While the original headline blames the Tablet PC for failing to meet expectations, I've rearranged it to actually mirror the contents of the study.

You can't toss Tablet PCs at students and then not expect the teachers to greatly influence how the PCs are being used in the classroom. That's just obvious for those who've watched teachers for a long time. Teachers will complain that they want training - and they'll want time off to get help and be paid for this time too. Otherwise, teachers will actually work against the program. Soooo, the lesson is to get the teachers to buy into the pilot program first and then get them into the classroom.

A study to test the use of Tablet PCs in the classroom showed that the computers had no effect on grades and that the student users had bad experiences with the technology, according to The Telegraph in Macon, Ga.

The study set out to test whether high-tech devices helped students at Houston County High School, in Warner Robins, Ga., improve academically, according to the article. Twenty-eight freshmen were given Tablet PCs, which were developed by Microsoft, in 2003, and their performance was monitored over the course of the school year.

The students said the Tablets helped them organize their homework better and send things to teachers more easily. Also, the multimedia projects they turned in were more sophisticated.

The project had design problems, however. Teachers didn't receive enough training on the machines at the beginning, and students — allowed to download software onto the Tablet PCs — were caught so often having online chats or browsing the Web during class that teachers moved to the back of the room in order to see the screens.

The machines also had no backup batteries and would be drained of power by midday. And one or two Tablets would need repairs each week.

Source: Seattle Times

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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!

Your passion is appreciated. We need more passion in the classroom; passion about students learning and passion about the best practices for ensuring teachers do not get in the way of students learning.

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Layne P. Heiny / Administrator for Tux Reports Network

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