Day 1 - A Windows 8 Tablet for Teaching and Learning
A Windows 8 Tablet for Teaching and Learning - Day OneDecember 5, 2012
If you listened to the last episode of TechTalk4Teachers you know that I have been looking for a new tablet for some time. Yesterday I finally took the plunge. I purchased the Samsung Ativ Smart PC Tablet (XE500T1C-A04US) for my personal use. I am taking one for the team here as I try to figure out the best use of this new class of Windows 8 tablets for teachers and students wanting to have a more productive tablet experience for home and school use. The retail price for the 64GB Samsung Ativ tablet is $649.00 fifty dollars less than the 64GB iPad. I hope to document a few of my first impressions of this Windows 8 tablet in the coming days and over Christmas break as I have a few more hours available for testing once students have gone on semester break.
Why the Samsung Ativ XE500T1C?
Probably the first question many will ask is why not the iPad? The iPad has its positives but there are also many negatives and room for improvement. There are several attractive features of the new Windows 8 tablets that make them worthy of further investigation for educational use. First the Ativ Smart PC Tablet has a full size USB 2.0 port AND a microSD card slot. This is HUGE for teachers and students as it provides an easy way to get content on and off the device. The Ativ Smart PC Tablet is a Windows 8 (x86 class) device that can run the full version of Microsoft Office 2010 Suite (and soon 2013) as well as hundreds of thousands of other Windows applications (not apps, full-blown Windows applications). Do not confuse this tablet with the Windows RT version of devices that are based on the ARM processor as the RT versions are not compatible with x86 programs. Another huge benefit for schools is that Windows 8 supports multi-user logins and does multitasking.
The Ativ tablet is advertised to have approximately 10 hour battery life and currently access to over 20,000 apps in the Windows Store. Add in the integration of Microsoft Skydrive and apps like OneNote and you have a formidable entry into the educational tablet marketplace. If you have a HDTV with HDMI you can connect your tablet to the HDTV with the included microHDMI port. Oh, and one more thing, did I mention it has a Wacom digitizer with Pen input! Perhaps teachers and students could find some uses for marking up PDF files or annotating ebooks with hand written notes on digital paper.
Frankly, I have been holding out for the Lenovo Tablet 2 for the past couple of months but the shipping date has continually slipped and the Tablet 2 is currently unavailable with no firm delivery date advertised. Both the Lenovo Tablet 2 and the Samsung Ativ 500T1C utilize the new “Clover Trail” Atom processor from Intel. What this means in plain English is that you can load most regular Windows 7 programs and they will work fine on the Samsung Ativ 500T1C. For highly processor intensive applications the Clover trail processor will fall short and if you plan on running demanding applications there are other devices available with the Intel i3/i5/i7 processors that are designed for more demanding applications. Atom processors are best known for their use in netbooks and have gotten a reputation of slow performance over the years. Someone has to be the trail blazer for this new class of processors on Windows 8 devices so here I am. Good news “Clover Trail” is fast and snappy.
Out of the box experience
I purchased the Samsung Ativ 500T1 from Staples late in the evening yesterday, I brought it home and plugged the electric adapter into the Ativ overnight for charging. I did not turn it on until this morning when it was fully charged. You will want to have a wifi connection available the first time you turn it on as there will be plenty of updates that are highly recommended to install before using the device. I was up and running in less than ten minutes out of the box (before updates). When you first turn on the Ativ you get the initial setup screens to select your language (English), Accept the Terms of Use, select a Computer Name, and select the Userid that you want to use to login to the device.
Being a user of Skydrive I already had a Microsoft account and used it to login the first time. This is when the magic occurs with Windows 8 devices. Since I was using my Skydrive account all my documents and pictures saved on Skydrive were immediately available on the tablet. It is a pleasing experience to see “YOUR” pictures light up the Live Tiles of the Windows 8 Start screen. It makes for a completely customized user experience that is as simple as logging in with your Microsoft ID if you already have one.
For the next 40 minutes I went through the Windows Update process and had to download and install 12 updates. I did not do anything special to update the Samsung specific drivers and have not run into any driver problems that I have noticed on the first day.
Discovery of the Day
There is one physical button on the Samsung Ativ tablet that has the Windows logo on it and is meant to be an easy way to access the Start screen in Windows 8. This is similar to the Windows key on traditional keyboards. I was sure I would be constantly using that button like I do the Home button on the iPad. Every time you turn around you are pressing the Home button on the iPad so I was expecting the same for a Windows tablet. Nope, during the first day I found myself swiping in with my right thumb and pressing the windows flag in the Charms menu to quickly get to the Start screen. Completely "reimagined" and “fast and fluid” (inside MS joke).
Day One = Happy
Keep on Learning,
Dr. Grissom
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