Mid-Atlantic Handheld Conference

I had the pleasure of speaking at the first Mid-Atlantic Handheld Conference (MAHC) on Monday, July 18. Over 250 educators registered for the conference, which was over twice what the conference organizers originally expected! Held in at Salisbury University in Maryland, MAHC featured 28 break-out sessions. Though I was busy presenting most of the day, I did get a chance take in two great presentations.

The luncheon presentation was by Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris. They did a remarkable job of justifying the use of handhelds in schools. Elliot, from the University of Michigan and GoKnow, explained that school districts that say they do not have the money for handhelds are really saying that giving students access to personal computers is not important to them. He said, "When they tell us we don't have the money, they are telling you they don't want it." If they wanted handheld computing, they would certainly find the funds. Elliot asked the audience to consider categorizing Palm and Windows Mobile computers as "sub laptops" instead of handhelds, since today's handhelds have much of the functionality of laptops, but in a smaller format. Perhaps "sub laptop" would sound more appealing to schools boards, superintendents, administrators, and the public than "handheld."

Elliot explained that handhelds are better to give students than laptops because they are task-appropriate. Most of what schools want students to do with computers does not require the latest and greatest laptop. In fact, Microsoft Word makes word processing quite complicated ("overkill" as Elliot put it) with all of its menus, options, and pallets. Using a word processor on a handheld is much simpler and lets students write that paragraph they want to write. All of those extra options found in desktop and laptop word processors aren't there to get in the way. This simplicity is one way handhelds are a more task-appropriate tool for students.

Dr. Cathie Norris, from the University of North Texas, gave a teacher perspective to the benefits of handheld computing. She noted that students give much more complete answers when using a word processor and keyboard, especially when keyboarding skills are taught to students very early on. Another advantage is that students can go back and add things like adjectives to their answers in a word processor. To do this on paper, the students would have to recopy everything, and we all know how that would go over. Cathie also talked about Sketchy and student-created multimedia. She said, "Having students create their own multimedia is better than viewing it." To put together a Sketchy animation takes a very deep understanding of the content, a much deeper understanding than what students could get by watching someone else's video clip or cartoon.

From GoKnow's experience with using handhelds with students, they estimate that students create over 100 documents in a school year. There has to be an easy way to manage these documents to to get them to the teacher. GoKnow's Manager, known as PAAM, is an excellent solution for managing all of these documents. Personally, though, 100 documents in a year would be low. Including word processing documents, graphic organizers, animations, memos, and databases, I think my fifth graders probably had created a little under 100 documents a month!

Dr. Soloway explained that bringing handheld computing into classrooms is not a revolution. It's evolution. Handhelds won't drastically change the way you teach and students learn. When teaching with handhelds for the first year, teachers will do the things they did with paper and pencil, but use the handheld instead. Into the second year of using handhelds, bigger changes occur as teachers are comfortable with the technology and become ready to use handhelds in ways not possible with paper and pencil. Again, Elliot emphasizes, "It's an evolution, not a revolution."

At MAHC, I also attended a session called "Beam Time" by Renee Henderson of Prince George's County Public Schools. She demonstrated and let conference-goers try out several different activities that involved collaboration by beaming. I liked that most of what she shared used a handheld's built-in applications like Memos and Note Pad. The built-in applications are great ones to use because they are usually not prone to crashing, they are easy-to-use, and everyone has them. Renee uses the Cyber Co-op website to find great cooperative learning activities. Now, understand that the activities on this website are not designed for use with handhelds, but inventive teachers can adapt many cooperative learning activities for handhelds. For example, instead of using a piece of paper for the activity called Boss & Secretary, Renee has students use Note Pad. Here's how it works: the "boss" writes a problem or question in Note Pad and beams to the "secretary." The secretary writes the solution or answer on the screen and beams it back to the boss. The boss then checks to see if the answer is correct and sends the secretary another question. There are lots of activities like Boss & Secretary that can easily be translated into a cooperative learning activity for handheld computers!

There's so much to learn about handheld computing, and most of it has little to do with technology. It's about finding ways to use new tools in our classrooms to increase student learning. I, along with over 250 other educators, certainly absorbed many curriculum-integration ideas and techniques. In this way, and many others, the Mid-Atlantic Handheld Conference was an enormous success!

The Name Game

It's a long story of name changes, but the handheld-maker, palmOne, has now officially changed its name back to Palm, Inc.™ The company even has a new logo, which is very similar to the old Palm, Inc logo, but it's orange. Although palmOne has changed its name back, the company does not make its own operating system like the former Palm, Inc. did. PalmSource, a spin-off of the old Palm, Inc., continues to be a separate company responsible for the Palm Operating System. Kind of confusing, eh? Check out The Engadget Guide to How Palm Became Palm Again.

