Connel teaches ECON 51D, Economic Principles, a very large class held in Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center.  Connel uses a tablet PC so that he can sketch and create notes while he is lecturing.  By creating lecture notes dynamically, he is able to quickly respond to student concerns and be interactive. After his lecture, students can download the notes as PDF documents from the Blackboard course site. The image below shows a portion of these notes.  In addition, both the notes and his lecture are saved using DukeCapture, which produces both streaming and downloadable files with audio and video for his students to review.  Students can select the media that best suits their needs.

Connel wondered whether posting these recordings & annotated slides would impact attendance in the class; attendance has not decreased and he is no longer concerned about this issue.  Students have responded very favorably; some have said that they watch after lecture even if they attend because they’re so busy taking notes they miss side comments which end up being important. Others have said that they find being in lectures distracting and are better able to focus on the content outside of the large lecture setting.  DukeCapture reports that lectures have 100 hits each.

Connel enjoys using a tablet PC in his teaching.  He prefers the slate-type, without a keyboard, because it is light and easy to set up. He likes using Windows Journal, because he can use a range of ink colors (and create his own for best projection), and the graph paper background assists him in drawing legible graphs during class. He uses Windows Journal on the tablet PC to produce grading rubrics for his TAs, and to quickly create sample solutions for TAs to grade student work.

see a short video from Connel’s class

Connel began by borrowing a tablet PC from the Duke Digital Initiative, and now his infectious enthusiasm has encouraged other instructors in Economics to teach with tablet PCs.

Watch a demonstration of Windows Journal on YouTube

Dr. Nightingale participated in a year-long faculty fellowship organized by Dr. Lisa Huettel to experiment with using tablet PCs in teaching.   In the spring of 2007, she taught Biomedical Device Design (BME 8 ) and used tablet PCs with the students.  The students worked in groups using the tablet PCs to perform literature searches and run design simulations using MATLAB.  The interactive nature of the group work on the tablets generated enthusiasm and interest greatly exceeding that typically experienced in a more didactic lecture setting. In a survey administered after the class, students appreciated using the simulation tools while the instructors were there to help them.

Photo shows Dr. Nightingale describing her teaching at the 2007 Center for Instructional Technology Showcase.

Dr. Nadeau participated in a year-long faculty fellowship organized by Dr. Lisa Huettel to experiment with using tablet PCs in teaching. He taught CE133L, Concrete and Composite Structures using a tablet PC.  To prepare, he converted his handwritten materials provided to his class to PowerPoint. These materials are annotated with a tablet PC in class as he lectured. Recreating his materials for the students afforded him the opportunity to rethink the organization of these materials resulting in more efficient, effective presentations. After the course, the majority of students preferred lectures when he used the tablet PC rather than the chalkboard. Dr. Nadeau believes this is due to the use of color, a larger image for increased visibility, and better contrast between his writing and the background.  Although he misses the feeling of writing with chalk, there were too many benefits in using a Tablet PC to not make the switch in all his courses.

He says:

Using the Tablet PC in place of an overhead projector and blackboard permitted me to:

• get ride of awkward transitions between overhead projector and the blackboard (primarily raising and lowering the screen—but, perhaps, this was also a welcome distraction/break for the class)
• always face the class (previously, I had used the blackboard when I wanted to slow down the delivery of concepts but at this crucial time I frequently had my back to the class and thus I was not able to judge whether or not students were understanding)
• use color on the “blackboard.” The more difficult concepts required that I use the blackboard so that I could slow down the presentation, but with the use of a Tablet PC I could use of color, which was particularly beneficial, and I could still use a blank background as a “blackboard.”

Several semesters following his fellowship, Dr. Nadeau noted that having PowerPoint slides for his class materials has made it significantly easier to modify materials for subsequent offerings of his courses and he now has electronic backups for his course materials, which he had not had previously.

The photo is of Dr. Nadeau discussing his experience at the 2007 Center for Instructional Technology showcase.

