The revolution is coming — maybe. A new kind of computer platform, the tablet PC, allows students to take digital notes in their natural handwriting. The new technology is eye-catching and arguably very useful, but will students make the switch from keyboard to digital pen?
Though many students haven't heard of them, tablets come in as many variations as laptops do. They range in size from razor-thin ultra-mobiles to bulky military computers. There are 23 different commercial models available, according to Microsoft's website.
Many of them are the same size as a small laptop and have a screen that swivels to allow access to a traditional keyboard. Another typical feature is the ability to detach the keyboard from the computer altogether.
All tablets run a special version of Windows XP called Tablet PC Edition. It has necessary features like an on-screen keyboard, handwriting recognition and a basic note-taking program called Microsoft Journal. The operating system has the ability to convert handwritten text into type and allows a pen to be used in the login screen.
For now, Windows is the only option. Some developers are working on Linux compatibility, but the complicated patchwork of software needed to make a pen work in Linux makes it unlikely to be useful for the average user. Apple does not currently make a Mac tablet and has announced no plans to do so. Ironically, Apple commercials aired about fifteen years ago, long before the technology was feasible, showed a portable computer with handwriting recognition much like a modern tablet.
An Internet petition is circulating to demand that Apple design a tablet to avoid putting Mac loyalists into the uncomfortable position of buying a Microsoft product to own a tablet. "We feel this is plain wrong," the petition declares, citing the fact that Mac OS X already supports handwriting recognition.
Some Mac users have been won over: A secretary in the Classics department, who asked not to be named, traditionally "hates Windows" but recently discovered that a Compaq tablet can be "very cool."
Very little software appears to have been designed with the intention of making tablets useful for students. The University's fire inspectors carry them and they are used at many architectural firms, but students' needs are very different.
Microsoft has released a note-taking application for Office called OneNote.
OneNote is an electronic notebook with a row of subject tabs at the top and section tabs at the side. You could, for example, make a subject tab "ECO 100" and organize the section tabs by lecture date. "The notebook metaphor works with many students intuitively, and many prefer the section and tab approach of OneNote to Journal," said Alex Robinson, the Project Manager for OneNote.
Because it is integrated with Microsoft Office, OneNote's user interface is reassuringly familiar, and the advanced features seem less buried than in other Microsoft applications. It has a mini-mode allowing it to be docked in another application, so you could read a document and takes notes on it simultaneously. It also integrates multimedia into the text of your note, so one could record the audio of a lecture in the notes you take on it. A sharing capability also enables several users to work from the same set of notes over a network.
OneNote can be used with a traditional laptop with most of the same features available as on a tablet. Robinson underscores the fact that everyone, not just tablet users, can benefit from OneNote. But Microsoft's basic note-taking utility, Journal, is only available for tablets.
Perhaps best of all, the program is fast, stable and affordable. The academic price is just $49. But are these features enough for students — or are they too much already?
"People who bring their laptops to class generally seem happier than those who don't," observes Fairy Pardiwalla '05, an English major. She is a two-finger typist and not one of the ubiquitous lecture hall laptop users. But she would like to try a tablet.
Standard laptops cannot be used effectively in many science classes because writing equations is difficult using a keyboard. Equations are, however, easily written on a tablet. One sophomore, a self-described "science person" who wished to remain anonymous, said that she always takes her computer to her politics class and wished she could take it to her equation-heavy science classes. "It would be neater in the end and easier to study," she said.
Marissa Troiano '06 admits that she rarely looks at her notes after she writes them using a complex color-code. "Wow, I'm really OCD, aren't I?" she said. She had thought about buying a tablet but then "just forgot" two years ago. James Fribley '05, who was sitting at the same table in Café Vivian, declared that he takes very few written notes and would never get a tablet. He would, however, like to see the University offer classes on shorthand notation.
"I just write things down," Pam Walsh '07 said about her note-taking strategy. Other students confess their passion for paper composition books and for the scratchiness of traditional pens. Jason Vagliano '05 thinks it would be "a pain" to use a tablet but assumes that lectures would be quieter. "At least though you wouldn't hear that irritating clicking noise [from computer keyboards]."
Though some Princetonians are attracted to the possibility of digitally inked notes, they are wary of it as well. "I can type faster than I write anyway," said Janine Jaffe '05. She may have a point.
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