The tablet was integral to our fellowship. I would video our mentor and play it back for myself at night as I was trying to learn. Many of the snippets wound up in a longer video that I put together over the summer.

I still often video my students and revisit their work in the evenings. My students also enjoy using the tablet to take videos and photos of their work.

My favorite part of the tablet is its portability. It is my tool of choice for conference note taking because

• it fits easily in my backpack.
• I can access the camera if I need to snap a shot of someone’s slides.
• Word works, even if WiFi doesn’t.
• I don’t worry about the battery dying in the middle of a session (although this could be due, in part, to the keyboard that never really worked).

I think the best use of the tablet came on the trip to NASA-JPL. I was able to interview and post, in real time, videos of NASA employees talking about their jobs. My students were able to follow along through Twitter and a blog. Without the tablet, I would have been able to Tweet, but not add the videos. The addition of the videos made the entire event more real for my kids.

The tablet won’t replace my phone or “real” laptop, but it does provide me with another tool.