Additions to the Blogosphere

I want to tell you about some new (or somewhat new) blogs about handheld computing that are out there in the blogosphere:

Mobile Musings
Karen Fasimpaur, president of K12 Handhelds, writes about mobile technologies.

Handheldman - Journal
Steve Byrd, a passionate and geeky educator, writes about educational technology. Steve's writing has a unique voice that is really entertaining to read. Also check out his Handheldman Podcast.

Pocket-Ed Futures Blog - Pocket PCs in the Classroom
Ian Marsden from Australia writes about his use of Pocket PCs with students. Ian includes lots of great lesson ideas.

Handhelds in the Classroom
Debbie Donohue recently started a blog. She is really hooked on handhelds. I mean, really hooked. I submit this quote as evidence, "If I lost my handheld computer I may as well stay in bed in the morning because I wouldn't know where to go or how to get there!" Be sure to check out the cool video Debbie recently posted.

Ubiquitous Thoughts
Mark van 't Hooft works for the Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University. He writes his thoughts and ideas about teaching, learning, and computing.

The Pre-Service Teacher Blog
Dale Ehrhart is going to make one heck of a teacher. He has lots of interest in handheld computing. Recently he's been blogging about educational applications he has programmed himself. You go Dale!

How do I come across these brilliant blogs? I subscribe to Google Blog Searches. As you know, I'm an avid Bloglines user. I absolutely love that all of my updated blogs and RSS feeds are waiting for me in one place. I use Bloglines to subscribe to the RSS feeds for searches like these: handhelds + education, handhelds + classroom, handhelds + learning, podcasting + education, and pda + classroom.

If you have a blog or know of one that you'd like to share, please tell us about it by adding a comment to this post!

Books: Future & Current

I've been very busy working on the second edition of Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators. The first edition was written in 2003 and a lot has changed in three short years! We have much more educational software, handhelds can play audio and video, and there are many more resources out there for handheld computing! Even the operating systems have changed. In 2003 Palm OS 5 was brand new and most educators were using Palm OS 4. Pocket PC 2002 was out. Just last year Pocket PC 2003 was replaced by Windows Mobile 5.

If you need a book that focuses on the older Palm OS 4 or Pocket PC 2002/2003, then you better hurry and order the first edition of Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators. You can save $12 by purchasing the book through Amazon.com. The second edition will be quite different from the first, so you might want to own both.

My co-author, Janet Caughlin, and I are collecting stories and quotes from educators and students about handheld computing. If you have something valuable to say about using handhelds, producing podcasts, managing a classroom, purchasing hardware, or troubleshooting problems, please email me at learninginhand@mac.com and you might be quoted in the new book!

And speaking of a new book, Handheld Applications for the Classroom by Chris Cuppett is available for order from Visions Technology in Education. Chris has written about 43 freeware and shareware Palm applications and how to use them in the classroom.

Don't forget that there are many other books about educational handheld computing. I've listed them here.

June 2006's Education in Hand

District Administration publishes Education in Hand twice a year. Education in Hand is described as a "custom publication for informational and marketing purposes." The publication is about marketing Palm handhelds, but the content is actually quite informational. The June 2006 issue is now available online.

One thing I noticed is that Palm is really pushing its Treo smartphone into education. I do think it's a great choice for administrators, but I prefer nonphone handhelds for students. Don't worry, although Education in Hand's cover story is about Treos, the rest of the publication isn't so Treo-centric.

Check out page 14. It has a great idea for using animation software like Sketchy in a science classroom:

"Sometimes, in a lab situation, it was hard for my students to describe in words what was happening," she says, explaining that it was often difficult for them to describe bacteria and other organisms observed under microscopes. "So I had them use the Palm computing device to draw what they saw."

