What Is New

PCs entering the classroom so that each child can potentially have all day access to curriculum and content is a phenomenal shift in schools. PCs like the Intel Classmate with appropriate software have been making in-roads at this 1:1 computing effort. The second generation is now out and Classmate 2.0 is making press review rounds. Are you finding these reviews helpful? What additional types of information do you need?

Darren Waters of BBC posted his first impressions recently:

It's a cut-price, cut-down laptop that runs XP moderately well, and connects to the net without a hitch. In fact, it accomplishes most tasks thrown at it without a hitch and its underpowered processor only really struggles when it is attempting to multi-task.

Interactive videos? CyberTouch announces it is now bundling its touch screen displays with professional DVD player:

Purdue University is hosting this year's Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education (WIPTE). Submissions for papers, videos and posters are now being accepted.

Conference Dates: October 15 - 16, 2008
Conference Schedule future location

Here are some of the details for the Call for Papers:

Submissions Due: June 16, 2008.

Objectives: A wide variety of disciplines are embracing Tablet PC's and similar pen-based devices as tools for the radical enhancement of teaching and learning. Deployments of Tablet PCs have spanned the K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels and have dealt with an amazingly diverse range of subject areas including nursing, veterinary science, geology, ethno-musicology, anthropology, landscape architecture, writing, mathematics, computer science, Japanese language, physics, engineering, art, economics, as well as others. Despite the diversity of content areas, many deployments have been similar in terms of the passion they have generated among students and teachers. The Third Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education (WIPTE) is intended to leverage this shared passion and to identify best practices in the educational use of pen-based computing so that all educators may benefit from this next generation of technology.

As Microsoft's Chairman, Bill Gates paints a vision of technology today and how those advancements can improve tomorrow and is a trusted advisor on how we can achieve these goals.

This week Bill Gates testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology on the celebration of the 50th of the Committee. He answered questions ranging from the knowledge gap with students, fundamental problems with teacher professional development, the next big thing in technology, to inspiring kids to learn. Gates' message is consistent with prior speeches, but reviewing is worthwhile. "It starts with education," he stated.

Also this week, Bill Gates addressed the Northern Virginia Technology Council (March 13, 2008). In this he gave more specific examples about technology available to students today, including the WW Telescope project from MSR and Tablet PCs.

So if you put it on your computer and say hey, I’d like to see that for myself – you just connect up your telescope and boom, there you are. You can acquire information, add that to your database. So software touching all the sciences in a pretty deep way. So with these platforms there will be a huge variation in how creative governments are in applying software to their task, how creative businesses are to apply it to their task, how schools can take this and do new things.

This week iSupply released an update on touch screen technology trends.

 The use of touch screens is growing in a variety of applications, driven by several trends. From the user perspective, touch screens enable interfaces that are easy to use and intuitive; unlike keyboard/keypad input devices, touch screens enable customization of the interface for every task. Touch screen technologies are leading to innovative applications, such as enhanced usability of compact mobile devices. Among the more than 100 manufacturers of touch screen components, two-thirds of...  View Abstract [ pdf ]

Mark Hurd from HP Labs describes a development project for improving interaction via gestures. Is it for digital cameras only? 

H-P Lab researchers in India are working on "gesture-based computing" technology that could elevate touch screens.

With the technology, users of touch-screen computers and handheld devices can designate custom symbols for passwords or spell out entire sentences on a little touch pad instead of using a keyboard. Digital camera users can write a caption or a note on a picture they just took using only their finger on the view screen of their camera