Implementing a Large-scale Tablet PC Deployment

Joseph G. Tront, Virginia Tech, jgtront@vt.edu
Glenda R. Scales, Virginia Tech, gscales@vt.edu

In the fall of 2006, the College of Engineering became the first and largest public college of engineering to require all 1,400 incoming freshmen students to own a Tablet PC.  The purpose of this requirement program is to better facilitate pedagogical practices that are expected to improve learning, but were not readily accomplished in the previous environment.  Practices that are projected to be improved include interactive classroom presentations, student-student and instructor-student collaboration, comprehensive note-taking and review, and moving the emphasis to more process oriented lectures and away from simple information broadcasting.

A large deployment effort like the one described here is multi-faceted and requires the enthusiasm and support of a broad number of constituents.  Decisions on hardware and software choices required input from across the university.  Training of faculty and support personnel was required.  Improvements to infrastructure including network connectivity, additional classroom projection systems and increased availability of connections were some of the physical plant challenges that required attention. Sound and frequent assessment of the successes and failures of the program, and identification of potentially fruitful avenues to pursue in the future, has been part of the overriding deployment strategy from the beginning.  In this paper we will expound on our approach to each of these task areas, describe how our plan took shape, and provide information on successes and failures we have had during the first year of the deployment process.