More tablets showing up on campus

Professors are accustomed to seeing laptops in postsecondary classrooms and lecture halls. Technology trends and capabilities can change rapidly as tablets are beginning to replace laptops on campus. “The majority of my students use laptops in class but I've been seeing increasingly more tablets in lectures,” says English professor Jason Stevens. “Students use their tablets like notepads and use stylus pens to handwrite their notes. It's a lot less obtrusive than sitting behind a laptop. I expect to see more tablets in my classes this year.” Technology experts agree with Professor Stevens. “Today's tablets are light, easy to maneuver and connect to primary computers for more involved research and writing,” says Toshiba's education specialist Trevor Dantas. “They are ideal for students on the go because they can be carried in any purse or bag and can be used like digital notebooks where files can be converted to text and saved on primary computers.” These touch control devices are coming of age with today's students. They've gone from the couch to the classroom in a short period of time. When tablets surged in popularity with the introduction of the Android operating system they were initially used for light internet browsing, online gaming such as Angry Birds and social media. App developers have invested a lot of time and energy into extending the utility of devices and the ability to save, store and keyword search handwritten notes is one example. Innovative apps now enable students to edit and view their files on tablet devices, much like they would on their laptop or desktop computer. Students can even use tablets to take images of whiteboard notes and convert them to editable note files or record lectures to review later with the ability to adjust the volume of separate audio tracks. “We see tablets as the ideal secondary device for students,” adds Lyons. “The key to using a tablet in the classroom is finding models that have as many connectivity ports as possible. Ports provide the flexibility of connecting directly to a PC hard drive for file saving and storage.”