Joni Nunnery is a professor in the College of Business exploring the future of learning.
Nunnery teaches ISDS 2001, a required course for business majors. In her Monday class, students watched as she wrote lecture notes using a new technology only available to five other professors at LSU.
During her lecture, Nunnery uses a tablet PC, on loan to her from the Office of Computing Services, to explain problems and write notes on the overhead projector.
The tablet PC is similar to a laptop computer with a touch-screen. Nunnery uses a program called Microsoft Journal to work out problems on the projector, all by writing on the screen of the tablet with a stylus, or a pen used with the device.
Ron Hay, executive director for the Office of Computing Services, said the idea for tablet PC’s was brought back from a conference by Computing Services employee Joel Williams and Joseph Hutchinson, an education professor and director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.
“We only bought six of the tablet PC’s because that’s all the money we had,” Hay said. “We then distributed them to English, math, ISDS, education, music and architecture.”
Students can work with Nunnery as she uses the tablet PC like a mini-chalkboard. Her red marks appear in real-time on the screen as she works out a problem from the previous night’s homework.
“Basically I can tie in every aspect of my course,” Nunnery said. “Lecture, examples, homework problems, all by using electronic files and writing capabilities.”
Nunnery said the tablet PC also has made her more organized as a professor.
“From a teaching perspective, it’s much easier for me to lecture,” she said.
Nunnery said a time-saving benefit of the new technology is that everything she does in class is automatically saved to Blackboard.
Russell Wild, an ISDS junior, said having everything saved online helps him in the statistics class.
“It’s easier for you to get your homework or notes, in case you missed a class,” Wild said. “I’d like it if all teachers did it this way.”
Jeannie Schindler, a marketing senior, said she was required to take ISDS 2001 for her major but didn’t know Nunnery would be using the new technology when she scheduled the class.
“I like it because we can do the steps with her instead of just throwing it up there,” Schindler said. “But sometimes when she messes up, she just erases it and I’ve already written it down.”
The money for the program came out of the Computing Services budget, Hay said, but it was not a planned program.
“I got excited because they described it as the missing piece in technology,” Hay said. “The tablet technology is a lot richer, it has more functionality than a palm pilot and it’s not as technologically intensive as some other devices.
Hay said many of LSU’s faculty were excited about the features and functionality of the new technology.
“It gives the less technical faculty an entry point,” Hay said. “They like the fact that you can use handwriting, and you don’t have to be a keyboard expert to use them. If it fills the gap between the palm pilot and the thousand-dollar thinkpad, then maybe we’re on to something here.”
The devices are expensive, costing between $1,500 to $1,600 each, so prices need to fall before they can become widespread, Hay said.
Hay said University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., and other schools around the country also are testing tablet PC’s, and he has been contacted by professors from colleges such as Northwest College in Kirkland, Wash., who are interested in starting their own tablet PC program.
Hutchinson, one of the program’s initiators, began using a tablet PC in his graduate-level education class this semester and has been experimenting with it for two months.
Hutchinson said the Computing Services Department often cooperates with CELT on new technologies, and his tablet PC is working well.
“It’s still early to tell, but I see many benefits,” Hutchinson said. “I can mark over material and interface with programs like Microsoft Word with my tablet PC.”
Hutchinson said his tablet PC includes handwriting recognition, which takes his writing and converts it to normal text.
“I can also mark a paper digitally like a normal teacher would with a red pen,” Hutchinson said. “I just send it back to the students in Word format with the markings.”
Hutchinson said he is finding new ways to use the tablet PC outside of class as well.
“I download electronic books and take them with me,” Hutchinson said. “The technology is beautiful, it’s like a well-running laptop.”
Nunnery said she is so impressed with the tablet PC program, she thinks it is the future of education.
“I think it’s great,” Nunnery said. “When you start integrating the tablet PC with things like Blackboard, it’s very easy for students.”