Mark Wagner has obviously worked hard on the content for the El Morro Intro to Tablet PC Workshop. Just pop over to the wiki to read the list of topics covered. I'd love to see even more on using Tablet PCs for classroom management, as well as annotating and grading papers. Tablets are great tools for these types of tasks.

After adding a few things to the new DIY Multitouch PC forum, I thought it would be good to point you to an historical multitouch document: Andrew Wilson of Microsoft Research published TouchLight: An Imaging Touch Screen and Display for Gesture-Based Interaction and presented a few years ago. Good reminder.

Had a fun time playing with the homemade multitouch box yesterday. Here's a picture with it hooked up to a Lenovo x60 Tablet PC while I'm playing with Smoke. Loren goes into detail about how built the little multitouch box.

Tips:

1. Use a small box, such as 7"x7"
2. Cover the hole for the cord with duct tape to block extra light
3. Use a picture frame as the "lid" to the box. If you use paper alone press lightly or else your lid will cave in :)

According to the Computex website Sambest Corporation of Taiwan will show a model 800, rugged mobile PC with resistive touch display. Sambest has several mobile PCs with digitizer support.

• Compact A4 size with bumper and Magnesium-Alloy Housing in high strength and rugged structure
• 10.4” XGA (1024x768) TFT with resistive touch screen
• Intel Core Duo Processor Ultra Low Voltage 1.2GHz Processor
• RAM: 1GB DDRII 533 and optional 2GB upgrade
• Storage: HDD - Shock Proof mounted 80GB and optional 100GB/120GB
• Optional Solid Slate Drive 8GB/16GB/32GB
• Windows XP Tablet PC SP2 Edition / Windows Vista Business ready
• Built-in WiFi 802.11 a/b/g; Bluetooth Class I; CF/PCMCIA card slots to support UMTS/HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS/GPS Card
• Meet IP54 standard and compliant MIL-STD-810F
• Wide temperature range operation (-20℃ ~ +60℃)
• 7 hours of long operating battery life
• RS232 port for industrial device connection

According to PC Pro's Bob Harris, ARM is looking at the convergence zone of PCs and devices as an opportunity. ARM's Coretex-A8 processor could be its first step in the low cost PC direction. Energy efficient and very competitive may be the key to the successful expansion of this new category.

Recently, I've received questions about what application teachers can use on a Tablet PC that would be like a transparency or overhead.

Check out WriteOn, a project out of Virginia Tech. Teachers can annotate and "play back" to reveal information. This would be particularly useful for complex formulas, equations, and staging labels.

Building environmenally friendly PCs would potentially include reducing chemical byproducts, clean manufacturing, lead-free components, use of rapidly renewable materials, biodegradable plastics, rechargeable batteries with good method for disposal, longer lifetime of the complete product, reduce packaging, reuse - when possible recycle - materials, and the PC would need to be energy efficient.

Energy efforts alone range from reducing consumption by individual components, such as display and CPU, to improving software efficiency. Some PC manufacturers now have Energy Calculators available so you can know the amount of energy consumed by certain models. Here's a list of a few calculators and places to go for information. Please post resources that you use.

• Dell Energy Calculator
• Energy Star Guidelines for Energy Management
• Guide to Greener Electronics by GreenPeace has info on some general corporate policies
• Lenovo Project Big Green for IT 

Don't overlook consumption by specific models too. For example, the Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC consumes low power for a powerful mobile PC, and you can save a few trees by using the pen to handwrite quick notes.

So, tell me, are you ready to buy "green" PCs?

Disney's new Ultimate WALL·E has, "An innovative touch programming system lets kids direct WALL·E simply by making patterns on the remote's touch pad."

Great idea to use gestures on a remote!

LectureScribe is a whiteboarding application that you can use with a Tablet PC or interactive whiteboard. The app has a great ink playback features, which is particularly useful for revealing complex proofs, concepts, or other information.

In a Clemson University newsletter, Brian Dean, who wrote the app, described how he uses this Flash application:

Over the past few years, I have used LectureScribe for a variety of purposes: sending multimedia notes to students and colleagues in response to questions over email, posting supplemental material in my courses, making research notes for myself to view in the future, and finally in the development of a multimedia textbook where difficult material is explained using short animated mini-lectures.

The Association of Small Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) Conference 2008 will have a workshop on building video tutorials that includes LectureScribe tips for Tablet PC users.

