A Tablet PC Capstone Course Richard Anderson Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Washington

CSE 490 RA Tablet PC Project course offered at UW Tablet PC Project course offered at UW  Prototype offering Winter 2003  First real offering Spring 2003  Planned for Fall 2003 This talk This talk  Course offerings  Discussion of Tablet PC project courses

Capstone classes Group project to draw together undergraduate experiences Group project to draw together undergraduate experiences Widely offered in engineering Widely offered in engineering  Many success stories Common format Common format  Team oriented development project Goals Goals  Learn about exciting application domain  Experience working in a group  Product life cycle

UW Context Established Capstone courses in CS Established Capstone courses in CS  Computer games  Animation  Hardware design Department support for Capstone courses Department support for Capstone courses  25 students per course  Reasonable lab support Quarter system Quarter system

Workload Capstone Project Capstone Project  User studies  Project specification  Working code  Polished distribution Individual homework assignments Individual homework assignments  Tablet PC exercises  User centered design exercises

Curricular goals Context design (HCI) Context design (HCI)  User studies  Paper prototypes  Personas  Heuristic Evalution Software Engineering Software Engineering  Development team  Requirements  Release cycle

Curricular Goals Pen computing Pen computing  Mobile computing  UI Considerations for stylus based apps  Form factor Tablet PC Development Tablet PC Development  Windows programming  Tablet PC SDK  Fun with ink  Advanced facilities (reco, gestures)

Course mechanics ~5 person teams ~5 person teams Projects from selected list Projects from selected list Programming assignments Programming assignments Design assignments Design assignments Lectures on HCI and Pen computing early in the quarter Lectures on HCI and Pen computing early in the quarter Lectures used for group meetings with instructors and checkpoint presentations later in quarter Lectures used for group meetings with instructors and checkpoint presentations later in quarter Final presentations Final presentations

Elevator Application

Photo by Dan Lamont

Homework grading

Homework Grading Photo by Dan Lamont

Shared whiteboard for remote tutoring

Discussion Resources to teach a Tablet PC course Resources to teach a Tablet PC course Tablet PC Curricula Tablet PC Curricula Why use the Tablet PC in a project course Why use the Tablet PC in a project course Tradeoffs in course emphasis Tradeoffs in course emphasis C# and.NET in the course C# and.NET in the course

Resources Software Software  Tablet PC SDK, Visual Studio.NET Hardware Hardware  Substantial Tablet PC development can be on the desktop  But not all Tablet PC facilities are available  Important to experience the form factor and the high quality ink For 25 students we started with 5 Tablet PCs and added 5 more mid quarter For 25 students we started with 5 Tablet PCs and added 5 more mid quarter

Tablet PC Curricula Issues relating to the tablet form factor Issues relating to the tablet form factor Tablet PC SDK Tablet PC SDK  Basic use, e.g., an ink collector with recognition  Advanced use – direct manipulation of ink Students started with a series of programming exercises such as Tic- Tac-Toe Students started with a series of programming exercises such as Tic- Tac-Toe Reference: Building Tablet PC Applications by Jarrett and Su Reference: Building Tablet PC Applications by Jarrett and Su

Why use the Tablet PC in a project class? Cool new hardware Cool new hardware  Motivation  Create opportunities for the students Fit with an HCI oriented capstone course Fit with an HCI oriented capstone course  Usability and prototyping Windows platform Windows platform

Tradeoffs in emphasis Contextual Design 35% Contextual Design 35% Software Engineering 20% Software Engineering 20% Pen / Mobile Computing20% Pen / Mobile Computing20% Tablet PC SDK15% Tablet PC SDK15% Window Development10% Window Development10%

C# and.NET in the course Windows and.NET programming successful Windows and.NET programming successful  Students liked C#  Basically positive attitude  Students signed up for the course aware of the platform  All groups built very good windows apps  Required to submit project as.MSI  Many students started with little Windows background

What Microsoft could do to help.NET project courses Software infrastructure is very important for team projects Software infrastructure is very important for team projects Provide a usable version control system integrated with Visual Studio Provide a usable version control system integrated with Visual Studio Release bug tracking software Release bug tracking software

Course information courses/490ra/ courses/490ra/

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