Dr. Lisa Huettel organized a Center for Instructional Technology faculty fellowship to facilitate and share faculty experimentation with using tablet PCs in teaching.  She had been awarded a Technology in Teaching Grant from HP, which provided several carts of tablet PCs to be used for faculty teaching.

Participants in the Tablet PC faculty fellowship are listed below; their names link to descriptions of their work in the fellowship and how it impacted their teaching.

• Linda Franzoni, Professor of the Practice, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
• Jeff Forbes, Assistant Professor of Practice, Computer Science
• Bob Malkin, Professor of the Practice, Biomedical Engineering
• Joe Nadeau, Associate Professor of the Practice, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Gary Ybarra, Professor of the Practice, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Kathy Nightingale, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Huettel used the tablet PCs in two courses: Fundamentals of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE 27), and  Introduction to Signals and Systems (ECE 54). In both courses, she prepared conceptual and/or computational problems for students to solve (sometimes individually, sometimes in groups).  Students used tablet PCs to submit their work using either Classroom Presenter or Ubiquitous Presenter.  Dr. Huettel then selected one or more student submissions as the basis of class discussion.  She also used polls occasionally to survey student understanding/intuition.

She says “I am most excited about the way students were more engaged when I used the Tablet for interactive activities. More students asked more questions when they had to try a problem in class and realized they didn’t exactly understand what they were doing.”

Students benefited, as she explained “Students report (on the survey, for example) that the interactive activities cause them to pay more attention and understand the material better (presumably because they are applying a new concept immediately, rather than waiting for a few days to attempt the homework).”

Using tablet PCs for interactive activities in the classroom impacted her teaching:

Since I feel the interactive activities are one of the most beneficial (and novel) uses of the Tablets, I spent a lot of time developing suitable questions to ask the students during class. This forced me to think carefully about all my examples so that common mistakes would be evident and so that I could make the conceptual points I felt were important. It was challenging and useful to try to anticipate the mistakes students would make. Using interactive activities has also forced me to be more flexible in my teaching style (since I did not always predict the actual outcome of an activity).

Participating in the fellowship had benefits: “one of the greatest benefits of this project has been the development of a community of faculty/CIT/OIT interested not just in Tablets, but in innovative teaching methods.”

This project produced several conference presentations:

• Lisa G. Huettel, Jeff Forbes, Linda Franzoni, Robert Malkin, Joseph Nadeau, and Gary Ybarra (2007) “Using Tablet PCs To Enhance Engineering and Computer Science Education” Workshop on the Impact of Pen-Based Technology on Education (WIPTE) abstract
• Lisa G. Huettel, Jeff Forbes, Linda Franzoni, Robert Malkin, Joseph Nadeau, Kathy Nightingale, and Gary A. Ybarra (2007)  “Transcending the Traditional: Using Tablet PCs to Enhance Engineering and Computer Science Instruction” Frontiers in Education  pdf
• Lisa G. Huettel (2008) “Introducing Tablet PCs to the Classroom: Course-Specific Impact in Engineering and Computer Science” HP Technology for Teaching Worldwide Higher Education Conference  abstract and video

Dr. Forbes participated in a year-long faculty fellowship organized by Dr. Lisa Huettel to experiment with using tablet PCs in teaching.  He taught CompSci 1, Principles of Computer Science, using a tablet PC and the program Ubiquitous Presenter to lecture, using ink to highlight points, answer posed questions, and as a large whiteboard. Students used Ubiquitous Presenter (UP) once a week to answer some question posed in class.  Overall, he felt that using UP or Classroom Presenter instead of Powerpoint is a positive change. Using UP instead of the chalkboard improved readability and accessibility for the student and provides more functionality for the instructor.

Dr. Forbes enjoyed participating in the faculty fellowship.  He says

The best outcome was working with a number of faculty who I normally do not interact with much. I learned a lot about teaching styles that normally does not happen. Just having people with similar interests come together to talk about pedagogy and instructional technology is extremely valuable.

Dr. Forbes is also involved with robotics projects with local schools.

Photo shows Dr. Forbes describing his teaching at the 2007 Center for Instructional Technology Showcase.