There's an article about how a Texas school district uses handhelds to motivate students with Asperger's syndrome. Besides learning curriculum with handhelds, the students learn communication and social skills because "it's something [students] can interact with and talk about." Here's a quote from page 20:

As the students show off their work and educate each other on newly discovered features of the devices, they learn more social skills, she says. She cites as an example an assignment she gave students to use the devices to take pictures of their pets and show the photographs to one another. "That gets them to communicate, because now they are discussing their pets and they are having back-and-forth conversations and they are asking appropriate questions," says Parsons, who heads Birdville High School's special education department.

Also, don't miss the article, "Reading, Writing, and Podcasting." It focuses on Virginia's Arlington Public Schools' use of handhelds and podcasting. The link between handheld computing and podcasting doesn't seem strong from the article. But, there are certainly many ways for handhelds to play an important role in preproduction and listening.

Additionally, Region 16 Education Service Center in Amarillo, Texas has a wonderful handheld program in place. Heather Voran, an instruction technologist at the center, makes a good point about handheld software and its effectiveness:

"We're in the digital age with these kids," says Heather Voran, an instructional technology specialist at Region 16 Educational Service Center."They grew up with electronics and a lot of these programs are in a game format, but they're very instructional. The children are so busy having fun, trying to win or beat the machine, that they don't realize how much they're learning."

You can read all 30 pages of June 2006's Education in Hand here.

Soft Reset #15: National Computing Conference

Soft Reset Episode #15 is here! Tony and Mike attended the 2006 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in San Diego. They discuss a variety of things they noticed and learned from the conference. Running time is 52 minutes.

Show Notes:

• Mike's Tip: TCPMP is The Core Pocket Media Player for Palm and Pocket PC. It can play just about every video and audio format. TCPMP is free. Mike has a handout for TCPMP in this file.
• Tony's Tip: Watch videos on a Palm instead of a video iPod. Here is a PowerPoint about converting DVDs into a format for TCPMP.
• Tony blogged about sessions he attended at NECC.
• eBook Studio and Plucker were used in Mike's workshop.
• GXB Interactive makes games for GameBoys.
• GoKnow released research on the effectiveness of handhelds in math and science. Episode #10 of Soft Reset address research.
• Beret Applications will be releasing "Grammar Time" this fall.
• Outrageously huge Best Buy bags were everywhere.
• Fourier System's Nova 5000 is a "learning appliance."
• ISTE's Special Interest Group for Handheld Computing.
• Everyone is invited to contribute to Our City Podcast. Here's a wiki page about the podcasting workshop Tony participated in.
• iPods were hot at NECC. Tony doctored up a photo of a poster to express his feelings of iPods vs. Palm/Windows Mobile handhelds.
• 2007's NECC will be in Atlanta.
• Poster Session: Teacher Candidates Get HANDy with Handhelds.
• Poster Session: Problem-Based Learning in Online Learning Environments.
• 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. Tags: necc06 necc

Handhelds in the News

A search of Google News shows that handheld computers are making their way into more and more hands of students:

High-Tech Help: Students Have Access to New Gadgets This Year
by Gwenda Anthony, The Jackson Sun, August 1, 2006
Third and fourth graders at Isaac Lane Technology Magnet School will be using Palm handhelds for learning. The article does a great job of informing the public that these computers go way beyond simple PDA functions.The handhelds were funded by a grant. Students will begin taking the handhelds home after winter break.

Freshmen, Sophomores to Get PDAs at CHS
by Normaida Bright, Central Kentucky News-Journal, July 30, 2006
Campbellsville High School is phasing in 200 Dell Axims, which the writer describes as a "handheld mini computer." The handhelds will actually be leased to students and they will keep them after graduation. Students will be charged a $40 technology fee each year to help cover the cost. If the handheld is lost or stolen, students will have to pay $450 to replace it. The 200 handhelds will be phased in over two years. In fact, the whole first semester will be devoted to teachers and their professional development. CHA teachers will be prepared to use them when some students receive their handhelds second semester.

