Soft Reset #14: Science

Soft Reset Episode #14 is now available! Tony and Mike share probeware, spreadsheets, participatory simulations, and reference programs for Palm and Windows Mobile that help with science instruction. Your hosts also share applications that teachers use for other subjects, but can also be used for learning science. The episode ends with audio from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Be sure to listen for the harsh consequence if a student in Miss Prince's school loses a stylus!

Show Notes:

• Mike's Tip: Select more than one file to beam at once in Windows Mobile by tapping the Control key on the onscreen keyboard or by holding down the center button the five-way navigator while you tap the items you want to select. Use the shareware application BeamPro to beam more than one application on a Palm handheld.
• Tony's Tip: There are visual cues in the Palm Operating System to help you know where to tap. For instance, tapping the triangle icon usually activates a pop-up menu. Tapping inside of a box surrounded by a dotted line allows you to change whatever in the middle of that box. Tapping the "i" with a circle around it bring up a help or information screen. Windows Mobile doesn't have these kind of visual cues. To see if there is a context menu on a Pocket PC, tap and hold your stylus on the screen to see if anything pops up.
• Probeware: For Pocket PC & For Palm.
• Spreadsheets are great places to record data. The new Excel Mobile allows graphing on the handheld itself. For Palm, the bundled version of Documents To Go does not include graphing capabilities. Upgrading to the premium version opens up this possibility (at a price).
• Soft Reset Show #4: Participatory Simulations.
• Live Long & Prosper Participatory Simulation from MIT and a lesson plan for it.
• Geney is great, but doesn't work well with Palm OS 5. Palm's current handhelds run Palm OS 5.
• References on your handheld: Moon Phase (Palm) and ChemTable (Palm) or Packed Periodic Table (Windows Mobile).
• StyleTap lets you run Palm programs on a Pocket PC.
• Ecological Footprint Calculator (EFC for short) for Palm.
• Space Weight for Palm. Considering making a spreadsheet that can calculate weight on other planets. Use this page to help you.
• GoKnow's Sketchy contest science winners.
• Makes quizzes with the free Quizzler program for Palm or Windows Mobile.
• Use Contacts or the Address Book application to record vocabulary words.
• Beam students a Science-Question-of-the-Day. Beam the answers the following day with a new question.
• More applications for Palm and Windows Mobile.
• Mike brings us audio from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Click for some photos. Here's the contract Miss Prince uses along with other usage agreements.
• Visit Soft Reset's Discussion Forum to discuss the show!
• Leave a voicemail for us to play on the show! 206-333-1942
• Email Tony and Mike at softresetpodcast@gmail.com.

Enjoy the show! Click an icon below to listen or subscribe.

Tidbits from Lexington Handheld Conference

I'm at the Lexington One Second Annual Handheld Computer Conference in Lexington, South Carolina. I kicked off the conference with my keynote From Creative to Crazy. Cathie Norris & Elliot Soloway presented the luncheon speech, "Realizing the Benefits of Technology - Handheld Centric Classroom: What Are We Waiting For?" I've heard them speak numerous times, but this dynamic duo always offers me something new. Here are some tidbits I picked up after enjoying a delicious turkey sub:

