Regarding classroom interaction software, Classroom Presenter remains one of the most popular free ways for not only enhancing presentations but also for interacting with students who are also running CP on their machines (http://classroompresenter.cs.washington.edu/). I mentioned this in my recent blog posting about Lawrence University in Wisconsin - but there are MANY other campuses around the world that are using CP. Richard Anderson (University of Washington) is the creator of CP, and he is generously making the software available free for non-commercial use. An archive of Richard talking about CP is available at http://www.uwex.edu/ics/stream/uwc-rock/hp/.  

A favorite commercial software product that is available in the U.S. is DyKnow (http://www.dyknow.com/). DyKnow Vision software, like CP, sends presentations (and live ink annotations) to student computers, where students can annotate on top of the presentation and submit graphical responses to open ended questions. DyKnow Vision also supports breakout groups and group chat (if you want take advantage of opening a "backchannel" discussion). DyKnow Monitor let's you see what your students are doing from your desk.

One of my favorite features of DyKnow Vision is the ability to REPLAY ink. Remember studying for a midterm and all you've got to help you is a complex mess of notes that allege to solve a complex 15 step problem? With ink replay, you can watch the problem being solved, from the beginning. All of the presentations and your own ink notes work this way, and all your DyKnow enabled courses are stored in a handy "digital notebook". See http://www.dyknow.com/vision/ for case studies and video examples.

If you only want the monitoring function, another commercial product worth exploring is NetSupport School (http://www.netsupportschool.com/).

As for other free products, it depends what you want to accomplish. I recommend you explore Ubiquitous Presenter by Beth Simon (UC San Diego), which is a web-based way of doing some of what Classroom Presenter does. If you want a simply “graphical response” from students, you can use InkSurvey beta software available free from Frank Kowalski at the Colorado School of Mines.

For more information about what software people are using, you can see what kind of software was mentioned at the Poster Session of the 2008 HP Technology for Teaching Worldwide Higher Education Conference. The book of posters and the “index by keyword” is available on the ISTE website.

If you are using some Tablet PC software you find particularly helpful for you and/or your students, please post a comment!

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Grants
HP Global Social Investment
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied

Jeff Clark at Lawrence University of Wisconsin is leading an HP Technology for Teaching project that is redesigning courses in Environmental Science. The participating faculty and students are using Tablet PCs in the field, and Classroom Presenter software in the classroom. Jeff reports that how Classroom Presenter has unlocked the power of digital ink and "revolutionized the classroom"...

The project is entitled, "Inside-Out: Use of Mobile Technology to Support Field and Laboratory Activities in an Introductory Environmental Science Course." From Jeff's project blog, he reports on how his approach to instruction has changed:

"As useful as the tablets have been in the field the most surprising and unanticipated outcome has been their impact in the classroom. After attending the HP TFT Worldwide Conference [jv: see conference archives posted by ISTE to learn more about the conference], the PI had Classroom Presenter was installed on all of our machines. The combination of the tablet PC, its inking capabilities (for drawing diagrams, annotating picture, solving mathematical problems etc.) and the interactivity fostered by CP has revolutionized the classroom."

"This combination so far surpasses what is possible with pen and paper, and it presents a number of options not available with other products like clickers. Instructors can now pose problems in class and actually see how students approach them. By projecting student solutions to the rest of the class, we can engage in peer review and discuss how a problem was solved, what was difficult, and where further instruction or reinforcement is needed. The tradeoff is that one cannot cover as much ground as one could in a traditional lecture. The benefit is a better understanding of the essential concepts. This is a trade off worth taking."   

I am curious how many other faculty are taking advantage of this tradeoff. If you've seen a similar effect in your own teaching, please post a comment and let us know!

Congratulations, Jeff and team! Thanks for sharing...

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Grants
HP Global Social Investment
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied

With support from an HP Technology for Teaching grant, Professors Monson Hayes and Elliot Moore at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Savannah, are leading a project entitled "Enhancing Distributed Learning Environments through Tablet PC Technology." The participating faculty are using DyKnow software and tablet PCs to create an active learning environment in a distributed learning setting (also known by some as "synchronous online learning").

