(158m) Student and Faculty Attitudes Towards Classroom Use of Tablet Pcs

Increasingly, university campuses and classrooms are "wired for wireless". Students who have laptop computers increasingly choose to bring them to class. This leads to questions about how (or whether) to control computer use in class, and how (or whether) to take advantage of computer use in class. The challenges also differ depending on whether all students or only some have access. This year, the Russ College of Engineering and Technology purchased 24 Tablet PCs and a cart, allowing the PCs to be used in any class in the building. We surveyed the instructors who decided to use Tablet PCs in their courses, and their students, both at the start and the end of the quarter. This poster focuses on the perceptions of students and faculty about classroom-based PC use at the start and end of the term, and highlights differences and similarities between chemical engineering and other engineering disciplines. It also presents technical challenges encountered when Tablet PCs were shared in this fashion.