Imagine 5 cars full of students driving for 5 hours in a caravan into the back-country of the western United States. Would you call this a teachable moment? Peter Knoop does. While teaching field geology at the University of Michigan, Peter has incorporated a novel way to use wireless Tablet PCs to help him be an effective Geology Tour Guide while en-route at 70 miles an hour.

If you are a geology expert like Peter, you can’t help but stare out the window and see wonderful features in the natural landscape that are worth sharing. To convert drive time into learning time, he uses their CB radio to announce geologic features to the caravan of cars following his lead. But he has gone one step further by having each car fire up their Tablet PCs and connecting them via an ad hoc wireless network.

With live audio being shared via CB radio, Peter can broadcast webcam video to the entire caravan, so they can SEE what he’s looking at. Considering that the tail end of the caravan may be a half mile behind the point of interest, seeing the images in real time with Peter’s narrations makes all the difference. Using application sharing software like NetMeeting, his mouse-pointer is visible to all the students, so he can clearly “point” to the exact ridge or slope of interest. Sure beats pointing out the window and hoping that everyone can see what you’re looking at.

He has also shared still images. He can send geologic maps, figures from scientific journal articles, microscope images from samples of rocks they are passing, aerial photos, etc., to each of the tablet pc’s in the caravan – and annotate them with ink to point out important geologic features. Students are also encouraged to use OneNote’s screen-clipping to capture things (like these caravan-broadcasts) into their own notes for further annotation and later reference.

The “classroom” is now completely redefined. Not surprising, since some of the best learning happens outside the four walls of a lecture hall. And in case you are wondering, Peter is NOT driving the car while he’s doing this…

For more information about Peter’s inspiring use of Tablets and PocketPCs, visit

• http://www.cfkeep.org/html/snapshot.php?id=76188161667612 (HP Technology for Teaching project update webpage)
• www.geopad.org
• www.geopocket.org.

Thanks for sharing the innovation, Peter!