Dell Hopes to Help Teachers, Students and Admins Working in a 'Tech-Driven Environment' with New Latitude 10 Tablet

Today’s schools are all competing in the rapid technology race. Eyes bulged when reading BYOD policies in students’ new handbooks, chalkboards are steadily being replaced by smartphones and real-time interactive gadgets are outweighing pop quizzes. Yet another contender in the space vying for the attention of this very important niche is Dell (News - Alert), who is touting its new Latitude 10 tablet as a perfect solution for teachers and administrators who are looking to better manage the future of our educated youth.

The tablet, which is being targeted towards businesses as well as schools, was developed as a means of applying full force to Windows 8, which one report says the company thinks can truly unify touch-based and keyboard-based interaction “without sacrificing the management needs of IT administrators.”

"This is really about helping teachers and students and administrators address the issues around total management in a tech-driven environment," Jon Phillips, managing director of Global Education for Dell, explains in the report, adding that it’s critical to find a healthy balance between the desire for multi-touch devices in today’s schools with the need for preserving students’ actual learning.

In other words, you can’t implement or utilize technology in the classroom just because it looks cooler than more traditional methods. While you’ll have much more information at your fingertips, it’s important that educators leverage this content instead of letting it go to waste. Otherwise, they should just stick to good old Microsoft (News - Alert) Office and the Oregon Trail.

The reason why this new tablet is being pushed to the surface is because of its Windows 8 environment, which, according to Phillips, allows “you to do more than consume.” In other words, unlike Apple’s (News - Alert) signature iPad or Microsoft’s Surface RT, the Latitude 10 uses Windows 8 Pro to enable users’ access to the same applications as a desktop user. Basically, it cuts the middleman out of those chunky, outdated computers we used to leverage in the past, but it still retains the value of keeping everything under the familiar Windows environment for optimum efficiency and learning.

Even more, the company strives to perceive this new solution as a “hybrid device,” or one that combines the best of both a tablet and a laptop. Phillips describes it as the “best of both worlds.”

The Latitude 10 standard configuration comes with a price tag (News - Alert) of $579 at 64GB, and as its self-explanatory name suggests, features a 10.1-inch display.

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