By MORGAN TARPLEY

mlt017@latech.edu

 

Tech’s College of Administration and Business is now incorporating new tablet personal computer technology into their classrooms.

A Board of Regents grant arranged by Dr. William Lewis, an assistant professor of computer information systems, and Darrell Eddy, the director of information technology for the CAB, allowed for 40 new tablet PCs to increase the amount of student participation during class.

“The idea for the m-lab began through observing the lack of computers for students in my CIS 444 class last year,” Lewis said.

“It is a barrier to learning for students to have to share lab computers.”

The m-lab’s Toshiba tablet PC, which can be transformed from a regular laptop to a digital writing slate that uses a stylus pen for touch screen access instead of a mouse or keyboard, is being used in rotation in five classrooms.

Eddy said an m-lab pilot program has been issued this quarter for testing its efficiency in the classroom and to resolve any technical or user problems that may be encountered.

“The only technical holdup [so far] has been charging and efficiently delivering the tablets to classrooms,” Eddy said. “[But] we thought it would be nice for any classroom and resolving any problems encountered.”

Lewis said tablets are available for faculty members to take home for the weekend as part of a short training session provided by the college.

“We are providing training sessions for all faculty members,” Lewis said. “We allow faculty to bring the units home so they can become familiar with the technology.”

Carol Shaver, an assistant professor of accounting and pilot program professor for this quarter, said she has had the best results with students in her lecture class.

She also said she has been working at home with her tablet and has found it to be a useful tool for students.

“I find that using the tablet’s writing feature [to write on lecture slides] will be helpful to students,” Shaver said. “I don’t want to assign something in class that I haven’t done [myself].”

Lewis said the faculty members are choosing to use the computer units in ways varying from distributing lecture notes to helping students sign in to acknowledge their presence in class to teaching students how to create spreadsheets.

“One of our faculty members is using the mobile units to distribute lecture notes and using the handwriting feature to take notes and save the slides to a network drive,” Lewis said.

“Another faculty member is using it to walk students through each spreadsheet example.”

Lewis has passed around a tablet PC as his sign-in sheet for many of his classes.

“The students find that using the tablet is entertaining,” Lewis said.

“It is an easier way for me to keep up with them and a way for them to become familiar [with the technology].”

Smita Sinha, a graduate student of business administration, said the m-lab also seems like an efficient way to inform students about new technology.

“I feel [the m-lab] is a good way to prepare students for the technological world we live in,” Sinha said.

“It introduces them to laptop technology use.”

Josh Hart, a senior finance major, said he sees future possibilities for the new technology but getting used to it for class work is not as helpful to him.

Hart said he is a soon-to-be graduating senior and he may not be able to use the technology enough to learn as much as other students.

“I can see the potential [for help] the program has for underclassmen,” Hart said.

“They can definitely use it more than me.”