Name changes are nothing new to handheld computing. In fact, Microsoft's operating system for handhelds was originally called Palm PC. Of course, Palm Computing (one of Palm, Inc's previous names), thought that Palm PC was too similar to their product's name and sued in 1998. Microsoft then has called their operating system for handhelds Windows CE, Pocket PC, and now prefers to call it Windows Mobile.

With all of these name changes, no wonder so many people still call any handheld computer a Palm Pilot. It's too difficult to keep up!

Wapipedia

Handheld computers have a variety of ways of accessing the Internet. Fancier handhelds have built in WiFi for accessing the Web wirelessly. For handhelds without this wireless networking feature, there's FlingIt (or it's cousin, Plucker), which allows you to send selected web pages from your desktop computer to your handheld for viewing. (Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile also has this ability). Once on the handheld, the page can be beamed to other handhelds.

The challenge is finding pages that look good on a handheld's smaller screen. Pages that are mostly text, have a limited number of images, and simple formatting are easiest to read. There are some sites that are specially designed for handheld screens, like PalmInfoCenter, Yahoo, and PDA Portal. Another trick to find pages that suitable for handhelds is to do a Google search and include "text only" (type the quotes, too) in your search. For example, for shark research into Google's search field: sharks "text only".

You might be familiar with the free online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, Wikipedia. It can be a useful site for students to do research. Now there's a handheld-friendly version of Wikipedia called Wapipedia. It takes the content from Wikipedia and puts it in format that is appropriate for devices with small screens .Whether you're using a wireless network, FlingIt, or some other method of viewing web pages on your handheld, Wapipedia will prove to be extremely useful in classrooms.

For more information on Wikipedia, read Andy Carvin's blog post, Turning Wikipedia into an Asset for Schools.

Gone Mad! in Missouri

I'm at SuccessLink's third annual Handheld Computers Conference. Over 300 educators have gathered at a resort in Lake of the Ozarks to learn and share about handheld computing in education. I had the pleasure of delivering the keynote presentation Monday morning. I demonstrated many software applications, including Gone Mad! Two conference attendees came up on stage with me to complete a Gone Mad! crazy word game titled "Handhelds are Handy." The story is actually one of the sample stories that is included when install thbe software. In Gone Made!, if you really like the way one of the stories turns out, you can export it to Memos to enjoy again and again. That's what I did with the story below, completed at the conference:

Handhelds are Handy
Handheld computing has come a long way since the original Palm Mortician. Handhelds now have enough memory to store 25 flowers. They also have more processing power than deadly caskets from 1980. Many handhelds come with a built-in dog for jumping. Additionally, there are thousands of stinky software houses for handhelds. For example, there's a program called Gone Sexy! where you happily read and write your own spicey stories. What does the future hold? Perhaps handhelds that can run your husband!

If you had the fortune to attend this conference, please leave a comment and share something you learned!

Some things I learned in Lexington, South Carolina...

Wendy Gallager and Ruth Rish put together a fabulous handheld computer conference, hosted by the Lexington School District One in Lexington, South Carolina. I spoke at the conference and enjoyed the enthusiasm attendees brought with them.

Mike Curtis, author, professional developer, and all-around good guy, gave a luncheon presentation titled Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? Palm vs. Pocket PC. His entertaining and informative presentation began with a photo of himself holding several Palm m125s. Life was easier in those days because when choosing a handheld, your only decisions were if you wanted a color screen and if you wanted a rechargeable battery. Now there are so many choices, including Bluetooth, WiFi, amount of memory, processor speed, resolution, and operating system. To help you decide on which handhelds to purchase, Mike recommends Brighthand’s PDA & Smartphone Advisor. Just go to Brighthand.com and click "Advisor."

Mike noted an interesting change he’s witnessed in educational handheld computing. It used to be that schools purchasing Palm OS handhelds outnumbered schools buying Pocket PCs 9 to 1. Mike thinks it’s about half and half now. That’s a big change. With the introduction of the low-priced Dell Axim, Pocket PCs can be found for the same price as many Palm handhelds. The problem is, there is so much more software for Palm than for Windows Mobile. Mike then amazed the audience by showing a Pocket PC running Summing (one of my favorite games, which is Palm OS only). How’d he do that? He was using a beta version of Palm emulation software called StyleTap. It allows you to use Palm applications on a Pocket PC. You can even use the beaming function with the emulated Palm programs. However, any Palm applications that sync their information to the desktop (like Documents To Go or mClass Reading) won’t sync properly. StyleTap costs $30 per handheld. That’s kind of pricey, but Mike speculates that one day a Palm emulator may even ship with all new Pocket PCs, opening the door to over 27,000 Palm applications.