Gadgets Excite Educators
by Janese Heavin, Columbia Daily Tribune, July 30, 2006
Remember that school board member from Columbia, Missouri who was quoted in the paper? ""Who needs a palm pilot?" she asked. "We are not talking about world travelers who have business meetings all day. This technology is not applicable for teachers, staff or students." Well, I now give her kudos for sitting down with Matt Villasana, a fourth grade teacher at Shepard Elementary, to learn about handheld computing in education! For over an hour, Matt was able to show her that handhelds are not just electronic organizers for business folks. Matt hit home that handhelds engage students, which leads to achievement. The school board member would like to see more research, which SuccessLink says will be available this time next year. However, after talking with Matt, she said, "If it’s essential for Shepard, why is it not essential for another school?" Sounds like progress was made!

One Laptop Per Child Announces 4 Million Pre-Orders
by Jason Denwood, Pocket-lint, August 1, 2006
You may have heard about the $100 laptop project from MIT to bring inexpensive computing to developing nations. Sometimes this program is called One Laptop Per Child (a.k.a. OLPC). The project announced that Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand have each ordered 1 million laptops. What does this have to do with handhelds, you ask? The OLPC is actually more like a handheld than a laptop. It has a smaller screen, 500 Mhz processor, and limited memory. However, limitations not only make the hardware cheaper, but can actually make devices better learning tools. Many educators appreciate the simplicity of handheld computing and its lack of "excessive functionality."

Mid Atlantic Handheld Conference

The Mid-Atlantic Handheld Conference (MAHC for short) was a big success! I presented the morning keynote presentation to nearly 200 educators. There were 24 breakout sessions. You might have already read about my Tiny Spreadsheets session. I wasn't able to blog much of the conference since I was presenting myself, but Brian C. Smith from New York has blogged about the conference and the preconference. Check out his posts:

• Mid Atlantic Handheld Conference
• Emerging from the Hand
• Supporting K-12 Learning Using Handhelds
• Creative, Cool, & Crazy
• From Zero to Handhelds

Brian C. Smith presented his own session about AudioBay. It's software for Windows Mobile that lets you find, subscribe, listen, and create podcasts on one device: a Pocket PC! Brian has a wiki page that explains the AudioBay software. The beauty is that you don't need iTunes or knowledge of RSS to consume and produce podcasts.

The final session I participated was a panel discussion with Mike Curtis, Karen Fasimpaur (from K12Handhelds), Steve Garner (from Seaford Schools), and me. Here are a few notes from that discussion:

• Is the Palm Operating System going to go away since the Palm company is making handhelds that also run Windows Mobile? With over 30,000 different Palm applications out there, there will be a way to run those programs for a long time. The Palm company says it will sell handhelds with the Palm Operating System for the foreseeable future. It is stabilizing its product line so that new models do not come out as often, which is great for education. K12 Handhelds is focuses on making content that is mostly HTML based so it can be used on any platform.
• Unfortunately, many educators in the audience gave poor reviews of the TriBeam charging station. They claim the handhelds do not keep their charge and that the unit doesn't fit devices correctly or function properly.
• Mike suggested taking an AV cart and rigging it for charging. He suggests putting a shower curtain around it to hide the cord mess from picky administrators (and fire marshals).
• A teacher expressed disappointment with Documents To Go because her gifted students could not graph directly on the handheld.
• Documents To Go settings can be configured to have files go to a different location for each user. This can even work with students' network folders for access on any of the school's networked computers.
• The huge benefit of wireless handhelds is not really surfing the net, but accessing networks for students to access and to hand in assignments. Grant Street Software's HiHo-Network Edition is an example of how this would work.
• Mike explained Bluetooth like getting married, but, unlike American marriages, you can marry up to seven devices at once. Before any communication can happen, they must be paired by sharing a password. Participants learned that their phones and handhelds can communicate through Bluetooth. If you have a data plan for your wireless phone, you may be able to access the internet. You can also send address book contacts from your handheld to your phone.
• Steve and Karen suggested that if your are writing a grant, write to include a third party data collector because it's such a hard job. It's important to note that showing growth takes of the schools in Steve's school did not see sizable increases in achievement until the fourth year.

