Day 9 - Surface Pro: On-Screen Touch Keyboards
Teaching and Learning with a Windows 8 Tablet3/20/2013
Welcome to Day 9 of working with a Microsoft Surface Pro Windows 8 tablet for educators.
Yesterday I talked about the physical keyboard choices available for the Surface Pro. Today the subject is about on-screen keyboards.
Since the Surface Pro features a touch-screen it is natural to have an on-screen keyboard available for use in tablet mode. One thing I am finding out about the Surface Pro is that there are plenty of options available to end users. Microsoft has always been very good at maintaining backward compatibility and that can lead to many options. The old ways of doing things are often there, if you need them.
As discussed yesterday the Surface Pro features a full-size USB port that offers the possibility to plug in a USB keyboard if you would like. For that matter, you could also plug in a USB Xbox controller and use it with the Surface Pro. I am guessing you could also plugin the Kinect as well but I have not tried that. The point is there's an amazing amount of diversity of hardware that the Surface Pro can support.
Today, I would like to explore the on-screen keyboard options available on the Surface Pro. These virtual keyboards have their roots in the Tablet PC era. If you do not have a physical keyboard connected to the Surface Pro you will need to use one of the on-screen keyboards to enter information.
There are three basic styles of on-screen keyboards and you can easily switch back and forth between the different styles.
First, there is what I call the standard style. Secondly, there is the split-keyboard style that is designed to work similar to mobile phone thumb typing. The third option is for digital Pen input using the digital stylus that comes standard with the Surface Pro.
I have made a screencast demonstrating the three different types of on-screen keyboards and also discussed a fourth type that is a full-featured on-screen keyboard available in Windows 8.
Choice is good.
Until next time...
Keep on Learning,
Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, PhD
Follow me on Twitter @tomgrissom
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