Tablet PC for Education

Long Time Gone

2007-05-01T22:53:00.000+08:00

It's been ages since I last had an entry here. During all these times, I had helped introduce TPCs solutions for educations to many schools in Singapore. At least, I feel proud for that. Getting to know some of the teachers in schools and understanding what they had to go through each day and also their needs had made me understand better the suffering and stress that teachers in Singapore had to go through each day.

Sadly, I am no longer working for that company that develops TPCs solution for teaching and learning.

But I was glad to know that Charlie (a.k.a. Shugang), one employee in my last company had actually read through the entires on this blog prior to him joining the company. This really proof the power of blogs and the Internet.

In fact, I was told by a friend recently that writing good blog entries can sometimes land you a job. Gee, that will be great.

Sadly, I will be mssing the teachers, especially those who had been very kind and to me these years. One of my most recent tasks prior to leaving the company was to teach students in a school on our TPCs solutions.

Some of the students in the classes I taught wanted my MSN account and I am glad we exchange. Recently I been chatting with some of them alot. Besides talking about Football, we share alot about their studies and the stress they face at home to ensure their parents are proud of them in their educational achievements.

Say what you like, teachers are really some of the nicest people you can ever meet at work. They either like what you have to offer or not. They are direct and straight to the point.

With the Singapore government plan to create some Future Schools in Singapore, in years to come, we will be seeing some schools with the latest technologies to assist teachers in their teaching and I am sure one of the technology will be Virtual Reality.

TPCs, like what I mentioned in my earlier blog entires when I started work in the company is really suited for teaching. In the coming years, I am sure more and more schools will be replacing their PCs with TPCs. Already the price difference between PCs and TPCs are getting closer.

My dear Charlie (a.k.a. Shugang) who is still with the company is really in the forefront of the future trend and when teachers are using TPCs the demands for applications that uses the Inking technology will be in great demand.

Lucky Angels

2005-06-07T22:09:00.000+08:00

I really envy those students in schools with their own TPCs. They are living in a world so unlike our times. With their own TPCs, the world is completely open to them to explore. With built-in wireless Broadband access, they are now able to surf the web for information, cut and paste content obtained from the web into their own coursework and even be able to communicate with their teachers and fellow classmates.
The world is now completely open to them to explore in whatever way they wish. Unlike before, the schoolchildren of today are fed with information from numerous sources.
Frankly speaking, it is not easy nowadays to be a teacher. Students has many avenues open to them to gather information to expand upon whatever was taught to them in a classroom environment.
I was talking to a teacher recently whose students are using TPCs that their parents had purchased for them. He was telling me that some of his students even go to the extend of researching further on topics he teaches them in class and at times they even introduce him to some new research data on the web that he didn't had the time before to search upon.
But having each students equipped with a TPC can also cause lots of stress for the teacher as the teachers might end up not paying attention to the lesson but take the time while the lesson is on to play games or surf the Internet on their own interest.
Some form of control would therefore need to be provided for the teacher. This leads me to an application that my company had called "Fun with Virtual Classroom". I will elaborate more on this application in my forthcoming blog entry.

Textbooks and Haversacks

2005-04-26T22:38:00.000+08:00

It is not uncommon nowadays to see schoolchildren tagging along a huge schoolbag or haversack to school. Piled inside would be thick textbooks that the students reference for their lessons. Some children small in stature looks awkward tagging their bags for the bags can be as huge as their body frame.
Imagine a world whereby all schoolchildren carries a TPC instead to school. All their textbooks exercise books assignments and projects all stored in a TPC not much larger than an A4-sized paper. Even a pencil box containing pen and pencil can be discarded. For Geometry they need not bring along a compass ruler protractor and set-squares. Everything nicely stored in a TPC and no need to even carry along a notepad.
With such an arrangement the children need no longer need to carry a heavy weight on their little shoulders.
Teachers too will no longer need to pack away stack of books back home for marking for everything will be digitized and stored in their TPC. Wow! What an ideal world.

Requirements Gathering

2005-04-08T20:27:00.000+08:00

Had a great meeting at a school yesterday with the teachers that teaches Chemistry and Physics. The purpose of the meeting was to gather their requirements regarding the building of applications making use of TPCs for their teaching purposes. The meeting was mind-blogging for me as I never studied Chemistry during my high school days. Biology was another subject I did not opt for when I was in school. So there is lots of things for me to pickup as the project progresses in the coming months. But I am really looking ahead to the challenge.
Downloaded a demo version of crocodile Chemistry from the Internet. It is really a great application for doing Chemistry experiments. Only valid for 30 days but I intend to take this 30 days to mess around with it.
Might consider buying a copy for the company for evaluation purposes.
Well the weekend is here. Hope to get a good rest.

