April Forum Digest

learninginhand's Discussion Forums were quite busy in April. There were many great conversations about handhelds, podcasting, education, and technology. Presenting your monthly digest...

• Ian has questions about blogging with his students using handhelds. Specifically, he wants to know what is done about weekends and breaks.
• Mark announces the release of a DVD-ROM called "Ubiquitous Computing: How Anytime, Anywhere, Anyone Technology is Changing Education." You can obtain a copy here.
• Rolly shares insight into infrared printing. He even has some photos of it.
• Elaine and Mark write in response to Tony's topic about only 5% of 15 to 24 year-olds' communication is by pen and paper.
• Rolly tells us about his school's use of blogs. Mark encourages him to share a list of Blogging Terms and Conditions, which should prove useful to others.
• Tony answers Dale's question about time management in a classroom where students are working on several digital products.
• Wendy announces that her school district will be hosting their Second Handheld Conference on June 28 in Lexington, South Carolina. She'd love for you to come to the conference. Additionally, there's limited space for two workshops concentrating on differentiated instruction: one about handhelds by Mike Curtis and another about podcasting by Tony Vincent.
• Rolly posts about the appropriate age to begin keyboarding instruction.
• smcnew is curious about research that shows a direct connection between handhelds and student achievement. Elaine, Tony, Dale, and Rolly respond.
• Jessica wants to know about resources and ideas for getting started using handhelds with her students next year. Tony gives her some advice about what to do over the summer.
• Rolly shares some useful details of his schools' handheld use, including the elimination of paper planners and stand-alone calculators.
• Rolly also shares a link to new Palm freeware for outlining called HandOutline. A neat feature is that the outline can be exported to Memos so that you can sync it and print or copy and paste it into something else on the desktop.
• Corey wonders if there is any software to teach middle school students elapsed time. Dale and Tony make suggestions.
• Mark poses the question, "Is podcasting really worth the effort? What do kids (and teachers) get out of it?" Wendy, fresh from doing an Our City Podcast, has lots to say about podcasting.
• Katie reflects on her school's successful production of the Our City Podcast O'Neill Oracle. Katie also tells others about her experience with Our City Podcast in her NETA session titled "Collaborating with your Community." You can get to a podcast of her session from here.
• Remember, the learninginhand forums have their own RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/forums.

Each month a forum contributor is randomly selected to receive a pair of learninginhand stylus-pens. April's winner is Corey from Independence, Missouri. Congratulations! If you want a chance to win two orange stylus-pens, be sure to post during the month of May!