Tablets Go To The Head of the Class

At first glance, the campus of Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., resembles any other college or university. Students hurry between classes or collaborate on projects in public areas.

A closer look, however, reveals an interesting difference. Although they are still relatively rare, students toting tablet PCs at Bentley are more commonplace than at any other university nationwide. At the start of the 2005-2006 school year, Bentley provided roughly half of its incoming freshmen students with Toshiba Tablets instead of IBM ThinkPad notebooks for the first time.

The distribution of Toshiba Tecra M4 tablets is part of an ambitious multiyear effort meant to help researchers, product manufacturers and vendors understand what works and what doesn't about the tablet PC in a higher-education setting. It's also a reminder of the continuous evolution of the education marketplace. According to vendors and experts, notebooks are the hot technology on today's campuses, but new developments in connectivity and teaching techniques, along with student populations that are increasingly savvy in the ways of digital technology, ensure that change will be a constant fact.

Bentley's experiment is part of a larger project aimed at judging the effectiveness of the tablet design in education, one that began four years ago and has focused mainly on graduate students and in smaller workgroup settings in the past.

In releasing earlier results from his studies of the tablet, Bentley marketing professor Perry M. Lowe said earlier versions of the device scored well for their note-taking ability and other functions but failed to address the students' nonclassroom demands. Newer devices have fewer such limitations. In fact, some PC makers are pushing hybrid devices that meld a few of the most sought-after tablet features into notebooks. "Tablet PCs are a viable alternative to laptops and desktops in the educational setting, but work needs to be done to speed adoption," Lowe says.

Bentley has had a campus-mobility campaign in place for 20 years, so it's not surprising that it would partner with Toshiba on the tablet experiment. Bentley is hoping to better integrate all devices into its classrooms, where notebooks are often not put to full use during a teaching session.

To get a better sense of what works with tablets, Bentley has also divided those students who get the newer technology into two groups. One receives the same training as notebook users; the other receives specific instruction in using tablets.

Lowe said careful marketing of tablets to key groups, such as cutting-edge professors and student groups, would help the devices gain traction.

For now, though, notebooks remain the gold standard for the mobile classroom beyond Bentley because of the flexibility they offer, says John Roman, executive vice president of sales at Brite Computers.

In primary-education settings, a single mobile cart can be shared among multiple classrooms. In higher education, the freedom to roam fits with more progressive environments that go beyond the traditional teacher-facing-student classroom. "As relates to education, the notebook is the computing technology of choice," Roman says. "Very few schools are using tablet computing." One reason is a relative scarcity of applications written exclusively for the tablet platform, although Roman cites an attendance application for K-12 administrators as a notable exception.

"There's also a price issue," Roman says. "Right now, most schools can get a notebook for $1,100 to $1,500, and a comparable tablet will run around $2,500. Unless schools can justify that extra cost by showing how it will really impact and enhance the learning experience, they're probably not going to do it."

The limited adoption of tablets in the classroom would match what some see as the technology's fate in the overall computing market. "Tablets will settle in as a long-term niche product," says Endpoint Technologies Associates president and former IDC analyst Roger Kay. Endpoint believes tablet sales will grow slowly during the next three years, a projection he has based, in part, on uptake of the devices so far and on the continued price discrepancy with notebooks.

"Education will be one of the places where tablets find traction, but even there, they will lose out to notebooks for the foreseeable future," Kay adds.

NEXT: Hope for the tablet in education.

But while it's true that the tablet hasn't taken off as predicted before its launch, vendors say the arrival of more platform-specific applications could help. Some see certain areas of education making the most sense for the tablet, just as some vertical industries--the medical profession, for instance--make the most sense for tablets' adoption in the business world.

The relative immaturity of tablet technology is often cited as a reason why it lags behind the notebook when it comes to performance. That situation, however, is already beginning to change. Tablets were traditionally heavier than comparably equipped notebooks and had a shorter battery life, but vendors have been slimming down the devices and adding more functionality at the same time.

Rick Fairhurst, regional sales manager at Data Networks, a technology solutions provider to K-12 and higher-education institutions in the mid-Atlantic region, says early versions of the tablet had questionable ruggedness, especially in the hands of students who were less familiar with them.

Fairhurst also sees price as a barrier for more tablet adoption, which is a major reason that desktop computers are still purchased by many educational institutions. "They can get two desktops for every notebook, so a lot really examine the need for mobility closely," he says.

On college campuses, however, the need for always-connected mobile computing is undeniable.

Michael Schmedlen, education industry leader for Lenovo's America sales group, says notebooks fit the lifestyle of college students, who are "nomadic by nature," which is a big reason why some schools have taken to giving out notebook computers along with dorm-room keys.

"[Students] interact with content and each other all the time," Schmedlen says. "Rather than having a professor provide all the information, the student can really be at the center of the pedagogical paradigm." That translates to more collaboration among students, more project-centered learning and more students able to achieve "higher modes of learning beyond retention and regurgitation."

While the notebook has taken hold, there are disciplines where the tablet is a natural device, such as any that involves marking up papers or scribbling notes, including creative writing or literature, he adds. Schmedlen also sees them gaining traction in primary schools, where students are still learning through tactile experience.

Another advantage of the tablet in the classroom is that it can be used flat on a desk or table. "It's something that is not an intrusion," Schmedlen says. "If you think about the traditional laptop, or even computer-lab classrooms, the first thing that happens is the students open up their notebooks or look at the screens. It's like putting up a barrier between the student and teacher."

Devices such as Lenovo's Tablet and the ThinkPad x41 Tablet PC allow students to have eye contact with the professor while using the device as a reference point.

"That way, it's not something they're using to surf the Web or IM their friends during class," Schmedlen says. "It doesn't become a distraction." He believes tablet adoption will expand in educational circles along with the number of applications available for the devices. The arrival of Microsoft's new Windows Vista will help, he adds.

Of course, to make the most of a mobile PC of any design, campuses need to have connectivity that goes beyond the classroom. Some schools are on the cutting edge of that trend, including Northern Michigan University, where students can be connected everywhere on campus and in the host town of Marquette.

At the State University of New York at Morrisville, also known as Morrisville State College, students arriving on campus receive both a ThinkPad and a cellphone that uses a VoIP network. "Today's students are very fluent in the language of technology, and they are demanding that level of sophistication," Schmedlen says. Lenovo has worked with schools that have seen improvements in admissions metrics, retention rates and even alumni donations after putting broad mobile-connectivity solutions into place.

For its part, Brite Computers is seeing heavy interest in its 3D projection technology, which uses plasma screens ranging in size from 20 inches to 50 inches to project 3D images. That type of solution would fit especially well in classes where hands-on approaches are important to learning.

"We're seeing a lot of interest in that," Roman says. "It's really useful in chemistry classes or physics classes. Students can physically see what it looks like to remove an atom or put one back in."

Projection technology, and the experience of Bentley, may suggest once again that college-campus technology will continue to evolve over time.

Meanwhile, Bentley will end this school year with an extensive new pool of data; freshmen who used tablets will be asked to fill out detailed questionnaires. Over the summer, the college plans to decide whether to expand the program to include all freshmen and some upperclassmen or to refocus its efforts on notebooks. In time, additional feedback will be available as tablets get a more intense road-testing. (As it turns out, students get to take their Bentley computers with them when they graduate.)

At this point, only one thing is certain in the education space, Schmedlen says: "The students of tomorrow are going to be even more demanding in terms of technology."