No Digital Divide

Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology

Home > No Digital Divide

Hardware & Software :: Laptop Programs

No Digital Divide

1/1/2008

By Rama Ramaswami

Productivity-Enhancing Software

Laptops in classrooms have come under fire recently as some educators question their value as educational tools. "We're starting to get a little pushback from faculty in terms of laptop usage in class," says WSU's Graetz. "The perception is that the students are IMing, surfing the web, shopping. Schools are under pressure to show that laptops are being used productively in class."

Creative applications can come to the rescue by enabling collaboration and flexibility in class content. For example, both Winona State and Grove City use DyKnow Vision, a learning tool from DyKnow that enables collaborative note-taking, annotation, content replay, and instant student response. "Today's students don't tend to take notes very well," says DiStasi of Grove City College, but since a tablet is adaptable, a student can interface with the technology in whatever way suits his or her learning style, whether that be via typing, writing, or a mix of the two. The DyKnow tool adds to that flexibility: Instructors can embed audio and/or video into a presentation, to help reach visual and auditory learners, and students who are tactile learners can use the tablet PC pen to add their own notes to the lecture content.

"We've standardized: All the machines we buy have the same parts, the same docking stations. That reduces our total cost of ownership." -Vince DiStasi, Grove City College

According to Graetz, versatility was the reason Winona State switched from conventional laptops to convertible tablets in 2004. He adds, "The early slate-only models of tablets didn't work at all; the students needed to be able to type up term papers as well as take notes in class." Like DiStasi, he believes that powerful software can best exploit the potential of the hardware. With DyKnow Vision, he says, he can pull up the work of a student in real time and show it to the rest of the class. "That work becomes part of everyone else's notebook. It's interesting collaborative technology that we anticipate will be used in math, chemistry, statistics. It's all about finding ways to make that tablet investment valuable."

That includes ways to ensure that students are actually using the machines properly in class. Graetz, for example, uses DyKnow Monitor, an application specifically designed to enable instructors to see students' screens as they are working, and to disable certain applications if necessary. The monitoring increases student accountability and encourages more active participation in the classroom.

Ultimately, the way instructors use laptop or tablet PC technology determines the extent to which student learning occurs. For now, the news is upbeat. "Having a laptop or tablet does enhance student learning-often in ways one did not expect," says Morehead State's Jones.