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Classmate Tablet – Full of Surprises | Tech4Teaching

Classmate Tablet – Full of Surprises

I first heard about Intel’s Classmate Convertible tablets last fall as I was prepping a Teaching with Tablets presentation for the TIES Conference.  I decided to contact Intel for more details.  They were incredibly helpful and provided two prototypes – one a pretty early model and another a near production prototype.  I was able to take both home (to really test with my 4th grader) and get feedback from fellow teachers as well as our middle school students.  After discussions with my tech director, principal, and head of school, we were able to secure two production models for evaluation pending implementation in a pilot.

Well, my Nobis (branded such by Equus, our local vendor) arrived last week, and I’ve been testing my little heart out.  With the assistance of our network guru, we set up one of the tablets with Tablet XP to compare with their configuration with Home XP.  As you may already know, the “experts” are avoiding Vista on netbooks and going with lighter versions of XP if they’re using Windows at all.  Because the Classmates I’m using have a 60 GB HD, we’re able to install the full Tablet XP.  There are a number of apps we use that only run on Vista or Tablet XP, so it seemed important to take the time to compare.

Specs for my Nobi Classmates:

So, what did I install on the machines?  Well, it would probably be easier to ask what I didn’t install.  We tested (I say we because Chris Collins, a fabulous math/science teacher in our Middle School) volunteered to take the machine for a day and use it in her classroom in place of her Toshiba M700) Office 2007 with OneNote, SketchUp, Picasa, Google Earth, Panda Antivirus, MovieMaker, Audacity, Windows Journal*, Snipping Tool*, Open Office (Home XP Only), IE, Firefox, ArtRage, Paint.net…

Here’s what we discovered:

1.  The Classmate could handle pretty much everything we threw at it.  We ran into a few resolution issues (Scratch needed more real estate than we had set up but still functioned), but no significant performance issues were noticed.  As far as I can see, this machine will do anything our classrooms need.

2.  Although the tablet comes with a great suite of apps in the Home XP version (including Evernote & MyScript Stylus), our school would likely investigate creating our own image with Tablet XP because we’re addicted to OneNote and will have full OS interactivity with OneNote 2007 and Tablet XP.  For a school not doing OneNote, XP Home would probably be fine.  The inking with MyScript Stylus took a little for me to get used to, but for someone who hadn’t used a full-fledged tablet, I don’t think there would be a problem.

3.  There’s no eraser on the stylus.  Ok, seems silly, but I’m used to my Toshiba’s stylus with a built-in eraser.  My 6th graders (not used to styluses yet) adapted quickly (less than 3 minutes).

4.  Because we’re looking at such a small machine (with handle 241 x 215 x (26.0 ~ 39.3) mm), there isn’t a lot of room for ports.  This means there’s no firewire (our cameras work with USB, so it shouldn’t be an issue) and the VGA slot doesn’t have screws for long-term connection.  Workable issues.  It has mic and headphone ports.  The speakers were fine for general audio as well.  There are 2 USB and 1 SD card, so we have enough expandability for general classroom use.

5.  The battery was amazing.  I did a ton on these machines and only had to plug them in twice.  There’s something to be said for no CD/DVD drive, a small display, and the Atom processor.  I haven’t had a laptop battery last that long since my old G4 iBook was new.

6.  The resistive touch display and inking was a bit of a challenge, but it’s trainable.  I’ve been told since I was in 3rd grade that my handwriting is sloppy because I have a lazy writing hand.  The Classmate confirmed it.  I needed to train myself to not rest my hand so heavily as I write.  Chris didn’t have a problem.  My 6th graders didn’t have a problem.  Mrs. Patrick, my 3rd grade teacher, is likely saying “I told you so” from her grave.

7.  The screen rotation feature (similar to iPhone) was really cool.  It made changing orientation and swiveling much easier than on a traditional tablet.

Really, any issues I had with this machine were things I can learn to live with and I think 6th graders would overcome quickly, if they even notice.  Younger kids wouldn’t have a problem.  That being said, my fingers are crossed that we can swing a classroom pilot in the near future.  The base price a little over $500 with a 1 year warranty – higher than a typical netbook, but this is no typical netbook.  It’s got a spill-resistant keyboard and feels sturdier than the models you find at Target and Best Buy.  I’ll definitely keep you posted.

Here’s a video Chris made when she was testing the webcam and MovieMaker.  (Yes, this runs MovieMaker pretty well!)

15 comments

  1. Tami Brass says:

    Not yet. We’ve only used the wired port for imaging, but our tech didn’t note any problems.

  2. Randy says:

    Did any of the persons testing the Equus tablet Nobi’s have any issues with the wired network port not functioning?

    Thanks
    Randy

  3. Tami Brass says:

    Chuck,
    We’re using the Nobis from Equus. Same manufacturers and the like.
    My initial eval (early winter on prototypes) was with XP Home. In Jan/Feb, I did a comparison with the XP Home and Tablet PC versions. Basically, we stripped down the machine and created a fresh image with XP Tablet and added the Nobi drivers + our normal stuff.
    Does that help?
    I’ll blog more this week on our progress.
    Tami

  4. Tami Brass says:

    Dr. Zimmerman,

    I’ll do a blog entry on this week. Check back soon.

