Summary:
The paper comprises of a brief but comprehensive look at the sketch recognition field. Some of the topics covered include current pen-based hardware, pen-centric software, and various uses for Tablet PCs.
The main focus on Tablet PC use involved an overview on how they could be used in an educational environment. Pen-based technology has been shown to have a mixed affect on student performance in a classroom, but overall the reception by students has been positive. Teachers feel that some Tablets and software help with class lectures, such as using Windows Journal to create presentation templates. Yet, Tablet hardware also limits teachers since they are tethered to a projector through the cables or forced to use a small amount of space. Tablet software can also help students learn on their own. MathPad allows for students to check their math notes and homework and Physics Simulator allows students to model and simulate mechanical engineering diagrams.
In two case studies, teachers in middle and high school evaluated Tablet PCs in their classes. Both teachers used the technology differently but enjoyed using the computers to enhance their teaching. One teacher used Tablets to record either at home or in class demos to archive. The other used Tablets to create presentation templates that they could save and write over during class. The templates could be used annually to save the teacher class preparation time.
Discussion:
A good discussion topic for this paper would be "Where do you think this technology is heading?" and "How can we improve it further for classroom use?" Tablet technology is getting cheaper and software is providing better support for pens. Although a limitation right now is cost of technology (smart boards vs. regular white boards & projectors, notebook vs. tablet) what people should think about is "What if we had no limitations?" It's a fun science fiction question to ask at this time.
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3 comments:
The educational example is always a little suspect as a case study. It seems to me that teachers that are willing to put in the time and experiment with such a system are already the good teachers that naturally reach students. Hasn't computers in the classroom been the technological silver bullet that is going to fix education. It has been on going for at least twenty years, has there been significant improvement?
The questions you pose are really on target but I'd be more interested in your answers than the questions.
I think UI is a big issue for classroom use as students and teachers need to focus on the tasks of teaching and learning and not bothering with hard to use or broken technology. That requires a lot of iterative study and development.
I think that "What if there were no limits?" can be useful for some idea generation in many contexts and in this case I will assume that you really just meant economically. I think it would be very interesting to see what use people had for this technology in a daily and/or pervasive way because I'm not sure I see it in that light.
H.G. Wells said that "Human history is more and more a race between education and catastrophe". I think the case is easy to make for the importance of improving education, but we need to make sure that we are quantitatively improving it and not leaving out important variables like Brian points out. That said:
There was also a lot of focus on education in that paper and it leaves the question of what other domains stand to benefit from this technology in the biggest way?
Nice to see some other people interested in this topic. I'm currently researching into the possibilites of sketch recognition and beautification within a games environment, with an end result of coding a homebrew DS application to test different methods of processing.
An interesting question that I and more focused on is not whether the future is in the classroom, but is it in games?
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