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Special Annual Awards
2008 Campus Technology Innovators: Tablet PCs
8/1/2008
PROFESSOR RANDY COLEMAN revolutionized the teaching paradigm, and kept his Chemistry students interested for the duration of his lectures and beyond.
TECHNOLOGY AREA: TABLET PCS
Innovator: The College of William & Mary
How can a school turn traditional classroom and lecturehall teaching into a super-interactive experience that students embrace? Bring on the tablet PCs.
For many students, large lecture courses can be challenging environments in which to learn. The room is so big! The slides are so small! And the teacher-- in some classes, it's like he or she is lecturing from Timbuktu.
Perhaps this is why a recent effort at The College of William & Mary (VA) to use tablet PCs to improve teaching and learning in large lecture classes garnered so many kudos. The project, designed to encourage faculty to seamlessly integrate tablets into large lectures, labs, and professional work, was particularly embraced by Randy Coleman, associate professor of chemistry. Along the way, Coleman revolutionized the teaching paradigm, and kept students interested for the duration of his lectures, and often beyond.
Tammy Thrift, senior academic technologist and IT project manager, says that for Coleman, a 60-something academic with a passion for teaching, the project's emphasis on the student was always the largest part of the equation.
"Too often with integration and infrastructure, there is a focus on technology. But we chose not to overlook the human element," she says. "Additionally, technology projects tend to be developed in isolation. Instead, we developed a sustainable, scalable model with real 'bang for the buck.'"
Coleman's grand experiment began in the spring of 2007. After teaching large science lectures for what seemed like eons, the professor was itching to try new technologies, to help students become more engaged. At the same time, he was one of a handful of leading educators to sign up for William & Mary's Technology Integration Program (TIP), which sought faculty willing to embrace collaboration and experimentation in front of their students. For his participation in this group, Coleman received a Lenovo tablet PC. His mission: to incorporate that tablet into ordinary classroom life.
With the help of OneNote software from Microsoft, as well as Adobe
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