Tough TPC

2005-04-06T10:08:00.000+08:00

Everyday, I had to tag along my Toshiba M200 to the office. Not that I am complaining for I am truly enjoying the fact that I mess around with the latest technology currently available.
How many people out there currently got the chance to play with a TPC anyway.....
My only concern is whether with all the carrying and moving; will the M200 malfunction due to the many shocks and shakes. So far, it had been working fine and I have no complains.
I always like Toshiba. In fact, my favorite brand for notebooks has always been Toshiba and Fujitsu. Never had problems before with either brands.
But what will happen if one day my hard disk crash or the notebook refuse to startup. Invested in a 1GB Thumbdrive to backup my office emails and documents and also a 20GB Portable hard disk with USB 2.0 connection.
So far, I make sure I backup my data at least twice a week.

Freeware for Tablet PCs

2005-04-01T10:23:00.000+08:00

Does anyone out there knows where I can find good freeware specially designed for Tablet PCs running on Windows XP Tablet PC Version?
I came across a few but there isn't much. If anyone knows of any good site do let me know.
I am more keen on TPC software for education.

Cheers!

Promoting Usage of Tablet PCs

2005-03-31T21:15:00.000+08:00

Ideally, all teachers and students should or ought to be using TPCs in schools. In my company, we are focusing on software development based on the usage of the TPCs inking technology. Currently, I am doing some research of my own to see how we can introduce Physics or Chemistry as another module for our Fun with Construction application.
I hope to be able to meet up with some local teachers specializing in these subjects to find out what they need.
I was messing around with the MS Powertoy Physics Illustrator today, and the application is pretty cool. If anyone else knows of any other TPC based application for Mathematics do let me know the link where I can explore more.
Have a good day!

In The Ideal World, All PCs Should Be Tablet-based

2005-03-24T10:27:00.000+08:00

Of course I might be bias in making this assumption since I am working in a company that is specializing in TabletPC-based applications for education.
But after having used a Tablet PC now for 3 months, I had found that TPC is the closest thing to a paper-based notepad. I can simply open the journal and with the stylus perform inking immediately as though i am using a normal notepad. This convenient is really apparent especially when in meetings whereby I need to jot down points fast and immediate before the speaker move on to something else.
Even inking and having my freehand writing converted to digital form is a breeze for the hand written recognition software works very well.
Truly a marvel.
Downloaded some nice TabletPC games from the Internet to test them out. Really nice to know I can use the stylus to play them.
This weekend, is a long weekend for us here. As it is the Easter Holidays, I hope to find some time at home to surf on the Internet to find out more information regarding the usage of TPCs in education.
But the problem is whether I will have the time. Back home, I have so much things to take care off like washing clothes, cleaning my apartment and even doing the groceries.

In Love with My Tablet PC

2005-03-23T15:45:00.000+08:00

I had to say, I am very fortunate to get the chance to use a Tablet PC (TPC). If I did not join Heulab, my present company, I would probably never get the chance to ever mess around with one. Although I been using Notebooks for many years since the days of MS-DOS, but when Windows 95 first arrived, it was the first OS I used that had a windows interface that allows me to point and click on items on the screen with a Serial mouse.
Since Windows taken over the PC world for these many years, I had been depending on the good old mouse to navigate. Even when the touchpad and button pointer came along for notebooks, I still was fully mouse-dependant.
But now with the TPC, I am beginning to get the hang of it with the attached stylus to replace the old faithful mouse.
The TPC given to me to use as my work machine is a Toshiba Portege. Though it did not come with a built-in CD-ROM drive, the fact that it is a TPC running on Windows XP Tablet PC edition had really make my life so much easier when working on MS-Office. I can use the stylus to write freehand annotations into my documents, spreadsheets and even powerpoint slides.
Truly, TPC with applications specially designed for it would be the most ideal tool for teachers and students in the education sector.
Now, I can actually work without the mouse and that means one less item to carry along with me.
If only the battery technology can be so advance as to allow me to have 24 hours of power with one full charge, I can also tag along my TPC without having to drag along the heavy and bulky AC Adaptor.

Using Tablet PC for Physics & Chemistry

2005-03-23T13:51:00.000+08:00

Though it had taken awhile for Tablet PCs to take off, one area where the use of TPCs is proving to be an effective tool is in the education sector. Schools that had started deploying TPCs to their teachers and students are beginning to appreciative the usefulness of being able to use the stylus on TPCs to do "inking".
In fact, some school in Singapore had already taken the initiative to go Tablet PCs in a big way. Teachers are assign TPCs and even the students carries TPCs to school instead of hugging along tons of text books in a haversack to school each day.
I do feel that TPCs has a lot to offer for the education sector and applications like the "Fun with Construction" software that is part of the Funpark Series of software developed by Heulab in Singapore are moving in the right direction.
This application is useful for doing geometry construction with virtual tools on TPCs and students and teachers can use the application.
But I will like to know how it can be use for Chemistry and Physics. If anyone out there has anything to share regarding this, do drop me a line.