Summary of Awarded Proposals

University of Minnesota Rochester
IT/ITV/Classroom Support Services
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet Pilot
Summary of awarded proposals
Spring 2012

Amanda Klaassen (BSHS Student)

I am a sophomore BSHS student who transferred to UMR for my second semester of my freshman year. I hope to attend physician assistant school after my BSHS degree is complete. As a pre-physician assistant student I feel that it would benefit me to have had experience with multiple different types of technology. The tablet that is being offered would greatly benefit my learning. A tablet is much easier to use for group projects and drawing images in class, such as the different molecules I will be drawing in organic chemistry next semester. For group projects, a tablet can be used easily to hook up to a tv and use both the tablet and tv to work on the project. Having a tablet would be extremely helpful in trying to work as a group to draw specific images, such as the different models and figures that I will be drawing in anatomy next semester. Next, I am a transfer student, so before attending UMR I had already gotten a computer. Therefore, using a tablet rather than two computers would greatly benefit my learning. The tablet could be easy connected to my laptop to easily transfer information back and forth and use during projects. Tablets are very easy and quick to take to class, and this particular tablet has a processor very similar to a computer, making it possible to browse the web quickly during class to find the answer to the in-class problems that are given daily. Finally, having a tablet would be extremely beneficial to use both in and outside in class. During class, using a tablet would make it much easier to follow along with the professor and take notes directly on the lecture being given. Outside of class, a tablet would greatly enhance group projects, and make it easy for the entire group to look over and watch videos, such as the ones I will be making for Spanish II next semester. A tablet could greatly enhance and benefit my learning experience in many ways.

Michelle Nelson (CLI Faculty)

I would like to test a Lenovo tablet to see if it will help me be a more efficient and effective Organic Chemistry teacher. The tablet could be used to document student interactions efficiently outside the classroom.

More efficient

One of the major drawbacks to chemistry power point presentations is the inability to write structures and drawings. There are ways to make the slides including the level of detail desired, but it is prohibitively time consuming for a changing curriculum.

More Effective

Students need to see the execution of the drawing instead of just seeing the final product. The tablet would allow for seamless transition between viewing the Powerpoint slides and drawing mechanisms/structures. No extra technology would be necessary. This would not only be an asset in a lecture setting. It would also be an asset during our JustAsk hours, too.

The bamboo is cumbersome and very difficult to use to draw structures without seeing them. In addition, I hope that the tablet might also streamline grading which is still cumbersome in iSEAL.

Documentation of student interactions

A lot of teaching that is done on the huddle boards is not documented. One can imagine huddle bored work could be easily captured on a tablet (and then uploaded to iSEAL).

From a student’s perspective

Often students do not take paper notes in class despite the fact that a large portion of material covered in class is done on white boards and cannot be reproduced with just words. Drawing the structures and mechanisms are critical to student learning. Some students have adopted the use of OneNote for adding notes, however drawing organic structures is cumbersome and frustrating. I can imagine the use of a tablet would help students be more organized and more engaged by easily.

Evan Nicolai (BSHS Student)

First, the tablet would be most useful for taking notes. Notebooks eventually get very messy and unorganized. Using a digitizer pen for the tablet and “MyScript Notes Mobile”, an app that is preloaded on the device, I could take all of my notes in digital notebooks that will stay clean and organized. The app also allows just drawing; this is useful for drawing diagrams, charts, and graphs. Doing this on a laptop is possible, but also much more difficult. Following this idea, the tablet would be especially nice for a lab notebook. Keeping a lab notebook is vital for research and organization is key. The tablet could be quickly used to look up anything I need such as properties of a chemical that I am going to use. Because the tablet has a full sized USB port, I can connect lab equipment to it and use it as both the notebook and computing device. Later, with the keyboard folio, I could type reports with all of the data and notes ready to go in one place.

Second, the tablet would be great for teaching because of its drawing capability. I tend to help people in math and science. Since these topics are mostly problem based, drawing or writing things down becomes a necessity. I usually just use whiteboards but sometimes they are not available and whiteboard markers always seem to dry out. Using the mini-HDMI port on the tablet with a mini-HDMI to VGA cable, I could connect the tablet to one of the many televisions in the university to display what I’m doing to a group of people. Also, when the whiteboard isn’t available, practice problems tend to waste a lot of paper. If the device allows the "screen share" feature (showing what is happening on the screen rather than through the webcam) while using Skype, I could use these features to teach people the same way over long distances.

