A few months ago we bid for ‘Determined to Succeed’ funding to purchase twenty graphic tablets.  We were granted funds to purchase ten, and advised to apply next time around for funding for another ten.

Our funding bid specified that the tablets would be a ‘whole school’ resource.  This post is a review, with accompanying pupil work, for the benefit of other teachers here at school who may be interested in using them.

1.  Make and model.

The tablets are the ‘Bamboo Pen and Touch’ model by Wacom.  They cost around seventy pounds each.

2.  Software installation.

Provided you have ‘administrator access’ to the computers at school, the software installs in the usual way from the disc provided.  However, if you want to get the most up to date release of the software, visit Wacom’s site and download it, then install.

3.  Use

Pupils took to them immediately and they’ve proved especially useful for digital drawing.  They’re much easier to draw with than a mouse.  It’s easy to set the two buttons on the pen of the mouse to left click, right click or double click; whatever you find useful.  Pupils are very comfortable accessing the control options and doing this.  Although the active (sensitive) drawing surface area of the tablet is quite small at around 160×110 mm, it is easy to achieve controlled pen strokes.

4.  ’Pen and Touch’

Pupils didn’t find the ‘touch’ controls – similar to those on an i-Phone – of much use.  I suspect that if our computers were a bit more powerful, and had graphic cards, there’d be less of a time lag evident when using the touch controls.  Conversely, the pressure sensitivity feature of the pen works really well.  Provided you’re using the tablet with a programme that recognises pen pressure sensitivity, pressing harder with the pen can be set to increase line width, or opacity, or rate of ink flow etc.  Our pupils have been using the tablets with ‘Gimp’ primarily.  Gimp is an open source (free to download and use) alternative to Photoshop.  It’s good for digital painting and photo manipulation.  The tablets have also been used with ‘Inkscape’, another free drawing programme, and with Serif PagePlus and Scribus – both DTP programmes.  PagePlus is a commercial programme, but Scribus is free to download and use, and is our preferred option for Advanced Higher Graphics pupils laying out magazine articles etc.

5.  Setting up and storage

The tablets plug in to any USB socket.  When using with particular drawing programmes, experiment to find out if you need to plug the tablet in before launching the programme, or visa versa.  The tablets appear to be reasonably robust, though the nibs of the pens may be liable to damage.  This may be because of the pressure sensitivity feature of the pen.  However, each pen comes with several replacement nibs.  Our funding allowed us to purchase a few extra pens, in case of future damage.  Each tablet has a small fabric loop that the pens slide in to, for storage.  This is a very useful feature.  Our box of ten tablets is small and light enough to transport around school.  One pupil can easily carry it.

6.  Summary

We’re happy with our purchase.  The tablets have proved useful and popular and we’ll be bidding for another ten in future.

7.  Borrowing the tablets

Check with us beforehand to confirm availability, then nominate one of your more responsible pupils to collect and return them.  A second pupil should also be sent, to open doors.  If you’d like a bit of initial instruction in using them, contact me.  I’ll be happy to get you started.

8.  Examples of pupil work.

In addition to the slide show included with this post, examples of pupil work created with the aid of a graphic tablet are available to view as follows:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1261007 – Robert Hackett

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1317051 – Rachel O’Donnell

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1259063 – Elliot Sutherland

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1277908 – Rebecca French

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1259414 – Kaitlin Pietersen

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1320058 – Ben Muir

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1267778 – Hamish Gentles

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1261506 – Jordan Dear