Conference Dates: June 15, 2008 - June 19, 2008
Location: Myrtle Beach, SC
Conference website: http://www.ascue.org/ 
Presenter: Steve Anderson, U. South Carolina - Sumter
Workshop Date: Sunday, June 15, 2008
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Now that the workplace tool of preferred choice are mobile PCs over stationary PCs, IT support needs are shifting too. Global Knowledge is running a Windows Vista training course and certification test preparation that includes configuring and networking of mobile PCs, including instructions and labs on pen settings.

Course Outline

10. Configuring Mobile Computers

• Configuring Mobile Computer Settings
• Configuring Mobile Devices
• Configuring Power Options

11. Configuring Tablet PC Settings

• Configuring Pen and Input Devices

12. Networking Mobile Computers

• Networking Without Wires
• Connecting to a Wireless Network
• Working with Offline Files

PCs entering the classroom so that each child can potentially have all day access to curriculum and content is a phenomenal shift in schools. PCs like the Intel Classmate with appropriate software have been making in-roads at this 1:1 computing effort. The second generation is now out and Classmate 2.0 is making press review rounds. Are you finding these reviews helpful? What additional types of information do you need?

Darren Waters of BBC posted his first impressions recently:

It's a cut-price, cut-down laptop that runs XP moderately well, and connects to the net without a hitch. In fact, it accomplishes most tasks thrown at it without a hitch and its underpowered processor only really struggles when it is attempting to multi-task.

Purdue University is hosting this year's Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education (WIPTE). Submissions for papers, videos and posters are now being accepted.

Conference Dates: October 15 - 16, 2008
Conference Schedule future location

Here are some of the details for the Call for Papers:

Submissions Due: June 16, 2008.

Objectives: A wide variety of disciplines are embracing Tablet PC's and similar pen-based devices as tools for the radical enhancement of teaching and learning. Deployments of Tablet PCs have spanned the K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels and have dealt with an amazingly diverse range of subject areas including nursing, veterinary science, geology, ethno-musicology, anthropology, landscape architecture, writing, mathematics, computer science, Japanese language, physics, engineering, art, economics, as well as others. Despite the diversity of content areas, many deployments have been similar in terms of the passion they have generated among students and teachers. The Third Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education (WIPTE) is intended to leverage this shared passion and to identify best practices in the educational use of pen-based computing so that all educators may benefit from this next generation of technology.

As Microsoft's Chairman, Bill Gates paints a vision of technology today and how those advancements can improve tomorrow and is a trusted advisor on how we can achieve these goals.

This week Bill Gates testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology on the celebration of the 50th of the Committee. He answered questions ranging from the knowledge gap with students, fundamental problems with teacher professional development, the next big thing in technology, to inspiring kids to learn. Gates' message is consistent with prior speeches, but reviewing is worthwhile. "It starts with education," he stated.

Also this week, Bill Gates addressed the Northern Virginia Technology Council (March 13, 2008). In this he gave more specific examples about technology available to students today, including the WW Telescope project from MSR and Tablet PCs.

So if you put it on your computer and say hey, I’d like to see that for myself – you just connect up your telescope and boom, there you are. You can acquire information, add that to your database. So software touching all the sciences in a pretty deep way. So with these platforms there will be a huge variation in how creative governments are in applying software to their task, how creative businesses are to apply it to their task, how schools can take this and do new things.

The School District of Philadelphia broke ground on its "School of the Future" in 2004. Today, students attending use Tablet PCs for course material, notes, and assignments. Classroom equipment is state-of-the-art. There is no doubt that the Philly SOF has influenced school technology plans at a world wide level.

Franklin County Regional School District is a few hours to the west, outside of Pittsburgh, and they're exploring ways to bring advanced technology to their students and teachers. The state of Pennsylvania funded $423,000. What equipment have they selected? 60 interactive whiteboards, projectors and mobile PCs for the teachers, along with peripherals like printers, still cameras, webcams and video cameras. Students will have access to 270 mobile PCs that are distributed through the school on nine carts. Sounds like a great start to a one-to-many classroom.

What type of PC did you use in 1987? Probably an IBM PS/2 compatible PC, which you used at work.

Many of this year's graduating student teachers were born in 1987. These future teachers grew up surrounded by computers. How do you think their experiences will change next year's classrooms?

A simple way may be the acceptance of technology in daily life, versus special training on how to integrate it into their workflow. Another way may be that they'll expect a PC to be used as their main classroom organization tool as well as for rich interaction.