I bought this on special last week from JB HiFi. It's got a 16gb hd, a puny processor, and runs Android operating systems.
I bought it specifically for my teaching pracs - excuse me, Embedded Professional Learning experiences. Why would I do something like that?
It started back when I was working with EQ as an Instrumental Music Teacher......
I started with EQ in 2007, after a number of years with Catholic Education and other user-pay programs in the Gladstone area. I knew the Rockhampton coordinator from brass band - Mrs Jeanette Douglas - and she asked if I was interested in relief contract work for 6 months.
Fast forward to 2010, and I am still with EQ, and loving it. Computers have made their ways into the mainstream class, along with IWBs - but Instrumental Music, to my dismay, hadn't quite made the leap. The teachers preferred books, paper and phone calls over digital files, tablets and emails\texts. I had horrible handwriting (had is a bad word... I still have bad handwriting!), so I always looked for a digital shortcut - including the admin side of my job, tracking instruments by serial numbers, rolls, reporting (OneSchool reporting was just being phased in).
Then I saw an add for this:
I had already decided I was against Apple, due to the lack of functionality crossover between it and the PC - still the most common device en masse, I believe - and these feelings were reinforced, when at a conference, a Mac fan's files weren't congruous for instant exchange. We were looking at an Excel type file that had further enhanced a document prepared by one of the state co-ordinators for rolls and OneSchool reporting.
I had already starting playing around with the file, with the help of what little code I could get from the Mac version, when my wife allowed me to purchase the above Asus - a first attempt at putting Windows on a tablet.
It was pure love, for me.
I was able to tweak my file more, to run better on the tablet with a stylus. I could hand-write straight into Office programs (Word, Excel, etc) and it could translate my scrawl. My Excel sheet was "tick-and-flick", and had a database of all my schools' instruments, assignments, automatically generating completed loan agreement forms and tracking progress, summarising all my results into the OneSchool reporting template.
Outside my personal use, my students loved it too. OneNote Journal came with a manuscript stationary, meaning the kids and I could draw straight onto the tablet in music - handy when some of my classrooms weren't actually classrooms! In 2011, my local region participated in a trial run of the new Bruce Pearson text Tradition of Excellence, which came with an upgraded Interactive Environment. This environment was a digital version of the book, with videos and worksheets. Kids who didn't have their books didn't have to stress - I HAD ALL OF THEM, plus the videos (thanks to mobile phone hot spots at times, as not all my classrooms had WiFi).
Sadly, at the end of last year, my tablet died.
I could have gone out and bought a new Asus - the latest model is a laptop, with a detachable screen that has it's own i5 processor and 128gb hdd, in addition to the laptop base's 500gb. But that's $1300 - money my wife wouldn't let me spend.
But when this came along, the price enough for me to take a gamble. Especially now Google Drive has a near perfect facsimile of the Office Suite; in addition to other apps that help it do the job my old Asus did.
With the purchase of a stylus (I am using a Jot Classic - supposedly one of the most precise on the market), handwriting kicks in too - and not just in Word.
This is me marking up a PDF. I can handwrite straight onto it like paper, or I can leave notation marks (see the little yellow and white bubble boxes?). Just like leaving a notation on a standard Adobe pdf, except I can handwrite mine - and the tablet transposes it into font. This example here is my notes from a committee meeting. I just jot my notes over the agenda and other documents, come home and copy\paste into a minutes template I use. I intend to be doing a similar process with my observations and other forms I need to complete while on prac.
The pros of this style of a setup in the class extend further with internet functionality. My OneDrive allows me to increase my storage capacity to 1TB - although there is an option to insert a 128gb mSD card in the back.
Total benefits - a word processor, a text book, an internet device, a popular smart device, and paperless study tool in an affordable, lightweight body.
The cons - need power (although this one appears power friendly for the time being) and internet (although there is capacity to insert a microSIM card), plus a stylus (starting at around $15). Would they become a distraction in class? Is there a way to govern who can put apps on, and what apps?
Interesting - Using Chrome as the internet client on this and my PC, my passwords, bookmarks and internet history carry over. If managed properly, this could also be a very helpful tool. I would then be wondering if an Android operating system on a PC\Laptop could create a management environment to control app usage and so forth - maybe one day I'll get to investigate!
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