As described on their project website, "The use of DyKnow software allows the professor to present any material for the lecture directly from the instructor Tablet PC to each student Tablet PC.  In this way, the students are able to follow the lecture at their own pace on their local Tablet without the burden of attempting to “keep up” with the lecturer as slides or only specific sections of a whiteboard are continuously projected in the remote classrooms.  Additionally, the digital inking ability of the Tablet PC also allows the instructors and students to make private notes and markups of lecture content that can help enforce course concepts."

What I enjoyed the most was reading the student comments. Some of my favorites are listed below:

"I really enjoyed the Tablet PC idea. For the past year I have regretted not getting one as soon as I started college. I think it would have been great to keep every class note since the beginning all in digital format that can quickly be scanned later in life. At first, I didn't like the questions that we were forced to answer during class, but after I got used to them I started enjoying the ability to participate.” (Spring 2007 Student)";

"LOBBY TO MAKE OTHER CLASSES USE TABLET PCs!! It worked very well. Not only was having all the notes readily available great, but working problems in class with you giving feedback and showing popular incorrect answers was nice too. I’m actually getting a tablet pc for Christmas because of this class, no joke.” (Fall 2007 student);

“The Dyknow interface allows students to actually LISTEN to what the instructor is saying without scrambling madly to write stuff down and missing important point in the process. I would highly recommend it!” (Spring 2007 student)

Monson and Elliot - congratulations and thanks for sharing!

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Grants
HP Global Social Investment
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied

I’m always amazed at how powerful simple innovations can be. Kenrick Mock from the University of Alaska in Anchorage is an HP Technology for Teaching grant recipient and avid Tablet PC user – and has created a simple (and free!) applet that highlights your cursor while making presentations so everyone can see WHERE you are about to draw…

The applet is called “Pen Attention”, and it changes the ink pointer from a nearly invisible “dot” to a highlighted dot or one of two visible icons. Kenrick mentioned it in a comment to my March posting about ZoomIt, but I thought I would highlight it here, just in case you missed it.

It’s free! Give it a try by going to Kenrick's blog, http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/techteach/?q=node/52. Then let us know what you think!

Thanks for the great (and simple) contribution, Kenrick!

If you’re looking for software that supports student mapping and data collection, take a look at the blog from Professor Meg Stewart at Vassar College...

Meg is the PI for a 2004 HP Technology for Teaching grant received by Vassar. The project, Mobile Mapping Using Tablet PCs and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Field-based College Courses, is a great example of field data collection using GPS, GIS, and Tablet PCs. You can read more about their project(s) at http://www.cfkeep.org/html/snapshot.php?id=71791110627159.

Her blog posting about the software they’ve been using is located at http://gisatvassar.blogspot.com/2008/02/software-for-mobile-mapping-lab-tablets.html .

If you happen to be attending the Northeast Regional Computing Program Annual Conference next week, feel free to drop by her presentation: https://www.educause.edu/NC08/Program/13921?PRODUCT_CODE=NC08/SESS10

Thanks for sending me the weblinks, Meg!

As I prepare to record a video introduction to my online course, I was searching for a way to record a guided tour of my online "classroom". I have Camtasia to do the recording, but I didn't know how to add temporary ink annotations to a webpage. A free application called ZoomIt does a great job - and has some other handy features for presenters...

ZoomIt is a free download from Microsoft, available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Miscellaneous/ZoomIt.mspx. I found it by doing a search of the Tablet PC Review forum discussions (www.tabletpcreview.com). Published recently (last November) by Mark Russinovich, ZoomIt is a clever application that enables four very handy functions:

• Draw on top of any open windows (it's like adding a transparent ink layer to your desktop - just press CTL-2)
• Zoom in to where your mouse (or pen) is pointing, then begin annotating (CTL-1)
• Blank the screen (black or white) to create a temporary drawing board (CTL-2, then "w" or "k")
• Blank the screen and display a countdown timer (CTL-3), good for breaks between presentations, or use it on a second machine facing the presenter to make sure they don't run over their allotted time.

The annotations are temporary, vanishing when you hit Escape to return to normal mouse/pen navigation mode.

They say it runs on any version of Windows, but of course using it with a digital pen on a Tablet PC is even easier - if you don't mind leaving the keyboard exposed so you can toggle between "annotation mode" and normal mode.