Third, the tablet would be great for reading. I could obtain almost all of my textbooks in e-book form and have them all in one place. This would allow for highlighting books in a not-so-permanent way such as in real books. My laptop can do this too, but slouching over my laptop to read an e-book leads to unnecessary back pain. The same reason applies to reading PDF’s. I could print the PDF, but some of them are twenty pages long and that is twenty pages of wasted paper.

If the digitizer pen is not included, I plan to buy it myself.

As a final note, I will only use the tablet for school related activities. I will not hack the device or modify it in any way besides downloading applications from the Lenovo App Store.

Nicole Riemersma (BSHS Student)

I believe that I would be a great participant for the ThinkPad Pilot program because I have the unique ability to evaluate this product from multiple viewpoints: as a Bachelor of Health Sciences student and as a student on disability services. As a BSHS student, I can evaluate whether the product eases note taking and whether it improves the accessibility of resources (textbooks, graphs, etc.).

In addition, I will be able to evaluate the program from the viewpoint of a student on disability services. By testing the ThinkPad Pilot, I may be able to determine if this program could benefit students with learning disabilities. In turn, this could help future students with educational challenges achieve their dream of a higher education.

I look forward to the opportunity of being part of the ThinkPad Pilot program and I feel that my opinion could truly make a difference in the lives of current and future students.

Laura Traut, Jessica Gascoigne, and Zack Barringer (BSHS Students)

We would use the Thinkpad in many of our classes next semester to enhance our learning experience. In Physics II, we would use the Thinkpads to take photos of the experiments and information on the board/screen in order to use for studying the information later. For Spanish, we could use the thinkpads as a easily portable tool for translating and videotaping clips for class assignments. If we were able to take the Thinkpads into the community with us, they would be great translation tools. For Biochemistry, they would be useful for drawing chemical structures; we could then save them directly to the Thinkpad. Several of the applications could be useful for our classes, and we could use the MCAT applications to practice studying for the MCAT.

Lisa Zerby (BSHS Student)

I’m a great choice to receive a Lenovo ThinkPad tablet from you for evaluation for three reasons: my background and experience, my technical insight, and my academic position.

My father worked for IBM here in Rochester for a quarter century. My family has had IBM PC products in our home for 20 years. I grew up using Windows operating systems, following the upgrade path thru 98, Millennium, XP and now Windows 7, on IBM compatible hardware so I know how the user experience has evolved.

When I started at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, I bought a MacBook. I still have it, use it, and love it. At the start of my most recent semester at University of Minnesota Rochester, we were issued Lenovo ThinkPad laptops imaged with UMR applications. This enables me to compare and contrast the strengths and shortcomings of the two major platforms and operating systems currently out there. My technical skills were expanded when I trained and worked at a cable company inbound call center, providing troubleshooting support and using advanced IP/networking knowledge to a customer pool with varied technological abilities. I continue to provide customer support as a help desk representative of UMR’s IT department, assisting my fellow students and faculty at a walk-up-and-get-help office on campus.

The Lenovo ThinkPad tablet would be a great tool in continuing my academic success. The portability, Wi-Fi capabilities, and access to apps would benefit me in a way that a laptop cannot. Specifically, using the Documents to Go or the MyScript Notes Mobile apps would be very useful tools in my science focused classes such as Biology, as well as my liberal studies, such as Spanish. I would also love to get an app for flashcards so that I can more easily manage and keep track of the tedious details I need to learn. I could use other related apps in a “to-go” fashion due to the convenient size of the tablet without the hassle of opening a full-size laptop.

As I’m currently finishing up my junior year and looking forward to graduation in 2013, I have acquired an informed perspective on what it means to be a college student. The quickly expanding technological world had helped me become a better student as well as keep me socially connected to friends and family: an aspect of my college lifestyle that the tablet’s SocialTouch app would also be utilized. I’ll be deciding on a field to focus on for my Master’s degree and get exposure to the wide range of health careers. All the while, I realize that I want to combine both my technological skills with my passion for medicine.

I can provide a coherent, informed evaluation of the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet based on my above average user and technical knowledge I’ve acquired. It would be an honor to be selected as a recipient and it would be a beneficial and well-utilized resource in my continued academic pursuits. Thank you very much for the consideration.