Asee peer logo

Analysis Of Tablet Pc Based Learning Experiences In Freshman To Junior Level Engineering Courses

Download Paper |

Conference

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Publication Date

June 22, 2008

Start Date

June 22, 2008

End Date

June 25, 2008

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Re-Imagining the Higher Ed Classroom -- Tablet PCs

Tagged Division

Computers in Education

Page Count

19

Page Numbers

13.203.1 - 13.203.19

DOI

10.18260/1-2--4029

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/4029

Download Count

575

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Vinod Lohani Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

visit author page

VINOD K. LOHANI is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Education and an adjunct faculty in Civil & Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. He received a Ph.D. in civil engineering from Virginia Tech in 1995. His areas of teaching and research include engineering education, international collaboration and hydrology & water resources.

visit author page

biography

Ricky Castles Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

visit author page

Ricky Castles is a PhD student in computer engineering at Virginia Tech. He
holds a BS and MS degree in computer engineering, also from Virginia Tech. He
is also currently in pursuit of a second MS degree in industrial and systems
engineering. Mr. Castles research interests include educational modeling and
knowledge representation.

visit author page

biography

Aditya Johri Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-9018-7574

visit author page

Dr. Johri is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. He obtained a PhD in learning science and technology design from Stanford in 2007. Some areas of his research include geographically distributed & virtual work, and design and examination of socio?technical infrastructure for learning.

visit author page

biography

Dewey Spangler Virginia Western Community College

visit author page

Dewey Spangler is an instructor in the department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech. Mr. Spangler holds an M.S. in Civil Engineering and a P.E. license in the Commonwealth of Virginia. His research interests involve active magnetic bearings, product design, K-12 engineering education, solid mechanics, and non-linear structural mechanics. He is currently pursuing a Ph. D. in the department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech.

visit author page

biography

David Kibler Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

visit author page

David Kibler is a professor in the civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech. His research interests are in hydrology and water resources.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Analysis of Tablet PC Based Learning Experiences in Freshman to Junior Level Engineering Courses

Abstract

Virginia Tech announced a Tablet PC initiative for its engineering program in summer 2006. In fall 2006 Tablet based in and out of class activities were implemented in the freshman engineering program. In fall 2007, Tablet based instruction activities were implemented in upper level engineering courses. Typical examples of Tablet based instruction included electronic note taking, use of inking features to review homework solutions, completing skeleton PowerPoint slides, and setting up online collaboration sessions to do group design project and problem solving activities. In addition, the Tablets helped students maintain an electronic log of their individual and group efforts in completing design projects. A major change in 2007 was the incorporation of DyKnow software into instruction. Examples of students’ feedback in support of feedback based instruction and assessment data from in-class polling and an end of semester course exit survey of freshmen are presented to discuss the effectiveness of Tablet based instruction. Also, experiences of engineering freshman in fall 2006 and 2007 are compared to show effectiveness of new implementation strategies adopted in fall 2007.

1. Introduction

A new Tablet PC computing initiative was announced in summer 2006 for incoming engineering freshmen at the College of Engineering (COE) at Virginia Tech1. This initiative made it mandatory for all engineering freshmen (~1300 each year) to own a Tablet PC starting fall 2006. Figure 1 shows the response to an exit survey question (~220 respondents in fall 2006 and ~540 respondents in fall 2007) showing ownership of Tablets by brand. In 1984, the COE was the first public institution in the U.S. to require its entering engineering freshmen to own a personal computer. In 2002, the college moved to a laptop requirement and many of its academic buildings were outfitted to offer wireless communication capabilities. Tablet PC Ownership by Brand Tablet PC Ownership by Brand Fall 2006 Fall 2007 2% 5% 2% 1% 2% 2% Fujitsu Fujitsu Toshiba 9% 17% Toshiba Gateway Gateway 39% HP 15% 67% HP 39% Asus Asus Dell Lenovo

Figure 1- Tablet PC Ownership by Engineering Freshmen at Virginia Tech in fall 2006 and fall 2007 Note: Dell computers represent laptops.

1

Lohani, V., & Castles, R., & Johri, A., & Spangler, D., & Kibler, D. (2008, June), Analysis Of Tablet Pc Based Learning Experiences In Freshman To Junior Level Engineering Courses Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--4029

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2008 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015