Are you ready to give up textbooks for a Tablet PC?
By Benny Thomas   |    5 Comments
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Are you ready to give up textbooks for a Tablet PC?
Bangalore: With a wave of tablet PCs hitting the consumer market, there has been a lot of discussions on whether these devices can emerge as an alternative to textbooks for the student community. Though, many agree that these devices can one day replace the good old textbooks in developed countries, can this be the same scenario in a country like India also? The tech majors seem to be very confident about the opportunities of the tablets, especially in the education sector. After Apple unveiled its tablet PC, the iPad, several tech majors have started showing off their own 'iPad killers'. HP presented a Windows-powered tablet called Slate at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January. Even Sony used CES as a platform to unveil its 7-inch touchscreen device 'Dash'. Though, Microsoft had also planned to unveil its 'Courier' tablet PC at CES, it did not happen, and recently the software giant announced that Courier will not see the light of day in its current form, but did not rule out launching its tablet PC in the future. Dell has also announced that it will release its Android based 'Streak' in Europe next month and in the U.S. during the summer. Joining this long list of contenders waiting to rule the tablet world is an India based firm Notion Ink, which unveiled its 'Adam' tablet in January this year at CES. And the person who co-founded this firm, Rohit Rathi believes that in the next 2-3 years tablets can replace textbooks in India at least in higher education. However, Rathi feels that there is a major role that the government should also play in order to increase the penetration of these devices. "The two main challenges in India are connectivity and availability of devices," says Rathi. According to Rathi, for tablet PCs to succeed there should be good connectivity in the country, which is currently not up to the mark in India. "The government should join hands with technology companies and improve the connectivity," he adds. Rathi emphasizes on the fact that since these devices are not manufactured in India, it is expensive to get the products from outside the country. Though, the road ahead may look cloudy, Rathi is confident that things will improve with a number of organizations already showing interest in converting books into digital content. The company is also currently speaking to various publishers to digitalize several books. Today, several institutes in the U.S. have already started using tablets instead of textbooks by collaborating with tech firms. However, there are still some issues that the education community in India is concerned about. "The devices should come with certain features that even engineering students can use and that too at an affordable cost, not many such tablets are available as of now," points out B. N. Jain, Professor of Computer Science at Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi. According to Jain, students should be able to use these devices to draw diagrams and also do programming. There seems to be solutions in Notion Ink's pocket for these concerns, Rathi claims by using Adam, students will be able to draw diagrams, but to do programming the users may have to use some other application also. As far as pricing is concerned Rathi explains that the average price of the tablet will be around 15,000, which can be affordable for students doing their higher studies. There is also a word of caution, by the person who led a team at Microsoft to develop Classroom Presenter, a tool for delivering presentations from the tablets. Richard Anderson, who is currently a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, says, "I have been a backer of tablets since the beginning - especially for education, but in spite of years of effort, the Microsoft Tablet PC did not achieve wide spread use in education." According to Anderson, for students, keyboard input is absolutely critical on a personal computing device, which the tablets lack. But, Rathi says that the Adam comes with a port to connect it to a keyboard, so that won't be an issue for students. The student community is also excited to start using tablets instead of textbooks, as the devices are easier to carry. "By using tablet PCs, we don't have to carry heavy books but a small device," says Sharada B, Research Scholar at Indian Institute of Science. However she feels that it may be difficult for some people to shift from reading on paper to digital devices. Even she believes that the content delivery should be improved in the country to increase the penetration. "By using these devices, we can also play a part in protecting our environment by decreasing deforestation to produce paper," Sharada adds. With the both the academia and the tech community ready to upgrade to the tablet generation, a thrust from the government can further increase the use of these devices in a country like India that can revolutionize the education system.

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