Monday, August 21, 2006

• Email story
• RSS feeds

Tech writes off ordinary laptops for ones with electronic pens

Since 1984, students of the engineering college have used the latest in computer technology.

By Greg Esposito
  381-1675

Courtesy of Virginia Tech

Joe Tront, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech, uses a tablet PC when teaching. This fall, Tech will be among the first colleges to require students to use them, too.

Related

• Professors are using the latest technologies in order to better communicate with students
• The same technology that enables cheaters also helps nab them

BLACKSBURG -- Since Joe Tront started teaching electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech in 1978, he has witnessed such a huge amount of change that he has trouble explaining when, or how, it all happened.

"Technology is kind of an evolutionary process, so it's changed the way we do things year after year," he said. "It's difficult to identify where significant leaps have taken place."

How's this for a start?

In 1984, Tech's College of Engineering became the first in the country to require personal computers for its students. They ran at about 200 kilohertz.

By 1992, the typical PC was running at about 200 or 400 megahertz, or about 1,000 to 2,000 times faster. By the mid-1990s students began using computers with Internet access.

In 2002, the college made laptops mandatory for students. The machines typically run at about 2 gigahertz -- or 10,000 times the processing power of the PCs students used in 1984.

And this fall, thanks to an agreement with Fujitsu and Microsoft, the college will be among the first in the country to require tablet PCs. They run at the same speed as laptops but have the added feature of an electronic pen that allows students and professors to jot notes or draw designs on screen. These notes can be saved and shared with other students or an entire class.

Tront's reserved demeanor changes quickly when, electronic pen in hand, he begins drawing feverishly on his tablet screen and talking about the possibilities the new devices open up.

The advantages of the new technology flow from his mouth quickly -- from things as simple as test feedback and in-class polling, to professors and students marking up the same computer screen while discussing problems miles apart.

"It's the kind of classroom discussion that really gets them engaged," he said. "They lose that sleepiness effect."

Just as the Internet improves students' research capabilities and laptops allow for more hands-on classroom learning, Tront said he thinks the tablets will allow for a different level of classroom interaction.

He has already worked in class with tablet PCs in the past two years and said the feedback has been positive. But the concrete effects of the new technology on student learning are not yet known. The college will conduct surveys and tests with students to gauge its impact.

But Tront already knows it's having an effect. He sees it in the alert faces of students, even in classes after lunch. Sitting in the back of the room won't save students from having to show their work on a big screen in front of the whole class.

"It does keep students on their toes, so to speak," he said.