Day 11 – The Enigma that is the Surface RT
Surface RT for Teachers –Teaching and Learning with a Windows 8 Tablet
The Surface RT is an enigma. I can understand those that review the Surface RT not instantly understanding this device. Most reviewers are on a deadline and usually offer the cursory specifications and offer a couple of “needs improvement” comments to justify their critique after a couple of hours of use.
What is particularly confusing about the Surface RT is that it has a dual personality of the modern Windows 8 apps along with the traditional Desktop. Once you come to grips with this reality (it is really not that hard of a concept to grasp) you see the benefits of mixing the old with the new. But, the Surface RT adds another “exception” in that the RT is based on the ARM processor that is not compatible with x86 applications. To further complicate matters Microsoft has ported their best selling x86 application, Office 2013, to the ARM processor so it CAN run on the Surface RT. Got it? For the average user that is a lot to sort out.
The Surface RT has taken a beating in the press lately and many have dismissed this device completely. This really is a shame as my brief amount of time with this tablet has completely altered my original mindset since I began this blog series.
Day 2 was really rough for me with all of the updates that needed to be installed but since that time I have only had a couple of updates to deal with and both were painless. After Day 2 my expectations were pretty low, but since that time the RT has redeemed itself for the most part and I have only depleted the battery once over the past 11 days.
Since I started doing these 30 Days with…. blog series I have come to the conclusion that many of these superficial product reviews in the press are not that helpful, especially for teachers in a classroom setting. They all start to look alike and offer little in the way of practical hands-on advice. For the Surface RT this recently has become one giant echo chamber of doom and gloom in the press room, but what if they are wrong?
This is why I am blogging my experiences here in a real-life and practical manner for teachers and students to see an educators perspective. There are definitely bright spots in the Surface RT story that need to be told. One of the bright spots is Office 2013.
The dual personality of the Surface RT is a good thing overall. Having the ability to run the “Big Four” Office 2013 applications gives a teacher or student access to professional level tools at an incredible price point (currently the Surface RT is discounted to $199 education price, $289 with type cover, and that includes Office 2013).
The big four applications in Office 2013 are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. This covers most of the tasks we ask teachers and students to do daily in the classroom. The Surface RT has an excellent browser that supports pinch and zoom and the Desktop has access to the File Explorer to manage all your files. Add in the ability to save documents to SkyDrive for anywhere access and you have a very compelling device for educators at a very affordable price.
The big four applications in Office 2013 are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. This covers most of the tasks we ask teachers and students to do daily in the classroom. The Surface RT has an excellent browser that supports pinch and zoom and the Desktop has access to the File Explorer to manage all your files. Add in the ability to save documents to SkyDrive for anywhere access and you have a very compelling device for educators at a very affordable price.
I will be going into a little more depth in upcoming posts about the Office 2013 suite of applications but having them available on the ARM-based Surface RT is a nice luxury to have out of the box.
Until next time…
Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.
@tomgrissom
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