Several MAHC participants spoke into my handheld's microphone and shared what they learned at the conference. Mike and I will have lots of audio from this conference to share on a future episode of Soft Reset!

Tiny Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are powerful tools! In fact, spreadsheets became a "killer application" in the 1980s because they were so useful that people were finally willing to buy the computers to run them on. With computerization, spreadsheets are no longer just ledgers to track money; they can be used for all kinds of exciting things! Microsoft Excel is number one spreadsheet application for desktop computers. On Palm OS computers, there's Sheets To Go (part of Dataviz's Documents To Go). On Pocket PC computers there's Excel Mobile (or, on older handhelds, Pocket Excel). Note that you must upgrade to the premium version of Documents To Go to make graphs on the handheld. Excel Mobile has free graphing abilities while Pocket Excel does not. However, even without graphing, there are great uses for spreadsheets.

And why use spreadsheets with students?

• Organize and visualize data.
• Spreadsheets are completely programmable.
• More realistic problem-solving.
• Focus on results and implications rather than calculations.
• Engage & motivate students.

I presented at SuccessLink's Handheld Conference and at the Mid-Atlantic Handheld Conference the session "Tiny Spreadsheets = Great Learning Tools." In these sessions, I shared all kinds of examples of spreadsheets that work well on handheld computers. In fact, I presented three basic kinds of spreadsheets: charts, calculations, and self-checking.

Chart spreadsheets organize information into chart form. Some examples include charting answers to survey questions, tracking the altitude and direction of the sun, organizing colors of candies, and displaying the relationship between circumference and diameter. Of course, some charts will include simple calculations.

Spreadsheets that perform calculations, simple or complex, can be useful tools for students. What works out great is when students make their own spreadsheets and then use them to try different calculations. For example, after making a spreadsheet to calculate the area of a rectangle, see what happens when you double the length and the width of a rectangle. A fun spreadsheet to create and use is finding the cost of pizza per square inch. Spreadsheets that calculate surface area can really save students time crunching numbers because of the amount of multiplication and adding that's involved. And, although there are plenty of computer programs out there to do this for you, try having students create a spreadsheet to calculate age and weight on other planets.

Kinds of spreadsheet many folks don't know about are self-checking sheets. This is a spreadsheet where a clue is given and then a word is entered in the cell next to the clue. The spreadsheet indicates if the clue is correct or not. This is done by using "if" statements in the cells that display if the answer is right or wrong. The answers are actually hidden in a column so that students can't see them while they practice. In these kinds of spreadsheets, spelling is important. In fact, I shared an example of a self-checking sheet for homophones. I also have a self-checking sheet for answering math problems that follow the order of operations (remember, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally). I also made a blank self-checking sheet so that it's easy to fill in weekly spelling words, different math problems, or vocabulary words into a new self-checking sheet.

You can download the spreadsheets from my presentations in Excel form or in a form ready to be installed into Documents To Go. You can learn more about great ways to use Excel at The ABC's to Excel site. Most of the creative uses for Excel can be transferred to Sheets To Go and Excel Mobile. I bet you never thought that tiny spreadsheets could be used in so many ways!

Crazy Little Things Called Palms

Janis Davis and Connie LaRue, fromOlathe District Schools in Missouri, presented "Crazy Little Things Called Palms" at the SuccessLink Handheld Conference. Olathe has been using handhelds for five years and now has 5,000 Palm handheld in their district and they are more than willing to share the resources they developed. They use handhelds in all grade levels, but their 1:1 implementations are all in high school. The resources are listed on this site: www.olatheschools.com/palm. Here's the description of the session:

Learn how to navigate our website to quickly download fully-functioning software, hardware installation guides, instructional software videos, and basic handheld tutorials. Gain access to our secure video site that shows step-by-step Palm repairs. Participate as we format several types of media for use with the free TCPMP player. Come away with so much knowledge that you can't wait for the school to start!

