Well, it is a good thing I love most animals! Yesterday morning when I went to check my email I noticed water all over my home office desk, where my Macbook and my Bamboo tablet were sitting. I had mistakenly left a full glass of water on my desk and the cat knocked it over during the night.
I quickly cleaned up the mess as best I could, found out the Macbook is fine (yay!!!!!), but the Bamboo tablet is still sitting in a pan of dry rice trying to revive it. I absolutely cannot live without a pen tablet, so I started researching between a few Wacom tablets (a name I already trusted with my Bamboo).
I was thinking about purchasing a larger tablet this time so I would have a bigger active area to write on. At the same time, I was also considering going for a more sensitive tablet that would pick up angles of the pen, since I mostly use my pen for my hybrid math courses and I have issues writing naturally while trying to hold the pen vertical.
I narrowed my choices down quickly to look at the Bamboo Fun (for the larger area) against the higher end Intuos4 (small) because they both would cost the same price:
After looking at these figures and then going to the store and seeing that the footprint for the Bamboo fun was far more room that I had available on my desk, I decided to purchase the Intuos4 (small). An added bonus I found out was that the small Intuos4 still has a larger active area than my original Bamboo tablet (about 2.5 sq inches more!).
I got my new toy (uh, I mean tool) home, and it was incredibly easy to set up. I noticed a HUGE difference immediately in pressure sensitivity and how well it picked up everything I was writing (it even made my handwriting look better than writing on pen and paper!!). The feel of the tip against the new pad was far more realistic as well, it felt just like writing on paper – only better! I am SO glad I decided to upgrade to the Intuos4! What an amazing difference it made; I can’t wait to make my next mathcast with it!!
So, I guess I should thank the cat for frying my Bamboo tablet, or I would not have needed to replace it for a very long time. It had served me well for many years, and I am sure it would have lasted many more, if the cat hadn’t gotten involved!
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Can you give me some examples on how you use your tablet? I’m a math teacher as well and i’m curious!
I teach hybrid math (Algebra) classes and I work with students outside of class quite a bit.
Here is an example of using the eInstruction software (Interwrite Workspace) and writing the math with my old Bamboo tablet – I could use my Mobi when I record, but my Wacom tablet is always connected to my computer, and now my Intuos4 is REALLY sensitive and accurate and is much cleaner to write with! Take a look at the first example: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~glascoe/MAT120/MAT120modules/Module%2011/Module13.3Day1.html
You can also use Windows Journal or Jarnal (for Mac or Windows) to handwrite out math problems (with a tablet) and either post them on a website or email them to students. I also hold some office hours online and find it much easier to use a pen tablet when I am writing on the whiteboard in the shared online room. With math, it is SO much easier and faster to respond to a student, or work out a problem to post, if I handwrite it, rather than type it out! So I handwrite most everything using my tablet (except tests). I also strongly prefer using the pen as just a mouse when I use my computer because it is so much more comfortable to hold than a mouse (and a more accurate pointer)! I teach with a Mobi which allows me to walk around the room and interact with, and annotate over, ANY program open on my computer. I can write out my math problems because it uses a pen, as a mouse.
Lastly (but I am sure I skipped several things!) I use Snagit quite a bit to capture screens for my students (math problems usually) and Snagit allows me to handwrite directly onto the screen capture with my Wacom tablet (I love Jing, but you have to type onto the screen capture).
Anyway, as a fellow math teacher, I am sure you can relate to how cumbersome it is to get to all the math symbols to type them out, I would rather spend my time answering more questions and creating more online help for my students!
I hope that gave you some ideas!