Day 29 – OneNote for Teachers and Students on a Windows 8 Tablet with Pen Input

A Windows 8 Tablet for Teaching and Learning - Day 29

Wednesday, January 2, 2013  

I am nearing the end of my self-imposed goal of blogging about my first 30 days with a Windows 8 Tablet. I have learned many things along the way and this has been a valuable experience for me and I hope for you too. The first thing that I have learned is that preliminary reviews of tech gadgets are rushed and often draw incorrect conclusions. The tech blogosphere has been declining with respect to in-depth reviews as many go for attention getting headlines rather than substance. I will pay more attention to review types that are in the form of “Spending 30 days with….” as this format I believe provides for a reasonable amount of time to get familiar with a product and give a fair review.

In this review I am talking about the full version of OneNote 2010. OneNote is one of those applications that seems to be a secret as many teachers and students are not aware of how much it can help with taking daily notes. There is also a OneNote app that is available in the Windows Store but the OneNote app is severely limited in its functionality. The full version of OneNote comes standard with most versions of Microsoft Office including the teacher and student editions. I have provided a screenshot below to give you a look at the interface and some notes I took using different colors of digital ink.

 

 

Perhaps it is my generation but I still rely upon handwritten notes and the OneNote application is a perfect match with a Pen enabled Windows 8 Tablet like the Samsung Ativ Smart PC 500T. The Ativ 500T has a Wacom digitizer that allows for use with what Samsung calls the S-Pen. The S-Pen is simply a stylus that writes much like a regular pen on paper except you are now using digital ink on a glass touchscreen. A digitizer Pen is much different than a capacitive stylus that are often sold for use with an iPad. The S-Pen is pressure sensitive with 1024 different pressure points that provides for much more control and accuracy. This design is meant to replicate the way a real Pen works in that if you start drawing a line with a light touch and gradually apply pressure the line will get thicker as you apply more pressure. This makes for a much more realistic and natural writing experience.

The S-Pen is not perfect as it is rather small (the size of a pencil broke in half) but it is tolerable for everyday use. There are better options on the market and I have read where the digitizer Pens that come with other Samsung Tablets with a Wacom digitizer are larger in size and also have an eraser on the end. The (digital) eraser would be very handy for use with OneNote in that you could be writing along, make a mistake, and then turn the Pen over to erase the mistake. Not an absolutely necessary feature but a luxury that would be worth consideration if you use OneNote frequently. I will be looking into purchasing such a Pen that is full-sized with an eraser that will work with this Ativ 500T tablet, they cost around $25.

A Smart Board Substitute

Because the Samsung Ativ 500T has a microHDMI port you can easily connect it to a HDTV with a $3 HDMI to microHDMI cable. If you need to connect to a VGA projector Samsung sells a MicroHDMI to VGA adapter for $39. With OneNote you can project what you are doing on the screen to the front of the room making the Windows 8 Tablet a substitute for a Smart Board. Add the wireless Logitech K400 keyboard with trackpad and you are free to walk about the room controlling the Ativ tablet from anywhere in the room even while the connected to the projector.

OneNote for Teachers and Students

I find it much more natural taking notes with digital ink rather than typing on a laptop. A tablet with Pen is also more unobtrusive like the pen and paper of the past. In a classroom setting if you are the teacher it is not the best feeling being at the front of the room with a group of 30 or more students all with their laptop screens up as if to shield you from seeing what they are really working on. In colleges, large lecture halls are notorious for students bringing in laptops and banging away on the keyboard as they frantically take notes on their laptop. Are they taking notes, or checking their Facebook accounts?

Another reason I like OneNote is its versatility. This is not the place to explain all of OneNotes virtues but here are some possibilities, with OneNote you can:

Add images along with handwritten notes, change the background rulers to have guides to help keep your writing straight, record audio and take notes at the same time, record video, convert handwritten notes to text, use different colors of ink and highlighters, use Ink to Math to insert mathematical equations, OneNote also has a library of mathematical symbols, freehand sketching for illustrating concepts, and if you are using Outlook you have the ability to email the OneNote page to others.

And, one more thing...
 

Because OneNote pages can be synced to Skydrive you have access to your notes from another PC or Tablet. And even more remarkable, if you have Windows Phone 8 you have access to all notes right from your phone along with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Talk about having the world in the palm of your hand, well at least your files.

Keep on Learning,
Dr. Grissom

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

http://eiu.edu/itc/