Teacher workshops are a great place to meet teachers from all over the district. It is a wonderful time to discuss lesson plans, sharing what works in the classroom and what fails. These workshops are generally rather relaxed and so they allow teachers to be themselves. This environment provides excellent opportunities to gather up ideas to take back to the classroom.

The latest workshop I attended occurred Wednesday November 3 at UCLA. Teachers started to gather about 5:00 P.M. and the workshop began shortly thereafter. Just before the start, I pulled out my Tablet PC and started to set up the notes for the workshop. I was handwriting in the agenda and reviewing some other notes.

The teacher next to me asked if I was using a Tablet PC. I turned the unit so that he could see the writing on the screen and he immediately started to explain that he had wanted one but couldn’t find the best place to get one. He talked about his disappointment in Best Buy for dropping them just as he was about ready to buy one. He was worried about eBay and other places to buy online. He even talked about the UCLA bookstore and how the HP TC1000 model was pulled from the display shelf.

Slowly, other teachers slid past the table and started to ask questions. Some immediately noticed that I was using the Cornell Notes template on my screen. They wanted to know if the handwriting could be kept in that form. Mainly they were under the impression the messy scrawlings had to be converted. I closed and opened the GoBinder application so they could see that it was stored as handwriting.

Finally, an excited teacher wanted to know where to buy one because she was going to get one “this weekend” and start doing everything on it. She expressed disappointment that she had just purchased a desktop. Out of frustration she just bought a desktop computer because there wasn’t a notebook designed with her in mind. She continued that after having seen my notes and the Tablet PC, it was time to return the desktop and get a real notebook computer.

We ended the conversation as the workshop began but after the workshop ended; I started to reflect on the conversations. I felt a little disappointed. I’m not much of a Tablet PC Evangelist. I despise the name – because the term evangelical connotes religion and dogma. So many of the teachers were excited to see the Tablet PC. It was a perfect opportunity to show them so many ways to use it. Regardless, I hope this one teacher discovers the power of the Tablet PC for keeping lesson plans, reflections, and grades and then shares her enthusiasm better than I.

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Layne P. Heiny / Administrator for Tux Reports Network

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