Whether they used a Palm handheld or Pocket PC, those in attendance learned a lot, not only from the presenters, but from each other.

NECC Exhibitor: Tango Software

I interviewed the president of Tango Software, a company that develops handheld applications for education at Tango's booth at NECC. Their main product is for the Reading First project. They want to make it easy for a teacher in a classroom setting to determine how students are performing, aligned to state standards using a handheld. Teachers can analyze information on an individual or group basis. Then teachers can use this information for data driven decisions instantly. Here's a listing of Tango's products, which are licensed based on number of students and the license fee must be renewed each year.

You know I tend to stick to free software, but if Tango can fulfill its promise of reducing paperwork, giving teachers more time to teach, and providing immediate and productive feedback, it would be worth it. Software similar to Tango's is from Wireless Generation. They describe their mCLASS Assessment Software as a way to "save time, reduce paperwork, and apply results to instruction." Both Tango's and Wireless Generation's handheld software are the beginnings of Valerie Crawford's vision of mobile technology I blogged about in a previous post where real-time data is used for decision making. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to interview anyone from Wireless Generation at NECC.

Listen to my interview with Tango's president here (2 minutes, 44 seconds).

NECC Poster Session & All-Weather Data Collection

On June 29, I walked by a poster session at the Natrional Education Computing Conference titled Data Collection Forms on PDAs for Student Field and Laboratory Experiences by Laura Guertin from Penn State Delaware County. Unfortunately, Laura was not present at the poster session, but I did snap some photos of her informative display. The part that intrigued me the most was this photo of a handheld in a plastic bag with the caption, "Palms can be used in all weather." I've never thought about using handhelds in rain or snow, but apparently a handheld's screen can sense stylus movement through the thin plastic. In fact, as I was delayed in the Philadelphia airport, I hung out with Lisa Olinger, a palmOne™ expert. She added that handhelds can be vacuum sealed like food. She even shared with me that if you leave some air in the bag, you can safely take the handheld rafting. If your handheld goes overboard, it will float!

Also, there are a variety of rugged cases for handhelds that you can purchase. For example, there's the Heavy Armor 1900 that is waterproof, crushproof, and drop-proof. There's even an external stylus holder. Of course, this case will set you back $90 for just one! Maybe a plastic bag isn't such a bad idea...

Besides showing weather-resistant handhelds, Laura's poster included some student feedback:

• "I appreciate not having to type in all that data."
• "I hope we use Palms for more projects/classes."
• "I went out and bought one for myself."
• "Using a Palm is not 'rocket science.'"
  

Although Laura's students are education majors in college, these future teachers will hopefully use data collection with their future students. As was noted in my previous blog entry, student learning has been shown to increase 3%-19% by using handhelds to collect data.

NECC: Trends in Mobile Technology for K-16 Teaching and Learning

On June 30, 2005 I had the pleasure of attending the NECC session Trends in Mobile Technology for K-16 Teaching and Learning, featuring the following experts:

Carolyn Staudt from Concord Consortium
Valerie Crawford from SRI International
Joe Barrus from AlphaSmart
Mark Yehle from SuccessLink
Jan Kelly from Mogador Elementary School
Elliot Soloway from GoKnow

Organized by Mark van't Hooft, panelists discussed their ideas and visions. I took some notes and summarized what I gleamed from each of the six panelists below. I gave each panelist's speech a title of my own.

Students Collecting Data Leads to Increased Learning
Carolyn Staudt's work has been focused around sensors. They have TEEMS research and the data shows an increase in students learning. The focus is "to increase the use of sensors and models in grades 3-8 science teaching to improve student understanding of science." They have developed curriculum for teachers that is standards driven. They will be tracking students based on data for two years. Their research shows 3%-19% higher scores on post-tests in the state of Missouri. The teachers were given an eight week online course in pedagogy, getting to know the tool, getting to know the content, and a student practicum. I bet without this eight week course, there might not have been any increase in test scores. Just giving teachers probes is certainly not enough.

Data Driven Vision of the Future
Valerie Crawford presented a vision of the future. Her focus is on the teacher and the teachers' needs and she has lots of statistics to cite. She flashed a title for her seven minute speech: Technology for Teaching: What's Coming. Right now since technology is piecemeal, the information technology revolution has not yet occurred for teaching. Using technology is pretty cumbersome for teachers to use right now. There's not interaction between technology and no workflow or performance support. She showed a photo of air traffic control in the 1950s and a classroom in the 1950s. Technology has transformed air traffic control so much that the air traffic control room looks very different. However, the photo of the classroom really isn't much different than classrooms today. She sees the future as teachers being able to instantly access student information with anytime, anywhere data driven decision-making. This data and technology will allow for individual instruction and be easy for the teacher to manage. Valerie wants to see real-time data driven decision so it can affect outcomes, not just look retrospectively at student performance. In order to get real-time data, each student will need a wireless computing device that can send data to the teacher's computer for analysis. Sounds like the perfect job for handhelds! But, I don't think the hardware or software is quite ready for this task today (that's why it's Valerie's vision of the not-so-distant future).

