First Use in Class

Here are my thoughts from the first time I tried teaching from the surface, using it in place of the document camera.  It plugged into the vga cable (with the supplied adaptor) without any issues, although the screen on the surface became letterboxed, which meant you lost a fair bit of the already small screen real estate (not as much space for writing).  I didn’t have time to experiment with different orientations or the hdmi adaptor (no hdmi support in the theatre I tried but I know some other theatres are different).

 Writing on the screen was quite a different tactile experience but I could write at my usual size and legibly.  Apparently some stylus brands offer interchangable hard and soft tips which may gave an experience closer to writing on paper.

 I didn’t have a chance to install any special software before class so just used the standard built-in pdf reader (a.k.a modern reader).  It appeared to support pdf annotation and worked really well during the lecture but turned out to have several fatal flaws (which fortunately only reared their head post lecture rather than in front of students!)

- if you shut off the display without saving your work you lose everything (i.e. if the device goes to sleep all the annotations disappear).

- if you save your work and then re-open the document it is rendered unreadable on modern reader (but is still fine on other pdf viewers such as acrobat

- the file sizes are very large

While the modern reader app is not suitable in its current form (they may resolve the bugs in the future, especially as the annotation issue is a known problem) there are a myriad of other pdf annotation products, so I feel hopeful that something appropriate exists.  The problem is not with the stylus, rather with the software.

 I installed and briefly tried bluebeam revu (a relatively expensive solution) to see what a top of the line product would look like.  It supported pressure sensitivity nicely but I have only had a few minutes to play with it so far.

Also it remains to be seen whether I can set it up using virtual terminal to allow roving.  I tried annotating while walking around in the corridor and was able to do so, so assuming a connection could be established to the e-lectern over wifi then it would be possible to move around the room while annotating (which is my aim).  When holding the surface in the hand you notice that it is much less pleasant to hold than an ipad.  It runs very hot and is quite heavy.  It is still  possible to carry it around though.