Here are some highlights from the 90 minute session:

• Olathe replaces handhelds every three years.
• Check out the Guide to 100+ Free Handheld Software Applications.
• They upgraded to Documents To Go Premium because it has spell check. More advantages of upgrading to premium is that you can open native PDF files and graph data. Dataviz gives a deal for large purchases.
• They used the method of "disappearing ink" to make a document with questions and answers. Then make the answer color white. When you want to see the answer, then highlight where the white answer is and you can see the answer through the highlighting. Here's an example in Word from Olathe students.
• Janis demonstrated how to view comments from Excel in Sheets To Go. Unfortunately, you can't add comments in Sheets To Go, you need to do it on the desktop and then sync it over. Then the comments can be used like flashcards: information pops up when you tap the little red dot in the corner of a cell.
• Here's a 5 minute 12 second video on using eReader Pro. With the extra pro options, perhaps the money to upgrade from free eReader to eReader Pro is worth it.
• QuizWiz is free software that works similar to Quizzler. It doesn't have nearly as many options as Quizzler. Also, when the user taps the wrong answer, QuizWiz displays the correct answer immediately in a pop up window. I like how Quizzler forces the user tap the right answer before moving on.
• Olathe has put together a slide show with what they consider essential hardware. Carrycasesplus.com can make Palm carrying cases with foam for about $40 each!
• Olathe has a series of videos with directions for repairing Palm handhelds, including replacing digitizers and batteries. The page is password protected so that students do not attempt these repairs. Janis invites you to contact her for the password.
• The TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player) is a free audio and video player for Palm and Pocket PC. Olathe has a guide for using the player and for converting videos into a format for TCPMP.

SuccessLink

It's the fourth annual SuccessLink Handheld Conference in Osage Beach, Missouri. We're at the Tan Tar A resort and everyone is excited for two days worth of learning, sharing, and networking. Stacey Franks opened the conference with a video by Stan Smith from Warrensburg, Missouri. The video was about a middle school student and her day using her handheld in each class. Stacey also explained to participants that there is a blog for the conference, where the presenters can post thoughts, reflections, notes, and documents. Conference-goers are encourages to leave comments on the posts.

Mark Yehle answered the question, "What is SuccessLink?" SuccessLink is funded by a grants from the Missouri Department of Education. Their job is to find best practices and disseminate them to teachers and schools. Their website has 2,500 lesson plans and has had over 10,000,000 hits on the site. SuccessLink knows that handhelds are great for students and wants to help Missouri students tap the power of handheld computing. I wish more states had an agency like SuccessLink

Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris took the stage and they have over 90 minutes to present their keynote presentation. That gives them time to talk and answer questions. Oftentimes keynote speeches are under 60 minutes, so it's nice to be able to have the time give their message justice.

I've blogged about Elliot and Cathie's message before on June 28, 2006, February 5, 2006, July 21, 2005 , and June 29, 2005. So instead of recapping what I've already written, I'm including some tidbits of Elliot-and-Cathie-goodness that were new or interesting to me:

• "It's inevitable that all computing will be mobile." That's a quote from 1991 by Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm Pilot.
• A former student of Elliot's works for Apple and invented the iPod. The former student actually worked on handheld software for the University of Michigan. He was always interested in mobile computing. Of course, because of politics at Apple, the former student (who Elliot says is still a "kid") doesn't get formal credit for his work on iPod and iTunes.
• Although it's called a laptop, the technical specs for MIT's $100 laptop is much more like a handheld than a modern notebook computer.
• Turning Technologies offers software (called vPad) to turn desktop, latptop, and Pocket PCs into student response clicking devices. This way you don't need to buy clicker hardware; educators can use the handhelds they already have.
• It's much more powerful for students to make their own multimedia instead of simply viewing the media.
• Cathie calls it "Animate and Annotate" when students explain what they are doing in an animation, like in this long division Sketchy animation. Not only is the math problem being solved, but the student is actually giving insight into her thinking. Jemey Roschelle from SRI calls the creative uses like this "So Simple, So Powerful." The software isn't overly complicated, but the learning is very evident.
• According to research from Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow, it takes 3 to 5 years for teachers to integrate desktops and laptops into daily instnruction. Cathie and company are finding it takes half that time to integrate handhelds. Cathie explains that schools are buying handhelds with less functionality than laptops, but they are using 90% of the handheld's functionarity (instead of 10% of a laptop's functionality).

