The Tablet PC Project at The University of Virginia

Charles M. Grisham

Chief Technology Officer

Professor of Chemistry

University of Virginia

A Partnership to Explore Classroom Transformation

Partners:

Thomson Learning

Microsoft Corporation

Hewlett Packard Corporation

University of Virginia

What’s in it for each?

Thomson – what will textbooks become?

Microsoft – software to serve higher ed

Hewlett Packard – computing form factor

UVa – can we improve teaching/learning?

Student profile

At Uva, last year – 80% brought laptops to college

0% brought them to class….

~0% learn actively

The Tablet Project

400 HP Tablet PCs deployed in three courses:Cognitive Psychology Introductory StatisticsBiochemistry

Statistics

Lecture – 3 hrs/wk

Discussions – 50 minutes twice/wk

Lectures – content provided in OneNote with students taking their own notes within a OneNote chapter template

In-class simulations and software demonstrations on Tablet

Statistics Discussions

Students work in small groups on application problems related to current lecture topics

Students do computations on their tablets, write up solutions as a team, and submit their work electronically

Cognitive Psychology

Exploiting the Tablet’s unique ability to bring lectures and textbook together

Students take notes on Tablets, and add figures (online from textbook) in appropriate places

Much of the course involves special drawings that are compared with text figures – neither paper nor laptops can do this

Biochemistry

Lecture slides in OneNote allow students to annotate as they go

OneNote assignments – UDo files – challenge students to draw structures, reactions, chemical mechanisms, graphical relationships, calculations

Biochem Online - iLrn

Thomson’s iLrn site provides:3D protein modeling exercisesFlash animations of text figuresJava applets explaining complex conceptsPre- and Post-tests to assess learningGrade data transfer seamlessly between

Thomson iLrn site and UVa Instructional Toolkit Gradebook

Biochemistry assets

Flash animations: http://www.web.virginia.edu/jpj3g/html/links.html#MN001

Thomson iLrn site from Toolkit: www.toolkit.virginia.edu

Many of the media assets (protein modeling, Flash, Java applets, etc.) provided by two grants from the National Science Foundation

Project Logistics

UVa’s Office of Information Technology and Communications provided:Multi-frequency wireless in our classroomsAuthenticated linkage to Thomson iLrn site

via Instructional ToolkitCollaboration to establish secure log-onAccess to UVa-licensed software for

Tablets

Assessment

Thomson Learning, Microsoft, and HP are sharing the cost of research on impact of the Tablets on teaching and learning

Reed Haldy McIntosh

NCHEMS (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems)

Results?

Too soon to tell, but…

Very positive student response

Growing wave of Tablet interest at UVa