HP elite pad

Had the opportunity to try out the HP elite pad late last week for a day. A heftier tablet than the ipad or the Lenova but the elite pad was encased in the elite expansion jacket which increases the ports to include a HDMI port. Without the jacket, the tablet has usual USB and mini USB. Pricing is at the top end, around NZ$900. The tablets have been purchased for use by our carpentry tutors who use them to record workplace based skill and knowledge acquisition of apprentices learning in the workplace.

Generally positive reviews on the net from the uk, usa and laptopmag. I am now familiar with the Windows 8 tiles format having used a Windows 7.5 phone for a couple of months. The two tutors  who had a play with the tablet also found the interface to be easy to use.

The main advantage, from a corporate point of view, is the alignment of the Windows 8 tablet. Windows office can be assessed and when you go to Windows desktop, the familiar windows screen with documents on the desktop comes up. The lack of the ‘start’ button on the bottom left hand corner is a bit confusing at first though.

Had a very quick play with Word, Excel and Powerpoint and they have all been adapted to have the various drop down menus and icons work with touch. The multiplicity of icons etc. may be confusing to the beginner but reassuring to people moving from a windows desktop environment into the tablet interface. Did not have time to fully work through all the various capabilities I would usually use on so unsure if I would use a tablet to fully replace what I now do on a desktop. Will need more time to try things out. The onscreen keyboard could have keyboard click sounds turned on. A reassuring feedback for people unused to typing on a glass screen.

At last, window 8 tablets are starting to arrive in NZ. We will evaluate a few more tablets before purchasing a few. Then do a comparative exercise between the tablets we now have – ipads, the Toshiba Thrive running on Android and the Windows tablet.  The main objective would be ease of use for the variety of projects we now use tablets with for technology-enhanced learning (TEL). 

eBoards, interactive boards, touch boards, Lenovo tablet running Windows *

Several touch boards at the TICT conference to have hands-on try out. Most are upright, with one on a trolley that allows the height of the board to be adjusted and one configurated as a table top model. 

Boards include Clever touch, and Activ board from ActiveBoard NZ and Mobi-view from Sitech Systems.

Clevertouch from Sahara, The 62” is supposed to be cost competitive and available to run with Windows 7 or 8 multi-touch, Mac drivers are available.  ActivBoards are a Promethean product.

The Sitech hardware are based around the Sharp touchboards.

All the boards are responsive with clear displays. All had safety glass or gorilla glass tops to hopefully allow them to survive classroom use. Advantages of touch board are that there is no need to set up a projector. Essentially, a touch board can is a very large flat-screen TV with touch controls that will run straight off a PC or tablet (attached via HDMI). A glorified extension to a touch enabled device.

Presently costs still high with a 60 plus inch display mounted on adjustable trolley for around $10,000 with the high end products hitting the $20,000 mark.

The tutors who tried the boards out were suitably all impressed. However, I am still awaiting information on how each of the touch board platforms will allow for students to share their work via multiple devices like tablets, smart phones, net books etc. Otherwise, the touch boards become another teaching-led piece of hardware, promoting teacher show and tell rather than active learning through discussion of student generated content.

Also had a chance to have a play with a Lenovo tablet running a pre-launch version of Windows 8. A nice tablet, based around ideapad design. It was small, thin and light with a rubberised bottom and the Windows interface responded well to usual touch gestures.

vodaphone tech forum

Last night, attended a short session at Vodaphone's Northland (Christchurch) store. The main audience for the forum was corporate IT managers and technicians. The objective was an update on Vodaphone's latest offerings that would be useful to the corporate market.

Mobile has moved rapidly and telecomunication companies really have their work cutout to keep up with the increase in smart phones and tablets (in NZ over 50% of Vodaphone customes have smart phones and 90% of corporate clients issue smart phones to their staff). The 'bring your own' device is high on the list for corporate IT support and something we in education are continually challenged with. However, there were assurances that sometime in the near future, corporates having to cope with a multiplicity of operating systems, will be a thing of the past - through cross platform device life cycle interfaces.

There was a short presentation of one of Vodaphone's four 'innovations' - infield support systems with the others being machine to machine, mobile marketing and mobile wallet.  Also a demonstration of the 'airwatch' app from ipad to monitor. After that, a chance to play with the many tablets and smart phones on offer. Having become familiar with the iOS on my ipad and the android OS on the Toshiba Thrive tablets, I decided to have a good look at the Windows 7 mobile OS on a Samsung Omnia W and a Nokia Lumia. A nice responsive touch screen with three buttons - a go back, a start and home. Integration to standard microsoft word, powerpoint and excel and given. So roll on windows 8.