Supporting Innovation: The diffusion and Adoption of Tablet PCs in the College of Engineering

Roxanne Toto , The Pennsylvania State University,     rtoto@.psu.edu    
Kyu Yon Lim, The Pennsylvania State University,   kylim@psu.edu
John Wise, The Pennsylvania State University,    jwise@psu.edu

Tablet PCs can combine the advantages of traditional presentation methods while mitigating the limitations of other technologies in engineering classrooms. Although there are obvious advantages to Tablet PCs, any random implementation of educational technology has a low probability of success and widespread adoption. To offset this potential, initially we proposed to provide Tablet PCs to twenty-three (23) engineering faculty who are early adopters, moving from micro-level case studies to a broad level of systemic diffusion. Implementation of the initiative in 2006 was a multifaceted approach which consisted of support resources and training regimens as well as a research agenda regarding the use of the Tablet PC in engineering courses at Penn State. Finally, we estimated that two thousand seventy-eight (2078) students would be impacted by the faculty who taught with Tablet PCs. The initial data analysis indicates that the use of Tablet PCs in the classroom has had a variety of benefits for both faculty’s teaching practice and students’ learning. Detailed research findings and implications for future research are described in this paper.