Campus Technology misses the Tablet PC

Are you kidding me?

Campus Technology has a product focus on interactive whiteboards as a collaborative tool.  It also has a long list of alternative technologies, but they miss the ultimate collaborative tool.  Each of the technologies are involved in trying to get the written and drawn image on a white board projected or saved and transmitted electronically to students in the classroom or at a distance.

How can they miss the Tablet PC?  Really folks, I can write or draw on my tablet screen and broadcast it anywhere.  One can simply use Microsoft Journal to create a white space to write on or write on any of the Microsoft Office products and with other apps can write on anything.   I have been doing this for years to great success.  When the screen in the classroom is in front of the classroom whiteboard as it is in almost every classroom I walk into, the Tablet PC is both the projector of content and the electronic whiteboard.

I think this reaches a new height with using DyKnow Vision in a 1:1 computing environment.  Each student needs a computer to receive the message and a free client download and they do not have to be Tablets.

New Tablet PC

I picked up my new Tablet PC today. This Lenova X220 replaces my HP2107p. So far the form factor win goes to the HP2107p. I am starting to set up the Lonova X220 and ergonomically I really dislike it. Why would you design a Tablet that is awkward to hold. I do like the touch screen, but little else on first impression.

The dock is ridiculous. Compared to the thin dock of the HP2710 the Lenova X220 dock raises the keyboard up over an inch. Getting used to typing at this height and angle will take some adjustment. If the DVD weren't in the dock, the dock would be in a drawer.

Overall the X220 has to edge out the 2710p, but perhaps only because it is 4 years newer.

More later.

Are You Using a Tablet (PC) at Work?

TabletPCReview.com is conducting an online survey of Tablets in the business space. Take the survey here: Are You Using a Tablet at Work?

I was thrilled to see that the concentration was not only on what the consumer world now calls "tablets," i.e., ipad, zoom, etc, but included the Tablet PC. One of my responses was: "The Tablet PC is a full computing environment and adds the luxury of a stylus and pen / electronic ink input and markup. It is the best of both worlds."

I remain a fervent evangelist for the Tablet PC as my only computer for my business. i still think to buy a laptop without giving oneself the luxury of a pen interface is short sighted for everyone who takes notes on paper, grades papers, gives presentations, reads articles and books, and more. In short, the Tablet PC remains the best platform for all around computing.

The recession hasn't ended from a jobs prespective.

A Graph from Calculating Risk shows the relationship of this recession to all post-depression / post-WWII recessions. What ever the administration is trying and has tried is clearly not working. Of that there can be little debate.

Click on the chart to see a larger version.

Unemployment. The cost grows.

Current unemployment measured by U-3 falls to 9.0 percent, and total unemployment measured by U-6 is at 16.2 percent for October 2011. (see Table A-15, Bureau of Labor Statistics).

The Blog Calculating Risk often produces the best graphics of what is happening. In the article which you can find at the link you will see two graphs. The first shows Unemployment by Duration. As everyone can see, long term unemployed from 1969 to 2008 was always less than the short term unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force. Since 2009 the effect is dramatic as the long term unemployment dominates the short term unemployment. This is unarguably a structural change in the labor market and has to be correlated with economic policies since 2009.

So who are the long term unemployed? The second chart in the Calculated Risk blog shows the Unemployment Rate by Education . The chart illustrates the answer in part. Labor economists know the answer without looking. That is, the long term unemployed are most likely to be with the least human capital, the least experience and those in jobs that have been structurally depressed or eliminated. While the second chart does not deal with all three reasons, clearly a change is visible. The brunt of the unemployed is always born by those with the least education, but look how dramatically that too has changed since 2009.

What can we conclude from this? Well two graphs do not predict or even explain what is going on and is simply a description of the events we are experiences, but the circumstantial evidence is that policies designed to deal with the 2007 recession are sadly ineffective and wrongly applied.