If you know of other free applications like this, please post a comment and let us all know!

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Philanthropy
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied

A)      excited by the possibilities

B)      energized by the people

C)      exhausted by the intensity

D)     all of the above

 For me, the recent 2008 HP Technology for Teaching Worldwide Higher Education Conference, sponsored by HP and hosted by ISTE, was definitely “all of the above”…

My head is still spinning with the variety of exciting projects being shared by faculty from around the world, most of whom are using notebook pcs with digital inking (tablet pcs) to redesign their courses. I will be blogging about some of the examples I saw in the weeks to come, and hopefully we’ll be posting the videos of the presentations soon. In the meantime, l’m thrilled to see that there is no shortage of innovation and enthusiasm for helping students learn better.

As I flip through the posters that were presented during the two poster sessions, I see many projects where GPS enabled tablets and GIS mapping software give students an opportunity to do real science in the field, from urban ecology to characterizing the migration of wildlife through semi-urban corridors.

Numerous projects address how mathematics is taught, with a common theme of letting students talk and work together. Moving from pure lecture to studio style instruction is enhanced by using tablets to enable rapid sharing of solutions and questions. The result is rich discussions are now occurring, and student success is increasing.

Faculty are using a variety of software solutions to support their course redesign efforts:

• DyKnow, Classroom Presenter, and Ubiquitous Presenter for interactive presentations and note-taking
• NetSupport School for desktop monitoring
• Moodle and Blackboard to support hybrid and online coursework
• Stella and Mathematica for modeling
• Camtasia and ePresence for podcasting and vodcasting presentations
• Cmap for concept mapping
• Google Earth and ArcGIS for mapping data
• Microsoft OneNote for electronic science notebooks and general note-taking
• … the list goes on!

I know it’s not the same as being there, but we do have some photos from the event that you can view, if you’re interested. Perhaps you can join us next year? Stay tuned to my blog for announcements.

Congratulations to everyone who participated! Keep up the great work. In the meantime, I think I’ll unplug and catch my breath…

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Philanthropy
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied

As more faculty explore the benefits of Tablet PCs, I am hearing about more “Tablet PC Tips” being made available to help accelerate their effective use. I thought you might be interested in seeing what Virginia Western Community College and the University of Dayton have created – and I suspect there are more hidden gems out there…

Diane Wolff, Professor of Information Technology at Virginia Western Community College, has been busy creating Tablet PC tips for her colleagues. Step-by-step instructions, such as “Using Tablet to Edit Text Documents” and “Techsmith’s SnagIt Tool” are downloadable in PDF format at http://virginiawestern.edu/istgrants/tablettips.html. (Nice job, Diane!)

At the University of Dayton, they have created some basic tablet pc tips that are presented in the form of Flash movies created using Camtasia software. The movie clips explain how to use basic “digital pen” functions and use some commonly available applications like MS Journal, MS Ink Flash Cards, and MS OneNote. Visit http://learn.udayton.edu/tablets/studentResources.jsp for more information.

If you have any Tablet PC tips online that you would like me to share with the world, post a comment with a link! The community welcomes your assistance and contribution…

Ananda Gunawardena, HP Technology for Teaching Principal Investigator for the Adaptive Book project at Carnegie Mellon, has developed a fascinating tablet-enabled math system. If you know any tablet-using teachers in the primary grades (K-8), anywhere in the world, feel free to let them know they are invited to participate in the pilot testing…

To participate or learn more, go to http://srv01.pragma.cs.cmu.edu:1400/

Nice job, Ananda!

As I’ve mentioned in my Tablet PC Tip #4, MS One Note makes it easy to record audio in sync with hand-written ink. Livescribe’s “smartpen” makes it even easier...

Based on Anoto’s "dot paper" technology, Livescribe will be selling a simple pen that records audio and digitizes handwriting while you write on the special paper that includes “invisible” digitization patterns. What they show in their cartoon-styled product demos is that it is very simple – you can take notes and record audio with ease, without a computer.

I've seen other products based on the Anoto digitization technology, but this is the first time I've seen the digitization technology combined with audio. Of course they fail to mention is that audio is notoriously difficult to record when you sit far away at the back of a lecture hall, even if you have a really expensive shot-gun microphone. Who knows - maybe they've found a clever way to overcome this! Ah, details, details...

