Day 1 - The Beginning, Surface RT for Teachers

Curiosity finally got the best of me and I have purchased the Microsoft Surface RT this weekend to learn more about this new category of device for teaching and learning purposes. I have had many questions about this device from others and it is time to learn more firsthand. If you were lucky enough to attend the International Society for Technology in Education Conference in San Antonio, Texas  this year you may have been one of the lucky ones to receive a free Surface RT, compliments of Microsoft.  Microsoft gave away 10,000 Surface RTs to educators at this year’s #iste13 conference.

The Surface RT has received a lot of negative publicity recently and yesterday I explained the reasons why I decided to purchase one anyway. I do believe this type of device has much to offer teachers and students and at an affordable cost. I do not however know the extent of its capabilities or its limitations so this blog series hopes to remedy that over the coming days.

I begin this Surface RT blog series with a set of low expectations due to all the recent negative press. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I am not new to Windows 8 and I have reviewed two other Windows 8 tablets over the past 8 months. If you want to read about my experiences with the Samsung Ativ 500T Clover Trail Tablet or the Surface Pro please feel free to download two free eBooks here:

http://eiuitc.blogspot.com/2013/05/free-ebooks-windows-8-tablets-for.html?view=magazine

I say I come into this with low expectations because I have read many reviews that have been less than favorable. Here are two recent examples:

New Windows 8 system? Hope you're not in a hurry to use it - by James Kendrick
http://www.zdnet.com/new-windows-8-system-hope-youre-not-in-a-hurry-to-use-it-7000018240/

Surface RT at $350: Time to Buy? - by Paul Thurrott
http://winsupersite.com/windows-rt/surface-rt-350-time-buy?page=2

Neither article paints a pretty picture of the Surface RT, but from what little experience I previously had with the RT something did not ring true with me based upon my past experience with other Windows 8 tablets. So here we are, let’s learn more.

OOBE – Out of Box Experience

The Surface RT packaging is attractive and the device itself has a quality build feeling to it.  First impression is that it is much thinner and lighter than my Surface Pro and the magnesium case feels solid in the hand.

The first thing I did after buying the Surface RT was to take it out of the box and plug it in to the electrical adapter and charged it fully. As tempting as it was I did not turn the RT on until it was fully charged.

Magnetic Power Adapter
I do want to note that the magnetic charging adapter can be a bit difficult to properly seat in the Surface RT, it takes a little practice. The Surface RT is slanted on the sides and you need to make sure that the magnetic power cable “snaps” in so that it is charging. There is a little white light on the end of the magnetic adapter, be sure to always make sure that light is on, otherwise the Surface RT is not charging properly.

In the article noted above, James Kendrick mentioned that one of the issues he had was the battery was not fully charged on the Thinkpad Tablet 2 he was reviewing so I wanted to take away that variable in setting up my new Surface RT.  Most concerning to me was the following statement by Kendrick about his Windows 8 tablet setup experience:

“All in all it took a little over five hours from hitting the power button the first time until I had a totally updated system ready for action. My new toy was useless to me until this updating was performed, and it happened so slowly it was like watching paint dry.”

Armed with this information, and the RT article by Paul Thurrott my expectations were rather low going into this.

I have documented my experiences here so others may benefit in the future. My setup experience with the Surface RT was quite different than that of the Thinkpad Tablet 2 Kendrick wrote about.

Here we go!

To document the setup experience of the Surface RT I had two tablets setup side by side. One was the Surface RT, the other was my Samsung Ativ 500T tablet that I used OneNote to keep track of the time involved in each step of the RT setup.

To begin, I already had a Microsoft Account and have been using it with a couple of other tablets. If you do not have a Microsoft Account I would recommend getting one and using it BEFORE you even begin to setup the Surface RT. This is not completely necessary as you can setup the Surface RT the first time you use it with a “Local Account” but the Surface RT is meant to operate in the cloud and you will need a Microsoft Account to benefit from all the services in the cloud.

If you are using cloud service accounts like a Microsoft, Apple, or Google at school be sure to follow your organizations policies about using external accounts.

So, having said that here is the timeline:

4:57pm I turned on the fully charged Surface RT for the first time, after about 30 seconds the installation screen wizard started, here are the first setup steps:

1)    It asked me what Language I wanted to use (English please) Next

2)    I had to Agree to the Licensing Terms – Next

3)    Personalize – the setup asked me what name I wanted to call my PC – I typed in Nemo – Next

4)    Wireless setup was next with an option to Skip, I wanted to setup using my home wireless so I selected my access point and typed in the secret password – Next

5)    I next selected use Express Settings and the Surface RT completed its setup. Time was now 5:02pm

5:02pm I signed into the Surface RT with my Microsoft Account. I got the nearly useless Windows 8 tutorial that shows you how to swipe from any edge of the screen with your finger. This tutorial always plays the first time you sign-in with your account to a new Windows 8 device.

5:03pm I am signed into my new Surface RT with my Microsoft Account and see the colorful Windows 8 live tiles.

5:04pm At the same time I signed into the Surface RT I received a text message on my Phone telling me that Nemo was added to my Microsoft account and asked me to confirm that this was indeed my device. The text  provided a link to a website that I went to and signed in with my Microsoft Account to “trust this device”. This helps prevent unauthorized devices being attached to your account.

5:06pm Magic Happens! The Surface RT was installing apps and I prepared myself for a long wait. But, to my surprise about a minute later all apps were installed. At 5:06pm the standard Windows 8 apps were installed and ready to go, my pictures were available to me, and when I went to the Desktop my custom wallpaper was already set to what I use on my other tablet, all automagically!

Over the next 10 to 12 minutes my account information was synced up to the new Surface RT. This syncing brought over my Favorites for Internet Explorer and synced my OneNote files. Since I have 8 different OneNote notebooks it asked if I wanted to sync them all but I said to only sync one as I was excited to get started. Guess which notebook I selected to sync? That’s right, the one I was using on the Samsung Ativ to keep track of my Surface RT install timeline.  I was now able to open my notes that I was using on the Samsung Ativ on my new Surface RT in OneNote, pretty cool.

5:18pm ALL DONE! In 20 short minutes I have a fully functioning Windows 8 Surface RT Tablet that includes access to all my files via SkyDrive, has everything customized to my preferences, and is 100 percent functional, 20 minutes!!! A far cry from the five hour ordeal I read about previously.

So cutting to the chase, do not fear the horror stories about how awful Windows 8 tablets are to setup. The Surface RT setup is one of the best OOBE (Out of the Box) experiences I have ever had for any device. There is something magical watching the Windows 8 Live Tiles on the Start Screen light up with your own content.

There is however much more to the setup story so stay tuned for Day 2.

Keep on Learning,

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

@tomgrissom

http://eiu.edu/itc/

http://techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com/