of the class.

All that they have really done is discovered that isolated users of Tablet PC's are better organized...duh!