09 Feb 08 Using the tablet for the ch.4 test
After I realized I had volunteered to use the tablet for taking the test, I immediately regretted my decision to raise my hand. For the first 5 or 10 minutes it was a bit difficult to get used to not writing on paper. It made me a bit nervous because I had never used a tablet before, and I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t want to end up accidentally deleting everything half way through the test, or something to that affect. After my nerves calmed down a bit it wasn’t so bad. I actually prefer using the tablet for taking tests.
Using the tablet made erasing much easier and neater, and I never ran out of paper. I liked the fact that I could change colors and widths when I was writing. It is easier to make the more important things noticeable. It was also easy to go back to a problem because there were no papers to shuffle around to find the question I wanted to go back to. Everything is in a nice logical order, and I didn’t have to plan according to page length. I hate running out of room and the bottom of a piece of paper when I am working on a long equation, and with the tablet I never had to worry about that. It was also nice to be able to put a graph into the work that I created in winplot. It looks much neater.
It was a bit awkward to get used to writing on the tablet at first. It took a few minutes to find a comfortable way to write. I found that Mr. Seamon’s suggestion to rest my hand on the screen while writing worked best for me. The other thing that bothered me while I was using in was I would accidentally press the button on the stylus and highlight something that I didn’t want to highlight and move it. I hadn’t realized that there was a button the stylus so the first time it happened I had no idea what I did.
I think I prefer using the tablet for test taking now. Over all it makes the work look much neater, and the tablet isn’t hard to use.
Tags: tabletpc, test taking
Reader's Comments
i like the last paragraph where you said that it was nice for test taking. can’t wait to try it out:-)
I think that from what I have heard about the tablet thus far is that it is clean to use, but takes some getting used to. I really would like to start using the tablet before a test or quiz so that I am used to it before I have to use it for a test or something.
Yo, I took that test on the tablet too… It was actually very good, but I would recommend trying it first before writing a test. It was a little weird trying to find out where to press and stuff, and if something went wrong (ex. want to erase little thing but erase huge thing) then it was annoying and made you stressed because it’s a test. Overall it was very good though. Once you get used to it it’s really neat and organized. I’m a messy guy, but I think my test looked pretty neat… One other thing that sucked was that I had capstone the next block and I had to use a computer again. Looking at a screen for so long kills me, but at least it’s not every day… peace.
I took the test on the tablet PC also, and I was sooooooooo mad:) However, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, it just would have been nice to learn how to use it and play with it for a while before having to take a TEST with it. I feel like I could have done better, or at least finished more of it had I not had to worry about learning how to use it. The only problems that I ran into were that there were a couple times when I would be writing away and then scroll up and realize that I had accidentally erased like 5 lines of work. Since I didn’t realize it when it actually happened, I couldn’t just say edit, undo erase. I had to rewrite it. It was also sometimes annoying to have to scroll up and back down when I wanted to see an earlier line… sometimes I forgot what I had just looked at and had to scroll back up… but maybe it’s only me that has that problem:) Short term memory…
On the other hand, it was kind of cool to get the test graded with feedback through my email. We’ll just have to practice more with it, and then I think it will be fine to use for assessments.
thanks that information will be really helpful to me when i first get to use the tablet pc. on the one hand i’m excited to use it, but on the other i’m afraid i’ll have a lot of trouble with it. what amanda said about erasing lines of work kind of scared me. but i’m sure using it the second time around will be great. it should make my work a lot neater, which i’m sure mr. seamon will appreciate. i just hope the first time isn’t on a test.
I agree that it would have been nice to have a chance to use the tablet before a test. I feel like I may have been able to get more work done, like amanda said, if i had a feeling for how to use it before the test. It was kind of intimidating, and when you start a test with anxiety about something like not knowing how to use the tablet, it take a while to really focus.
I never use that tablet before. I really want to try that, it sounds fun…..