Mark Wagner has obviously worked hard on the content for the El Morro Intro to Tablet PC Workshop. Just pop over to the wiki to read the list of topics covered. I'd love to see even more on using Tablet PCs for classroom management, as well as annotating and grading papers. Tablets are great tools for these types of tasks.

Kevin Tofel asks, "how many of you would give up the ability to ink if you had a UMPC with a capacitive display making for a better touch experience?" He started thinking about this after he read that Sintek is developing a 7" capacitive touch display. He's projecting, of course, but it's a good exercise to think through what would change and weigh the pros and cons.

I've thought about this balance between touch and handwriting too. When people have both, they value the freedom of choice to use the right method for the moment. I'd pick touch screen over a dumb display, but a combination touch plus ability to handwrite wins my award. But these are my personal choices. Really, can touch get you through the quick commands and navigation? Sure. Is it valuable for that alone? Yes. The key will be in how a company executes the design because with capacitive touch and a large 7" display you'd need to be careful that you don't brush the display accidentally and send unintended commands.

What do you want? What would you use it for? Work, school, GPS / PND, TV remote control, home automation station, kiosk -- everything? :)

They New York Times published an article about a program in Dallas, Texas where schools are attaching a GPS to kids with high truancy rate.

Jaime Pacheco rolled out of bed at dawn last week to the blaring chorus of two alarms. Then Jaime, a 15-year-old high school freshman, smoothed his striped comforter, dumped two scoops of kibble for the dogs out back and strapped a G.P.S. monitor to his belt.

I'm stunned.

I can understand tracing school equipment, such as a notebook PC, that is activated if the PC is lost. But tracking a student as punishment?

On the flipside, here's a different type of tracking. Administrators using devices to access class and student information while they're in the hallways. This isn't new, but it's a better example of technology in schools. iPod Touch, Blackberry or even Windows Mobile phones can be used to access school webpages.

Hunterdon Central in New Jersey is hosting another Tablet PC Academy this year. The three day conference helps teachers, administrators, and others learn best practices on how to integrate the technology into the classroom for teaching and learning.

There will be two sessions this summer:

1. July 15 - 17, 2008
2. July 22 - 24, 2008

Registration is now open for a team of teachers or individuals. There is a discount if you register before June 1, 2008.

This is a fantastic effort by those at Hunterdon Central. It'll be more than just talking with someone else who uses the technology. The hands-on approach will allow you to learn to improve Windows navigation, discuss instructional techniques where Tablet PCs are integrated into the curriculum, and have help troubleshooting issues or concerns.

After adding a few things to the new DIY Multitouch PC forum, I thought it would be good to point you to an historical multitouch document: Andrew Wilson of Microsoft Research published TouchLight: An Imaging Touch Screen and Display for Gesture-Based Interaction and presented a few years ago. Good reminder.

Had a fun time playing with the homemade multitouch box yesterday. Here's a picture with it hooked up to a Lenovo x60 Tablet PC while I'm playing with Smoke. Loren goes into detail about how built the little multitouch box.

Tips:

1. Use a small box, such as 7"x7"
2. Cover the hole for the cord with duct tape to block extra light
3. Use a picture frame as the "lid" to the box. If you use paper alone press lightly or else your lid will cave in :)

According to the Computex website Sambest Corporation of Taiwan will show a model 800, rugged mobile PC with resistive touch display. Sambest has several mobile PCs with digitizer support.

• Compact A4 size with bumper and Magnesium-Alloy Housing in high strength and rugged structure
• 10.4” XGA (1024x768) TFT with resistive touch screen
• Intel Core Duo Processor Ultra Low Voltage 1.2GHz Processor
• RAM: 1GB DDRII 533 and optional 2GB upgrade
• Storage: HDD - Shock Proof mounted 80GB and optional 100GB/120GB
• Optional Solid Slate Drive 8GB/16GB/32GB
• Windows XP Tablet PC SP2 Edition / Windows Vista Business ready
• Built-in WiFi 802.11 a/b/g; Bluetooth Class I; CF/PCMCIA card slots to support UMTS/HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS/GPS Card
• Meet IP54 standard and compliant MIL-STD-810F
• Wide temperature range operation (-20℃ ~ +60℃)
• 7 hours of long operating battery life
• RS232 port for industrial device connection

According to PC Pro's Bob Harris, ARM is looking at the convergence zone of PCs and devices as an opportunity. ARM's Coretex-A8 processor could be its first step in the low cost PC direction. Energy efficient and very competitive may be the key to the successful expansion of this new category.

Recently, I've received questions about what application teachers can use on a Tablet PC that would be like a transparency or overhead.

Check out WriteOn, a project out of Virginia Tech. Teachers can annotate and "play back" to reveal information. This would be particularly useful for complex formulas, equations, and staging labels.

Building environmenally friendly PCs would potentially include reducing chemical byproducts, clean manufacturing, lead-free components, use of rapidly renewable materials, biodegradable plastics, rechargeable batteries with good method for disposal, longer lifetime of the complete product, reduce packaging, reuse - when possible recycle - materials, and the PC would need to be energy efficient.

Energy efforts alone range from reducing consumption by individual components, such as display and CPU, to improving software efficiency. Some PC manufacturers now have Energy Calculators available so you can know the amount of energy consumed by certain models. Here's a list of a few calculators and places to go for information. Please post resources that you use.

• Dell Energy Calculator
• Energy Star Guidelines for Energy Management
• Guide to Greener Electronics by GreenPeace has info on some general corporate policies
• Lenovo Project Big Green for IT 

Don't overlook consumption by specific models too. For example, the Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC consumes low power for a powerful mobile PC, and you can save a few trees by using the pen to handwrite quick notes.

So, tell me, are you ready to buy "green" PCs?

Very straight forward advice for college students from college students.Two students from University of Louisville Speed School of Engineering cover Dell Tablet PC, HP 2710P Notebook, Lenovo x61 Tablet PC, Gateway, and Toshiba. Find out their favorites for general use, budget, and all the bells and whistles.

There's a little debate going on over on YouTube about what "real" Tablet PC features are. Go check it out

Also be sure to check out how kids are making these multitouch pads from boxes, webcams, and frames.

My two teenage nieces primarily use home computers for school work. Unfortunately, their school uses computers in labs only.

Current PC of choice seems to be the well used, beloved HP TC1100 Tablet PCs, which they say do the trick most of the time. They mainly write essays in Word, quick notes in Journal, and the calculator. Next comes IE with search engines helping them find their way to whatever word they need to use. It's solitary work, not collaborative and yes, homework still gets printed on paper.

 I know Rob's kids use PCs in their homeschool. What about the rest of you. How do your kids use computers for school work? What do they need created or enabled to get them over that next edge?

Disney's new Ultimate WALL·E has, "An innovative touch programming system lets kids direct WALL·E simply by making patterns on the remote's touch pad."

Great idea to use gestures on a remote!

Ran across this ecoupon for Lenovo ThinkPad X Series Tablet PCs. 22% discount is a nice savings when you're in the market for a new PC!