Day 5 – A Windows 8 Tablet that is definitely a production device and a lot of fun too

A Windows 8 Tablet for Teaching and Learning – Day 5

Sunday, December 9, 2012

This tablet is definitely a production device. A couple of days ago I installed the Microsoft Office 2010 suite of programs on the Samsung Ativ 500T tablet. I have had so much to share each day and I am just now getting around to even mentioning this. Microsoft sells a Teacher and Student Edition of Office 2010 at discounted educational pricing that includes the big four applications of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These are the complete and full function applications that many businesses use, not lightweight apps that have been simplified and limited. Because they are the “real deal” there are no limitations other than the processing power of the tablet. Pair Microsoft Office with this tablet and a wireless keyboard/mouse and you have a formidable production device.

All four of the Office applications open quickly. The big four Microsoft applications are the same programs I regularly use on my desktop PC so everything is compatible between this tablet and my desktop. I am amazed at how quickly Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote open on this tablet, each one opens in less than 3 seconds! That is much faster than even my regular PC desktop. So much for the Clover Trail ATOM processor being labeled as slow (with a little help from the 64GB SSD hard drive). 3 seconds!

There is one more big surprise that I will have much more to say about in a future post. The OneNote application is absolutely amazing on this tablet. The Ativ 500T comes with what Samsung calls the S Pen that is basically a stylus that allows you to write digital notes using your own handwriting in digital ink using the S Pen. For educators OneNote is a “killer app” that few have discovered and is underutilized by most teachers and students. OneNote has a long legacy from the Tablet PC days and is now a mature product that I think every teacher and student should be aware of. Have you used OneNote on a tablet?

Updates, Updates, Updates

At the end of the day when I went to the Windows Store I noticed that I had 30 Updates to install. This notice appeared in the upper right hand corner of the Windows Store screen and said 30 updates. When you click that link you see the apps that are marked for updating. These updates were for the apps that were preinstalled on the Start screen as well as some of the apps I installed from the Windows Store. Having learned my lesson from a couple of days ago, I PLUGGED THE TABLET INTO AN ELECTRICAL ADAPTER before I started the update process. I was expecting the updates to take a while but they took less than a couple of minutes to install with the exception of 2 apps. One game app called Shark Dash failed to update and the Update for the Mail, Calendar, and People app said Pending for about five minutes so I went to the Settings Charm and Selected Power, this time there was a different option called UPDATE AND RESTART. I selected it and the tablet restarted and applied the updates except for the pending Mail, Calendar, and People app.

When I went back into the Windows Store the update for the Mail, Calendar, and People app began to download and installed with no problems. One thing about app stores to keep in mind, some will go crazy installing every free app under the Sun with no concept that each of those apps are computer programs and will be in need of future updates. Those updates require time and maintenance to keep in good working order. I recommend being conservative with app installs and I will often uninstall apps that I do not use on a regular basis.

Discovery of the Day

Being Sunday, I thought I would checkout some of the fun apps available in the Windows Store. I downloaded a couple of free apps including an astronomy constellation program called Sky Map and the free Cut the Rope game. Cut the Rope is a fun game for a touchscreen tablet. As the name implies you cut the rope and a ball swings to hit charms that you get points for hitting. There really is quite a bit of strategy to the Cut the Rope game and it gets progressively harder as you advance through the levels. It is a good thinking game as you have to reason out the Physics behind a swinging rope and gravity to hit your target.

Keep on Learning,
Dr. Grissom