WIPTE October 12-13, 2009

"WIPTE 2009 early registration fee of $50.00 is available through September 14th. After September 14th the registration fee is $100.00. ... WIPTE 2009 will be held on October 12-13, 2009 (at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg VA) ... WIPTE is open to anyone with an interest in instructional technology. 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. " (Read more at the WIPTE page)

Here is a flyer for the wall... WIPTE stands for Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education.

Frustrated with the Tablet PC market and Best Buy in particular

If you have read this blog or know me then you know that I am a big proponent of Tablet PCs or laptops that have a digital pen input option. Having a pen on the mobile computer makes so much sense for taking notes and presenting, especially in quantitatively demanded disciplines. I use a Tablet PC in each class I teach and in my graduate classes in statistics and econometrics each of my students have Tablet PCs. So yesterday I am at Best Buy looking at the only pen enabled PC they have. The pen is gone and the sales staff have no idea where it is. Nothing in the signage points out that it is any different than any other laptop near it. The sales clerk says in all his years no one has ever asked for a Tablet PC, they just say they want a laptop. I pointed out that they do not carry more than the one (a nice multi-touch HP) and never do anything to market. He argues it is a niche market and there are too many varieties to carry them. I was incredulous as I looked at the wide variety of laptops stretching on for hundreds of feet of counter. Why carry even one and he pulls out the small included multimedia remote control and says this is why. I wanted to scream or at least be unpleasant. I simply left disappointed and disgusted. But it not just BestBuy, none of the big box stores in our area carries the Tablets, no one markets them to students. no one says "you want a pen with your laptop?"



I went home and looked at bestbuy.com and found their laptop discovery tool. My choices are price, speed, and other items, but not anything about the input device. Tablet PCs do not exist in Best Buy's thinking. Why?



I can not imagine a better feature for students. I have advised a youth heading off to college that a mobile lightweight tablet would be of great value to him, but he ends up getting the laptop with the largest screen possible and weighing what can only be a desktop computer. I have tried to influence young professors and one gets a desktop. I am frustrated with the marketers, the big box stores, and students and faculty alike that do not see the value of a simple attachment of a pen to their notebook. Where are the Tablets so one can see and touch them? Where is the store that guides people to understand there is an option and to help them see if it is for them?



Now where is my netbook with a pen?

Equality in the classroom: Incentives matter

Students are fixated on grades, I am fixated on learning. This typically drives my students to distraction, but I am one that does not feel that grades and learning are always strongly correllated, but I am sure they are positively correlated. I had an email sent to me by one of my friends that was called this "economics" professor is a genius. I spent some time unsuccessfully trying to find the source and I have heard similar explanations, but this is a good and telling theoretical explanation why incentives matter. So here is the story (and all good theories can be told as stories):

"An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could it be any simpler than that ?" (source unknown)

Did AT&T Kill Google Voice (or was it the FCC years before)

The economic issues in this WSJ article are mind boggling. Why AT&T Killed Google Voice