The conference features all hands-on breakout sessions that are 90 minutes each. I'm looking forward to presenting about quizzing software, spelling test preparation, podcasting, and spreadsheets. There are over 200 educators attending over 25 breakout sessions. I'll be interviewing participants for Soft Reset about what they have taken away from this year's SuccessLink Handheld Computer Conference over these two days.

New Microphone Module & Audio Activities

While all Pocket PCs have built-in microphones, most Palm handhelds do not. Handhelds like the Palm TX have had no way of recording audio. Now these handhelds can make and store recordings with the Multiconnector Microphone Module from Tech Center Labs. This $15 microphone attachment hooks to the bottom of a TX handheld. Tech Center Labs is not a large company, but has great customer service. In fact, it seems to be a true mom and pop operation from a married couple's home in Arizona.

I received my module a couple of days ago. The module did not come with any documentation, but it doesn't really need any. I simply attached the module to the bottom of my handheld. I loaded the freeware SoundRec and no configuration or drivers were necessary. Though, I did need to soft reset my TX before everything began working properly.

Why do you want a handheld to have a microphone? Well, to record voice, for one thing. Those recordings (usually WAV files) can be imported into iTunes, GarageBand, Audacity, and other audio programs to be turned into a podcast. SoundRec will get the job of recording done. But, if you want more features like the ability to beam sound files, string recordings together, and add notes, there's the $25 Personal Audio Recorder Pro software. Another use for a microphone is to use speech recognition software and internet telephones. Heck, if you have two Wi-Fi enabled Palm handhelds, you can turn them into walkie-talkies with the newly released software WifiTalkie.

Want to hear how the recording sounds? Click here to listen to a recording (6 MB) I made using my new Multiconnector Microphone Module and the SoundRec application. It's me reading this blog post at 22 kHz quality. I saved the audio to an SD card and used a card reader to get the WAV file onto my desktop computer to place on the web.

On the subject of voice recording, one really cool student activity is audio flash cards. This works by students recording a clue. For instance, a student might record, "Patriot hero who was captured and executed by the British." Then the student renames the sound file "Nathan Hale." Students can make several different recordings and use them as flash cards. So, a student looks at the sound file name "Nathan Hale" and tries to think what clue is associated with that name. When the student thinks he knows, he plays the sound file to check his answer. The audio can really help students remember whatever they've associated with the title of the sound file. In fact, it's really fun to have various classmates record the clues using memorable or silly voices.

What ideas do you have about audio recording in the classroom? Please share by leaving a comment!

Large Purchase of Handhelds

Palm's July 17, 2006 press release, Kansas School District Purchases 2,300 Palm TX Handhelds, is about Olathe Unified School District's purchase of 2,300 Palm TX handhelds. The district took advantage of Palm's Education Purchase Program to receive nearly 300 free TXs.

Olathe students have been using handhelds for a few years. I think the use of handheld computing in the school district continues to grow because teachers are given proper professional development and have others in the building to help:

Lyon acknowledges that access alone is not enough, so the district has an aggressive staff development program in place. "Staff development is critical to the success of the program," she said. "Each teacher has 15 hours of training on handhelds and how to use them effectively in classroom instruction. They can also repeat the training. In addition, we have instructional technology resource teachers in each building on a daily basis to assist teachers, model lessons, find applications and troubleshoot. Our goal is to have 100 percent of the staff well prepared."

