New Additions to the Web

Here some additions to the Web you may want to check out!

Brian Schau has posted a page of MathAce testimonials from students in grades six through eight. There are some great comments, like this one from Melody:

I love the new MathAce. My grade has improved so much. I like it because it helps me alot. I know you have put so much time into this program, and I would like to think you for that. I have improved so much. I went from 61/65 now its 96/96. Knowing that you probably put a lot of time to make this for a bunch of kids is very cool, and I love this program.

MathAce is freeware for Palm handhelds that helps students practice their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. Download it here.

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Western Illinois University is publishing Mobile Learning News. The November issue is online and is dedicated to me. Cool, huh? I answered some interview questions and you can read my responses in the issue. There's also plenty of links to handheld computing and other emerging technologies. I look forward to the future issues of Mobile Learning News that will feature handhelds in various curriculum areas.

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TechLearning posted the article PALMing Your Way Through the Educational Maze. Marty Mayer and Dina Mayne suggest that handhelds are a viable way to successfully negotiate many of the responsibilities of teachers. In fact, they have developed the catchy acronym for what handhelds can be used for: Professional development, Administrative tasks, Lessons, and Managing the classroom–PALM! Marty and Dina then explain the relationship of handheld computing and each of these areas. The Managing the Classroom section has a concise listing of some of the possibilities when students have handhelds and the Lessons section has links to some useful resources. (Notably absent from the Professional Development section is listening to podcasts and reading blogs.) To summarize the authors' thoughts, here's a quote that many handheld-using educators have found to be true:

A handheld device can minimize those tedious tasks that erode so many possible teachable moments and can maximize collaboration and cooperation between teacher and students as well as among students.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Just posting about an activity I did with my 2nd grader this afternoon with her spelling words using the Voice Memo on my Zire 72 as a secret message decoder.

I recorded 26 short voice memos each containing a letter of the alphabet, and I assigned each memo a #. Then I wrote out the number equivalents of her spelling list on paper. She then used the voice memos to match the number with the letters and wrote the words out.
She really enjoyed it.

Dale Ehrhart