View source for Petition to abolish tablet requirement

'''This is a crowdsourced petition, meaning anyone that has access to this can help compile (pour hate and trash the requirement) it.'''

==Dissatisfaction with requirement==
===Inferior hardware===
* Available models are limited to a 13.3" maximum screen size
* Tablets can not be upgraded nearly as extensively as full-scale laptops. Lenovo tablets support a maximum 320GB hard drive, and are limited to a dual-core i7 2620M.
* Keyboards are often cramped and do not include numpads.

===Lack of real benefits===
Virginia Tech has produced a list of purported benefits of tablet technology. With the possible exception of diagramming, we do not find any of them valid advantages over full-size laptops. Additionally, none of them can possibly justify requiring thousands of students to buy specialized hardware and software.
* "Writing on slides" - This can be done with text rather than handwriting. Most people can type significantly faster than write, and text annotations have the advantage of being more legible than handwriting.
* "Handwriting recognition" - This technology is nowhere near perfect, and operates disasterously when writing mathematical formulae by hand
* "Formulas and equations" - After learning LaTeX or the keyboard shortcuts for OneNote's equation editor, most equations can be typed faster than written. 
* "Collaboration" - While this idea works well in environments where each user is running OneNote on a Windows tablet, you can no longer expect this type of compliance as many users have switched to Unix-based operating systems. Wikis and Google Docs, among other services, permit cross-platform users to collaborate.
* "Typing" is in no way restricted to tablets; in fact, one cannot even type on a tablet while the screen is flipped in tablet mode

===Lack of choice===
* Tablets are expensive compared to other laptops of similar specs, forcing students to pay extra for functionality they may rarely use.
* Students can't use Macbooks, as they lack tablet functionality.
* All available tablets are pre-installed with Windows, forcing students to buy an individual Windows license in addition to a VT Windows site license.
* Because the Engineering Education department assumes students have a tablet PC, they mandate installation of Windows-only software. DyKnow, for example, is an invasive classroom presentation tool with spyware capabilities, enabling lecturers to remotely control students' computers.

===Proposed alternatives===
* External tablets which can be connected to any standard laptop are readily available and cost less than $100.
* If tablets were optional, students could purchase the technology they find optimal for them, rather than be forced to use a certain platform.

==Signatures of students not happy with the tablet requirement==
* Lukas Lozovski
* George Burgess
* Matt Hazinski
* Randy Nance
* Ben Guzzardi
* Darren Maczka
* [[User:Timelord|Timelord]] ([[User talk:Timelord|talk]]) 12:05, 8 February 2013 (EST)
* Eric Landgraf

==Other unhappy people==
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20090227184253/http://vt.freeculture.org/wiki/Killing_the_tablet_requirement Free Culture at VT]

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