Faculty And Student Use Of Tablet Pcs: Perspectives On Their Pedagogical Effectiveness

The Tablet PC is gaining in popularity as a digital teaching tool in engineering education. Instructors report its use as a flexible platform for seamless interweaving of lectures, software demonstrations, web access and other classroom needs: a single device functionally equivalent to a blackboard, computer, computer data projector and overhead projector. Much of the emphasis to date, however, has been on the instructor’s sole use of the Tablet PC: during the class period students still mostly rely on paper/pencil or traditional workstations. This paper presents instructors’ and students’ initial impressions on the use of Tablet PCs within selected courses in different engineering programs at the University of the Pacific. As with any technological teaching tool, Tablet PCs have their advantages and disadvantages. Their main instructional advantage lies in their flexibility. Within the same class period, students can use the 'tablet' mode for annotating course notes using different colors or for developing a design, then link to the internet to gather data and information, and change to 'PC' mode to run a model and incorporate model results into their class notes. The simple feature that allows the screen to be oriented in different directions allows students to readily share their work and ideas with others, facilitating use of active learning group exercises in classes. One main advantage identified by students was the ability to organize and archive their class notes and associated materials. Despite some administrative issues such as boot-up time at the start of class and network connectivity issues from time to time, Tablet PCs were found to be appropriate for use in certain engineering courses and they can serve as effective multi-functional teaching and learning tools.