ISTE 2013 is long gone and is now just a fleeting memory- but wow was it fun! The ISTE conferences by and large remains one of my most favorite conferences to attend. This year was a lot of fun as I had a chance to meet educators from around the globe who see the potential for creating environments in the classroom and beyond that engage and enlighten students. No doubt we are moving into a post PC world which was evidenced by the sheer number of companies showing off their tablet solutions for the classroom. One of the companies which certainly made a big Public Relations splash this year was Microsoft. As part of Windows in the Classroom Surface Experience Project, Microsoft gave away 10,000 Windows Surface RT's to educators who attended the ISTE conference. It was quite interesting to see educators at the conference carrying their iPad in one hand and their new Surface RT in their left . I even spotted a group of teachers in the hotel one night sitting around the table figuring out how to get started with the Surface RT and Windows 8. I will disclose that I was fortunate enough to meet with Cameron Evans, National Technology Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft Education, Cameron Evans, who is responsible for shaping and executing Microsoft Corp.’s technology and policy strategy in U.S. Education. Attending the ISTE Conference as Media, I had a great conversation with Cameron and he shared with me Microsoft's dedication and commitment to the education marketplace, understanding that his company had to become more focused and amplify the message as to the range of products and services that educators could rely on from Microsoft to achieve their goals in the classroom. At the end of our meeting Cameron was gracious enough to give me a Surface RT to take home and use. For those of you who know me-you know that I was an early adopter of the iPad since it was released and own an iPad 1, iPad 2 and an iPad Mini. The iPad revolutionized how we work and it has been a real boon for the work I do in the field of assistive technology. With that having said, I wanted to be open minded to the Surface RT and give it a test drive to see how it would perform. Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised and am really enjoying using the Surface RT around my home and when I travel. The Surface RT is very well constructed and made of a type of magnesium alloy that gives it a great look and feel. The Touch Cover is an innovative and functional cover/keyboard all rolled into one. At first glance you are not too sure you will be able to use the Touch Cover effectively but with a little practice you will find that it works quite well. The kickstand which is part of the Surface RT always is there when you are ready to read or type and having a full USB port makes it handy for the times when you want to transfer a file to your Surface RT from a thumbdrive. While I am familiar with Windows 7, Windows 8 is a whole new operating system that took me a little bit of time to figure out (well about 10 minutes give or take a few :-)). Its use of colorful tiles for apps and live feeds is innovative and very inviting.Using the familiar swiping action lets you navigate through the screens as you would expect and customizing the tiles is as easy a dragging them to the desired location. It did take a little getting used to the idea of the Charms on the
One of the areas which needs to be addressed is that there are far fewer apps for educators that are available for the Surface RT in the Microsoft Store. One of the short comings of the Surface RT is that since it sports an ARM processor it is not possible to install legacy Windows 7 or 8 applications that you might want to. Therefore the only applications that you can install are those that have been written specifically for the Surface RT. While most of the major apps that you would expect to find are currently there, (ie. Kindle, Amazon, Netflix, Evernote etc.) there are still too few apps for the classroom especially in the area of assistive technology. Yes, Microsoft did embed a lot of accessibility features into Windows 8 (Text to Speech, Narrator, Zoom, and Speech Recognition) there needs to be more work done to persuade developers to provide educators with a range of apps so that we can use on the Surface RT with students with special needs.
As much as Microsoft has taken a hit in the press with regards to writing off $900 million dollars due to poor sales of the Surface RT- it was necessary for Microsoft to show the industry that it could design and develop top of the line hardware so that they can control its destiny in a post PC world. The Surface RT is an interesting tablet with a lot of functionality but one which was not really well defined or understood from the outset. This in my opinion cost Microsoft ground in its race to achieve market share in the tablet space. Now that Microsoft has lowered the price of the Surface RT to $349 dollars it has an opportunity to refocus its marketing and communicate to educators and consumers the value proposition of owning a Surface RT, compared to the other tablets in the marketplace. While this may be a formidable task- one gets the real sense that Microsoft is in this for the long haul and is just getting ready to rock and roll!
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