• Corpus ID: 14170459

Evaluating Netbooks in Education : A Discontinuity in Mobility

@inproceedings{Geelhoed2009EvaluatingNI,
  title={Evaluating Netbooks in Education : A Discontinuity in Mobility},
  author={Erik Geelhoed and Jhilmil Jain and April Slayden Mitchell},
  year={2009}
}

• E. Geelhoed, Jhilmil Jain, A. Mitchell
• Published 2009
• Education

© Evaluating Netbooks in Education: A Discontinuity in Mobility Erik Geelhoed, Jhilmil Jain, April Slayden Mitchell HP Laboratories HPL-2009-332 netbooks, education, user studies, mobility, mini notebooks, subnotebooks We studied the use of netbooks (HP Mini-Note 2133) by students in the age range 11 14 years in three schools in different geographical locations: Fresno (California), Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Shanghai (China). We found that netbooks are a major departure from traditional laptops: they are moved around in the class room with great ease, are much more part of the social flow in the classroom, and stimulate collaboration. In addition, the power and small form factor of the device stimulated the children's visual creativity. Looking at the wider ecology of home computing, other mobile devices and social networking, we gained further insights in how future netbooks can be embedded and integrated into the highly social and emotional flow of teenagers' lifestyles. From the schools' perspectives (teachers, IT-decision makers), we learnt that the form-factor and price of the netbooks are ideal for the educational environment, but challenges lie in creating innovative solutions for content management, infrastructure support, and integration of educational software with school curriculum/standards. From the parents' perspectives, we learned that they were supportive of the netbook usage in the classroom and described their children as being more engaged in class when using the netbook. We also present a simple model of mobility and place the netbook device in this framework. External Posting Date: March 11, 2011 [Fulltext] Approved for External Publication Internal Posting Date: September 21, 2009 [Fulltext] Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Evaluating Netbooks in Education: A Discontinuity in Mobility Erik Geelhoed, Jhilmil Jain & April Slayden Mitchell Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories 1501 Page Mill Rd. Palo Alto, California 94304-1100 United States [e-mail]