    Tami

  5. Chuck says:

    Tami,
    Thanks again for your earlier response. We finally got our tester (the Nobi convertible netbook from Equus). I have a few more questions if you have a minute…
    Did you have the same manufacturer? or someone else?
    Did you only us it with XP pro or did you try to reimage it with XP tablet edition?
    If you did use tablet edition, did you encounter any issues when installing it?
    Thanks
    Chuck

  6. Good Morning,
    We were introduced to the Classmate Tablet yesterday at a faculty gathering. It was a BIG HIT! The students seemed enthralled and believe the size is perfect (K-6th grade).

    Don’t have a lot of time nor the expertise to spend seeking too many other options and you have much more experience than I do. Quick question. As an administrator I am preparing to outfit two classes of 5th and 6th graders with individual laptops for use at their desk for basic computing. Would you recommend this over other laptops you may have reviewed for in class 1-1 use.

    Thank you
    Dr. Zimmerman

  7. Tami Brass says:

    Chuck,
    It was the 4 cell, and I’m sure we got 4+ hours of battery. I didn’t do any Adobe apps – we typically don’t include these on our student machines. I did use Paint.net and ArtRage, but no other image editors. No, didn’t try dropping it, but I wasn’t as careful with it as I would be with a traditional tablet. It’s definitely got a different feel than other hardware I’ve used. Far sturdier than I’d expect for the price.
    Tami

  8. Chuck Andres says:

    Tami,
    We are really hoping to have our tester model early next week! In the mean time, can I pick your brain a little?

    Specifically, how long did the battery last? Did you have the option for a 6 or 8 cell battery? Did you plan on trying to install any Adobe heavy hitters (i.e. photoshop, illustrator, etc)? Have you done any drop tests (physically trying to break it)?

    Thanks!
    Chuck

  9. Ryan Rotuna says:

    Tami,

    Thanks for the quick reply. I have been spending my morning restoring the original image (our sales rep says that they will work with us on creating a rescue partition based on our image).

    I installed XP Pro and all the support docs found at http://www.equuscs.com support.

    I liked your list of apps and have some more. Once I get my image done and really tweaked (I hate all the stuff running in the background on this guy) I will send it to you or FTP it.

    You may pick my brain! LOL.

    Thanks,
    Ryan

  10. Tami Brass says:

    Ryan,

    We haven’t gotten to the imaging process yet, but that’s high on my list. We’re looking at revising our process (I’d love to get kids to self-image).

    As far as software, a 60 GB HD will hold a lot, and we’d put most of what we use on the traditional tablets ( http://learnerswithlaptops.wikispaces.com/What+software+should+we+have+on+student+laptops%3F ) on these. I’ve tested the majority of the apps with great results.

    Tami

  11. Ryan Rotuna says:

    Hello Tami,

    I enjoyed reading your blog. We too are looking into making the Classmate Tablet our workhorse for our One-to-One Initiative next school year. We have been looking/testing machines for some time now.

    I am in love with the Classmate! The closest thing we came to making a final decision was the HP Mini 2133 and it runs like dog and gets too hot. It also costs a heap more and has no tablet.

    I have been trying to “break” the little Classmate’s software for about a week and really can’t do it. You were right when you said that it can handle whatever you threw at it.

    What system do you plan on using with the ghosting/imaging of your final image? Any ideas for a list of software for the kids to use? Right now I am looking at wiping this unit and using nlite and/or BartPE to get a nice clean slate and going from there.

    Please feel free to hit me back and maybe we can use each other for ideas before I/we go into production on this unit.

    Thanks,
    Ryan M. Rotuna
    Director of Technology
    Jackson-Milton LSD
    North Jackson, OH
    jack_rmr@access-k12.org

  12. Tami Brass says:

    Hiram,

    We haven’t created a formal “image” on the Classmates yet, but we’d move that direction for a pilot. Our tablet image isn’t that bad on our Toshiba M700s, but I plan to put them on a diet this spring in prep for a server/network migration this summer.
    SPA doesn’t do any management software at this point. We’re evaluating it, but we haven’t done an adoption. With shared notebooks and OneNote, we can already do some screen sharing.
    I believe the Classmate Clamshells (older models) have been used in case studies with Dyknow, so it’s doable.
    Tami

  13. Hiram Cuevas says:

    Tami,

    Thank you for this thorough field test. I’m always looking for alternatives for our access model and it seems that this may be a viable solution.

    BTW, how big is your image? Also, are you running classroom management software on them? Netop, Synchroneyes,…

    Cheers,

    Hiram

  14. Sharon Betts says:

    Tami,
    Thanks for your post – we are doing a lot of pilot testing with netbooks, but haven’t gone the tablet direction yet. May give one of this a try.

  15. Tami,
    Thanks for all of the info! We may have to pilot it at one of our schools this spring!

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