Dr. Malkin participated in a year-long faculty fellowship organized by Dr. Lisa Huettel to experiment with using tablet PCs in teaching. He taught his BME 154 (Biomedical Electronic Measurements) course using PowerPoint with blank slides that he wrote on using a tablet PC during his lectures. He then provided complete copies of the notes to download after the lecture. He found that most of the students continued to take notes as they always have done, and the use of the tablet PC improved both student learning and his teaching. In surveys, students preferred that he use the tablet PC to present his materials.

Dr. Malkin also experimented with using slates that plugged into the student laptops so that he could see student responses to problems during class. The students sketched their responses on the slate and then submitted them using an online photo program such as Snapfish or Shutterfly (image of student submissions is below). Dr. Malkin then discussed their submissions in class. He valued the ability to see how the students were doing during the class so he could adjust his materials, but the students did not find it useful. Additionally, there were logistic problems with providing power to each of the laptop/ slate combinations.

He concluded:

I am convinced that the advantages of using the tablet laptop to deliver lectures outweighs the disadvantages. I will only be delivering lecture-based classes using the tablets.

I am also convinced that giving students the ability to submit work from their tablets is also valuable. However, for the moment, this will not impact my teaching because the mechanics of doing so are too cumbersome.

Dr. Malkin is director of Duke-Engineering World Health, and has served on the executive board of the World Health Organization

Dr. Franzoni participated in a year-long faculty fellowship organized by Dr. Lisa Huettel to experiment with using tablet PCs in teaching. In Spring, 2007, she taught ME 141L, Mechanical Design, using tablet PCs with her students.  She lectured every class period using a tablet PC and Ubiquitous Presenter.  Approximately every other class period the students shared a tablet PC (2 or 3 students per group) to work on problems together.  The students submitted their solutions and Dr. Franzoni discussed the solutions with the class.

She is enthusiastic about using the tablet PC as a replacement for the blackboard and chalk. She likes choosing colors and having a different screen than her students (i.e., so she can see hidden text or guidelines for drawing).  She saves the file when she is finished lecturing for reference.   For example, she could look back at the previous lecture to see where she left off just before class starts.  In the past, she would sometimes have to look at a student’s notebook to see how far she had gotten in her handwritten notes.

Teaching with tablet PCs has allowed her to focus on student understanding, since they are working the problems rather than watching her work the problems.  In reviewing their work, she can stop and ask where did this or that result come from and see if the rest of the class knows.  She is now constantly facing the class or moving around the room interacting with the students.  In the past, her back would have been to them at least part of the time, in order to write on the board.  She prefers the face-to-face contact and would not go back to teaching to the blackboard.

One student said “the professor was able to be much more thorough when using the tablet PC.  The screen was easier to see from anywhere in the classroom, and the use of colors emphasizes points that the professor makes”.

Dr. Ybarra participated in a year-long faculty fellowship organized by Dr. Lisa Huettel to experiment with using tablet PCs in teaching. Although he enjoys writing on a chalkboard to accompany his presentations, he experimented with several different ways of teaching in his ECE 27 (Fundamentals of Electrical and Computer Engineering) course. For one third of the semester, he lectured using only the standard chalk board, for another third, he used a tablet PC and projector to display and capture his notes, and for the final third of the semester, his students used tablet PCs to work on problems and submit the solutions using Classroom Presenter. He reviewed the student solutions one by one during class. He was enthusiastic about teaching with tablet PCs when all of the technology was working well, and he proposed a question that engaged every student and they were all locked on the screen waiting to see his analysis of the class responses.

He continues to teach using a tablet PC, using Windows Journal to project and capture his handwritten notes and sketches. He uses different colors and line thickness as visual aids, and saves all of his lectures notes as one long file, so he can easily jump back to previous topics and add clarification as needed. He believes that student questions drive the lecture and that Windows Journal allows him to be spontaneous and responsive.

Dr. Ybarra is known for sharing his passion for engineering with Duke students as well as kids.

Photo shows Dr. Ybarra  (center) describing his teaching at the 2007 Center for Instructional Technology Showcase.