“So, how are you making all these Tablet PC tips?” Glad you asked! Tablet PC Tip #5 shows you how Techsmith’s Camtasia software makes it easy…

Camtasia is screen capture software that lets you record, edit, and share movies that are composed of everything that’s visible on your screen plus everything you say. A tablet pc plus an external mic makes a simple recording studio. Use a blue-tooth mic, like Professor Elkhaim at the University of California Santa Cruz, and you have even more freedom to “talk and sketch” (plus, let’s be honest, a blue-tooth mic has a much higher “cool” factor).

While Tablet PC tips #1, #2, #3, and #4 were recorded using Camtasia, I haven’t figured out how to show you Camtasia by using Camtasia. It’s not recording while you are configuring it, and it hides while you record. So, let me walk you through the steps using screen shots.

Camtasia has a lot of features and capabilities. I’m going to skip all the complexities and show you the fast and simple approach that I’m using to share quick explanations on my blog:

Step 1 – Open Camtasia Recorder and set the recording parameters.

You only need to do this once, as it will remember the settings for next time. The two settings are the Video format for capturing, and selecting the Audio source (so it uses your external mic instead of the mic built in to your tablet)

For the video format, I have been recording directly to AVI because YouTube likes AVI files. If you plan to do any editing in Camtasia Studio or if you want to output different formats later, use the native camrec format.

Step 2 – press F9 to start recording

The Camtasia Recorder applet will disappear, becoming a red/green flashing icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen, off camera)

Step 3 – Show, talk, annotate, whatever it is you want to share

Step 4 – Press F9 to pause recording; press stop to finish

Step 5 – Watch the preview; save it if you like it

Step 6 – If you want to produce another format, run select a post-save option and launch Camtasia Studio (I’m not going to walk you through this. Feel free to try mess around with it if you’d like – it’s really pretty easy)

Step 7 – Upload your AVI to YouTube; share the URL

You may also want to consider using Techsmith’s Screencast.com hosting service, if you want higher quality streaming or more control over who can access your content.

There are other tools available for doing screen cast recordings. If you have some experience using them, please post a comment with your recommendations!

The most interesting question, of course, is not how to MAKE recordings, but how to USE them instructionally (can lectures really become pre-reading, so class-time is discussion time instead?)

I look forward to your comments...

Microsoft One Note uses an “electronic binder” metaphor to organize your life. Students use it for replacing a shelf full of 3-ring binders and lab books. Some faculty are using it for presentations in the classroom. But have you tried recording audio while you write?...

MS OneNote has some of the same advantages as MS Journal, in that the digital “paper” is stretch-able, and the objects you place on the page can be re-arranged. But one feature MS OneNote has that Journal does not is the ability to search throughout all of your sections and tabs for hand-written notes. You don’t even have to convert them to text – MS OneNote can search “unconverted” handwritten words (provided your notes don’t look like a doctor’s prescription).

The focus of Tip #4 is one particular feature of MS OneNote that many people are not aware of: You can record audio while taking notes, and the two are time-sync’d together. Remember reviewing your notes from Calculus just prior to the mid-term, and you can’t decipher what your drawings really mean? Simply click on the ink and play the audio that was being recorded at that time, and you can hear the discussion that was recorded while you were inking at that moment.

This is very cool – I’ve used it while interviewing people. When I want to revisit a pithy quote, I can go back to my notes and re-listen to the complete statement – and rewrite my sloppy notes so the quote is more accurate.

Here’s how:

Let me know what you think – especially if you’ve ever tried this with a webcam!

And in case you missed them, here are the other Tablet PC Tips I've posted so far:

• Tablet PC Tip #1 – Annotating PowerPoint
• Tablet PC Tip #2: MS Journal - Better than PowerPoint?
• Tablet PC Tip #3 – Save Time with Digital Homework Markups
  

Enjoy!

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Philanthropy
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied

If you need a good chuckle, take a look at this “news-reel-esque” movie from DyKnow. I would have laughed even harder at the notion of “The Dangers of Mindless Note Taking”, if there wasn’t so much truth to it…

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Philanthropy
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied