It looks like an ordinary college class circa 2004, with laptops on every desk except that a third of the students have the computers closed and appear to be scrawling on their lids.
Welcome to "Information Technology and Management," a course in the School of Business Administration, where administrators and faculty have placed themselves at the forefront of a national higher education trend by requiring entering first-year students to own convertible tablet PCs.
The convertible tablet functions both as an ordinary laptop and, if the screen is swiveled and closed on the keyboard, as a kind of souped-up digital notepad, with the lid becoming an illuminated writing screen. Students file their tablet-mode notes in folders, either in handwritten form or converted to text, where they have all the advantages of searchable digital files. The tablet will even record a lecture, synchronizing the audio to the notes. If a section of notes is incomplete or unintelligible, a student taps the text in question and the professors words boom forth.
About 180 first year business schools students are using the new technology.
Erin Schumacher, a first year student from Harvard, Ill., said she learned about the business schools new policy through a letter she received over the summer. Open to new experiences, she figured that the tablet PC was just one other new thing that college would entail.
The tablet, which also provides a wireless Internet connection, has far exceeded her expectations.
It can do everything you need, she says, from functioning as an infinitely expanding notepad; to displaying the professors Powerpoint presentation, which she can write on; to letting her do research online in class or look at her online texts; to recording the lecture for later reference; to organizing a searchable database of her notes.
That panoply of functions all in support of enhanced learning is just what the School of Business Administration leaders envisioned.
While its too early to assess definitive results, the experiment looks promising. Faculty report good anecdotal feedback and see more students taking more notes in class. And, of course, the tablet PC is affecting not just students but faculty who use the tool. Its had a bigger impact on how I teach than anything else," says Jim Kraushaar, an associate professor and a specialist in the use of computers in business who has had a 35-year career.
Kraushaar makes notes on his Powerpoint presentation during class discussion, then posts the annotated file almost immediately on the class Web site. For the first time, he can also complete the digital loop with student assignments, emailing back papers adorned with digital comments, edits, and grades.
Dean Rocki-Lee DeWitt, who was attracted to UVM three years ago partly because of the business schools commitment to keeping up with information technology that supports student learning, says students will benefit from their experience with the tablet PCs as they begin their careers.
When you walk around different organizations, you see tablets, she says. Healthcare centers are using them for data entry. Warehouse environments are using them to do comparisons of inventory with whats actually on the shelf. We dont want our students to be surprised the first time they walk into an organization and see this.
Cost was an issue as the tablet plan was being developed. But through tough negotiating with Gateway, the tablet provider, the business school managed to keep prices within a couple hundred dollars of standard laptops. And because the tablets are required, students are eligible for financial aid.