• Computers haven't had an impact because students don't have access.
• 5 years ago the national computer to student ratio was 6:1. Today it's 5:1. It's going to take a while to get 1:1 at that rate.
• There are 55,000,000 kids in the United States. The only way to fund one-to-one is through low cost devices.
• Laptops and desktop computer have a 72 dots per inch resolution. Handhelds have 200 dots per inch, making for a very sharp screen.
• Many one-to-one laptop initiatives end up using the expensive machines as simple word processors.
• The problems with laptops are that they moving parts that can break and a large screen that sucks up battery life.
• The Fourier Nova 5000 handheld (starting at $399) with a 7 inch screen and the Windows CE operating system is finally starting to ship. It's being distributed by Dell.
• Cathie demonstrated GoKnow's Handheld Learning Environment (HLE for short). She showed how the software can contain all learning resources, including hyperlinks to web research, rubrics, documents, concept maps, eBooks, and animations. When a student syncs with PAAM, they receive all of their materials that the teacher selected for the project. When a students exits one of the resources on their handheld, they are taken back to HLE and the list of that project's resources.
• Can 1:1 handheld access lead to increased student achievement? First, Elliot asks the audience if they share their computers with other people. The tool must be ready at hand to be truly useful. Elliot tells about a rigorous three year study (at a cost of $600,000) in Detroit Schools. Some classes of students had handhelds and some did not. There was no difference the first year. But the second year when the teachers began to figure out how to harness the power of handheld computing, and the students did statistically significantly better. That second year there was a water unit where there was no difference in the two groups, but that was the first time any of the teachers taught that unit. Now, because of this is scientifically based research, the curriculum and basic tasks were the same. For instance, when asked to do an animation, the control group would draw a cartoon on paper while the handheld users used Sketchy. Dr. Soloway says that there is not scientifically-based research on laptops showing this kind of data.

After Elliot and Cathie's energetic presentation, I presented a two-hour session on podcasting and differentiated instruction. I shared how to listen to podcasts on handhelds and important technical and instructional strategies. Participants listened to a collection of audio about planets from this sample RSS feed. Also, I demonstrated how to set up your own RSS feed that contains only the specific podcast episodes you want students to have. The conference was a great time and I look forward to next year's Lexington One Annual Handheld Computer Conference!

Tic Tac 15

Elementary math teachers will love Tic Tac 15, freeware for Palm handhelds from Nick Robins Software. It's a game that combines Tic Tac Toe, addition, and probability.

The objective of the game is to complete a column, row, or diagonal so that three numbers add to 15. Play can be against the computer or against another person (on one handheld). Players take turns revealing a random number 1-9 and then placing that number on the grid. Since each number is used only once, smart players take note at what numbers have already been used and consider what numbers remain.

Students get to practice plenty of mental math as they calculate the various possibilities before placing their numbers on the grid. Of course, there's also the luck of the draw since the numbers are generated randomly. Tapping the Show button displays the sums of each row, column, and diagonal. With sums showing, there's not as much mental math involved, but subtraction then becomes the skill players practice.

A tally along the right side of the screen keeps track of how many games are won by each player. To keep things fair, Tic Tac 15 players must take turns going first each new game. I suggest posing this question to students: Is Tic Tac 15 a fair game if the same player always goes first? In order to test this, players will need to use "Start Over" from the Options menu after each game. They will also need to keep track of their own wins, as Tic Tac 15's tally count will be reset each time "Start Over" is selected.

Handhelds Worth the Money

Shepard School in Missouri has used 94 Palm handheld computers and keyboards for three years and Columbia Public Schools is spending $20,000 to replace them. Parents, teachers, and students support the purchase, but school board member Michelle Gadbois isn't so supportive. Michelle claims the money could be spent in better ways. This purchase is one of the reasons she voted against the district's $207 million dollar budget. Michelle claims to have seen "all of the information on this program" and she remains "unconvinced that this money would not be better spent improving teacher/student ratios in our classrooms."

My guess is that Michelle has not stepped foot in a handheld-using classroom. I bet she has not sat down with any of those students to see what they actually do on a handheld. And, although $20,000 sounds like a lot of money, divide it by 94 students and 3 years, and it's about $70 per student per year. Columbia Public Schools spends about $7,600 per pupil per year. $70 is less than one percent of the per pupil spending. That one percent can make a large different in students' attitudes, motivation, and learning.

Janese Heavin wrote an article about Michelle's opposition to handheld computing for the Columbia Daily Tribune titled Handheld Computers Worth the Money, Teachers Say. In contrast to the school board member, Columbia educators certainly have lots positives to say about handhelds. Though the article makes it sound like handhelds are only used for word processing, we know there are dozens of educational applications (most of them free) that really make handhelds a valuable learning tool.