Read more about Olathe schools and what they are doing with handhelds: Success Story: Olathe District Schools Handhelds Go To School Growing Up Connected Handhelds Benefits Come with Costs

It's interesting when non-educators respond to news stories about large purchases of handhelds by schools. Many are supportive, knowing that our students deserve modern learning tools. However, there always seems to be those that are completely against handhelds in schools because they think it would make cheating easier. Many are also afraid the computers will be lost or stolen. Read the comments at the end of these articles from Palm InfoCenter and Digital Trends to see what I mean. I added this comment to the Digital Trends article:

Actually, this is a fantastic idea! Schools around the country are using handhelds (Palm and Pocket PC) as a learning tool. Not only great for word processing (with a keyboard), but there are dozens of great (and many of them are free) software programs for teachers and students. There is even scientifically based research showing that students using handhelds are learning better: http://goknow.com/sbr/

Schools are not finding lost or stolen handhelds to be a problem. Students really do take care of their handhelds because they are very personal learning devices. And, as for cheating, good classroom management can curb that. Plus, handhelds are not usually allowed to be out during tests, so it's not a big concern.

Ian Bell, staff writer for Digital Trends News, wrote about Olathe's purchase in Kansas Schools Order Another 2,300 Palms. While the article is mostly quotes from Palm's press release, Ian ends the article with some of his own commentary: "Now we just need to convince the school administration that iPods are needed in the classroom and we will be all set." Argh! If the school district has 4,600 handheld computers, why do they also need iPods? Just buy $20 memory cards and the students can listen to audio and watch video on their handhelds.

More Blogging from NECC

Although thousands educators no longer inhabit the San Diego Convention Center, the National Educational Computing Conference continues online. Dozens of bloggers have and continue to blog about the annual conference. I've been keeping up on blogs from NECC by subscribing to this Technorati tag search for "NECC". There were several session about handheld computing that I didn't get a chance to attend, but others did blog about them. Here is a rundown of some of the blog posts:

Handheld acceleration in Missouri!
from eLearning Blog
Julie Lindsay from Bangladesh attended a session by Mark Yehle and Stacey Franks from SuccessLink in Missouri. SuccessLink is a state-wide agency that finds best practices and resources and disseminates them to educators. They see great power in handhelds and have spread handheld computing across the state. Mark and Stacey admit that web browsing on a handheld is quite limited. Julie write about some of the handheld computing activities that were shared.

NECC 2006: Ubiquitous Computing Session
from Ubiquitous Thoughts
Mark van 't Hooft from Ohio took detailed notes during this session about everyone, everywhere computing.

NECC 2006 - Day 2a
from The EdTech Advantage
Rolly Maiquez from Guam blogged the session “Playing the Part: Using Handhelds in Participatory Simulations” presented by Betsy Frederick. Rolly tells about the virus simulation from MIT. Everyone participated using a Palm handheld.

Live Blogging: I Learn, therefore, iPod
from The TechSavvy Teacher
Jason from Montana reviewed a session about using video iPods with middle school students. Besides doing the typical stuff with iPods (audio, video, podcasting, and photos), they used Zelek Software's iPod Flash Cards software. It sounds like the project took all of its cues from best instructional practices.

iLearn, Therefore iPod
from Bethany's Education Blog
Bethany from North Carolina also wrote about the same session Jason attended. She clarifies that the iPod Flash Card software from Zelek works with either Mac or Windows. The presenters loaded iPods with audio and video to build students' background knowledge before reading Diary of Anne Frank. Bethany also lists the 8 Rules of Effective Podcasting by Kirk McElhearn. I couldn't agree more with Bethany about her thoughts on Rule #8.

NECC: iPodagogy
from Pondering
iPodagogy is the study of teaching methods using iPods. Two teachers and five students from Edinburgh, Scotland presented a session and shared their findings.

iPod Ideas
from The Savvy Technologist
An extensive list of ideas generated during a workshop about iPods, iTunes, and podcasting by Tim Wilson from Minnesota.

Tags: necc06 necc