The group attending the 2007 Bolles Tablet Institute was housed at the Hampton Inn near downtown Jacksonville. The eighteen attendees came from a variety of areas including New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, Illinois, and Washington State.
Each morning at 8:30, a bus from Bolles picked us up and transported us to the day’s session. Days 1 & 3 were held at the Upper School campus; day 2 took place at Bolles’ Bartram Middle School campus. Each and every day was full of presentations, classroom visits, and hands-on practice time. Oh, and every day brought us a new and even more delicious lunch! Our days concluded late afternoon as the school’s shuttle returned us to our hotel.
The most obvious differences between my Tablet Institute experience and any other conference/workshop I’ve attended previously were four major (and extremely important) factors:
1) The small number of participants (a total of 18)
2) This conference about educational technology took place at a school while students were in class making classroom visits possible.
3) All the presentations were done either by Bolles’ Technology Team and faculty, not outside presenters or “experts”. I believe that, over the three days there were about 20 presentations [presentations and classroom visits], not counting those by tech staff. This seems to say volumes about the vitality of Bolles’ technology program and the interest-level of its faculty.
4) A thoroughly “hands on” philosophy in the design of the workshop, including a tablet PC (Lenovo X41) for each participant to use and practice on for the duration of the conference.
Having a limited number of participants meant that more individual attention was possible, more participant questions could be posed and answered, and more true acquaintanceship developed among those of us attending. Chatting with these folks between sessions almost always opened up new thinking and discoveries providing new perspectives, ideas, and brainstorms! I recognize that not every technology conference can or should have such a small group of attendees, but in this instance, it was a great treat to able to attend something with this design.
Another attribute of this conference that I have rarely encountered before is an educational technology workshop where, along with the presentations, we had the chance to make classroom visits and watch some of the same people who had presented to us working in their classroom with their students. The advantage of being at an educational workshop with real students and instruction going on is difficult to overstate.
I had assumed that all teachers at Bolles had laptop computers, and I was correct. They use Toshiba Portege M200 and M400 models.
I was wrong, however, in thinking that there is a student laptop program at Bolles; there is not. I understand that moving to a student laptop program is under some discussion, but it does not yet appear on the horizon.
Tablet PCs have been phased in among the Bolles faculty over a three-year process. The school moved from desktop computers for faculty to tablet PCs. At present, all teachers have a tablet PC. Though Bolles makes no claim that all teachers fully integrate the use of tablet PCs into their classroom, my observation was that the faculty “buy in” was substantial.
The Tablet Institute arranged for each participant to have a tablet PC (Lenovo X41) for the duration of the conference. Being able to use a tablet PC, both during the sessions and at “home” at the hotel, for practice and review of the day’s sessions, was a tremendous plus to this conference. Three days of tablet PC experience does not make one anywhere near an expert or experienced user – especially in the use of the tablet software such as Journal and OneNote. But having a machine to use for those three days was a great asset.
The theme that ran through so many of the presentations and classroom demonstrations is the tablet’s ability to allow the teacher to annotate in real time the results of classroom discussion and content arising out of the dynamics of the classroom. We looked at ink annotations (being able to write directly on the screen in “standard” applications such as Microsoft Office Suite) and specialized applications specifically designed for use on a tablet computer (e.g. Windows Journal, Microsoft Office OneNote, Ink Desktop, Snipping Tool, Ink Art, Ink Flash Cards, Equation Writer, Tablet Music Composition Tool – we even took a look at the My Font tool which makes it possible for you to create a font that is based on your own handwriting!).
The typical room set-up at Bolles had the tablet PC stationed at or near the front of the room. Teachers move freely about the room, facing their students, returning to the tablet to add notes or comments, or inviting students to do so. And all the ink annotations added to the “ink enabled” applications can be saved (or not) and used for future classroom presentations, distributed to students who missed class, posted to a class webpage as a resources, and so on. In most cases, the content of the day’s curriculum was prepared in advance and displayed on a large screen from a ceiling-mounted projector. The tablet computer was used by the teacher and students to add to and amplify the content based on the dynamics of the class, including the give-and-take among teacher and student and students among themselves. The stylus and ink annotations allowed that all of it to be preserved.
All at Bolles credited the installation of ceiling-mounted projectors as a major step in propelling the success of the tablet PC as a classroom and teaching tool. I’m wondering if, as teachers at Bolles accrue more experience with tablet PCs – and the technology for better display of multimedia over wireless connections – that teachers will be even less oriented toward the podium and use their portable tablet to roam more freely throughout the classroom.
My “take aways” from the Bolles Tablet PC Institute included the following:
- Tablet PCs offer a number of tools that seem posed to make portable computer much more of a practical, day-to-day reality, one far more integrated into the teacher’s use in the classroom and in the process of teaching.
- The tablet technology – hardware and software – has made noteworthy improvement. The tablet technology seems poised to become much more attractive as a first option in considering a recommended laptop for use in schools.
- Among those hardware and software improvements include:
- The stylus and screen interface are much improved – pen responsiveness to and on the screen, the clarity and brightness of the screen itself
- The speed improvements in processors, the tablet operating system itself seems much more reliable and stable, and especially the strides made in handwriting recognition
- The instructional tools such as Windows Journal, Microsoft Office OneNote, ink annotation which is available in a number of programs (including Microsoft Office), snipping tools for taking screen content and bringing it into programs such as Journal and OneNote
- Based on the sense I got at Bolles, teachers are drawn into the use of tablet PCs in their classroom once they get an idea of what they can do (no rocket science discovery, in this case!). There is also much “cross-pollination” as teachers see what colleagues are doing with respect to the use of this technology in their teaching (which is also a model for growth and success we see over and over).
- In my classroom observations at Bolles, my general impression is that student and teacher eye contact, interaction, and student classroom engagement were strong. (Reminder: Bolles does not have laptop program and, therefore, students are not on the other side of a screen which I see in some situations at our school with student laptops, so we’re not directly comparable.)
Questions that I remain uncertain about include:
- Are SmartBoards and tablet PCs redundant? In other words, is what they can do equivalent enough that if you have one you aren’t missing much by not having the other?
- Will an even greater “buy in” for a tablet PC at Bolles going to have to wait until a rock solid wireless transmission for multimedia is available?
- The Math Department Head at Bolles – who was clearly one of the most knowledgeable and systematic proponent of tablet use in the classroom – spoke of major enhancements to Microsoft Office OneNote in the newest version (Office 2007). Of particular interest was an improved filing and organizational structure. Another highly-touted feature, which he had not yet experimented with because his students don’t have laptops in the classroom, was OneNote’s capability to allow collaborative sessions. I would very much like to research this tool thoroughly.
These thoughts, and those questions, are what I have on this last day of the Institute. I’m sure more will come to me as I continue to digest and think through the many presentations, discussions, and observations I’ve made over these three days. No doubt, more will follow!