Sales Pitch for the "AlphaSmart Advantage"
According to Joe Barrus, AlphaSmart envisions a variety of devices used in the classroom. AlphaSmart products don't replace current technology, but it is a piece of the puzzle for using the appropriate tool for the task at hand. AlphaSmart keeps it simple and designed for multiple students because of budget constraints. AlphaSmart Neos and Danas are ruggedly designed to take a fall from a six-foot drop. Joe's speech felt more like a sales pitch than a discussion of the current trends. One thing that wasn't a sales pitch, was when Joe shared the fact that research shows students write more and go through more revisions when they use a handheld with a keyboard.

State-Wide Rollout Done Right
Mark Yehle is fondly called the "Techno-Geezer" in the office, perhaps, due in part, to his age relative to others. Mark directs SucessLink, which is a state agency that shares best practices with schools in Missouri. They have many lessons plans on their site. But once they were lead into the instructional technology arena, SuccessLink became interested in handheld computing. Several SuccessLinkers visited my fifth grade classroom at Willowdale in 2002 and watched the kids have access to a computer where and when they needed it. Mark pointed out that SuccessLink is routinely seeing handheld-using students doubling the amount they are writing and making gains in reading. Mark also notes that kids working together is a common observation. Missouri schools are getting handhelds from their own funds, not grants. Some schools in Missouri are buying handhelds instead of buying books! When schools are spending their own money, you know they feel it's important! Dr. Yehle says that the challenge is that the top 5% of teachers are unstoppable with handhelds, but when it's given to an entire grade level, many teachers need to be brought up to speed and need much more support. They need to understand handheld computing supports their curriculum; it's not another thing to add-on. In closing, Mark encouraged people to visit the new site ihandhelds.org – International Handheld Computer Association. It will be home to ISTE's handheld Special Interest Group that official begins in October 2005.

Inquiry with Technology
Jan Kelley has taught for 20 years and currently teaches fifth grade at Mogadore Elementary School in Ohio. Jan received grants that allowed her to get some great technology in the classroom. She was part of the PEP grant program in 2001 that gave her a class set of Palm IIIc's and keyboards. She now apparently uses AlphaSmart Danas too. Jan put a photo of a student using a handheld and keyboard on the screen with the caption "Now you see it." Then on the next slide, the student is gone and you see a group of students working together without the technology with the caption "Now you don't." I think the point was to show that technology is used when needed, but doesn't take over the classroom. Jan explained that handhelds helped with differentiation to for students with different learning styles and needs. Jan sees technology as the key to accomplishing differentiation. Also, she worries about the isolation of technology skills. In her vision of what her classroom might be in 3 to 10 years, she wants wireless connectivity in her room. She wants new handhelds but worries about where the money will come from to make that happen. She wants to see teachers move away from skills and drill and move to inquiry learning.

Price & Research Aside, Convince Others by Seeing Students in Action
Dr. Elliot Soloway said in 2001 that handhelds are about the cost of a pair of tennis shoes. About $100 will get the job done, of course $400 handhelds are better. Changing education by giving each child a computer is well within our reach. All of the studies coming out are showing increased learning when using handhelds. Dr. Soloways notes there are all kinds of new devices coming out. Including the Nova 500 with a 7 inch screen. They can make this cheap because it is the same screen mass-produced for portable DVD players. Instead of palm-sized computer, we're going to see hand-sized computers. Other trends Elliot foresees are extremely inexpensive handhelds, wireless connectivity, and larger screens (though these trends may not overlap each other). Items like flashdrives have crossed the "chasm" of early adopters to the mainstream markets. Soloway explains handhelds aren't there yet. When people see a student with a handheld, they are sold on using them in schools. The moment Elliot witnessed this (probably circa 1999), he dropped everything and focused on getting handhelds in education. Elliot says that many don't see a handheld as a computer, but it is a computing device. One way to spark a learning revolution is to see kids with handheld. Buying one desktop computer for each classroom is going to have zero impact on students. It's ePapers and ePencils that's the future, and it's engaging for students.

What do you see as a current or future trend in mobile computing? Please leave your comments!

Tag: NECC

NECC Poster Session: David Pence

David Pence from Royerford, Pennsylvania co-presented a poster session at NECC titled Handhelds Across the Disciplines with Judy Kuhns and Daniel Mounta. Dave teaches fourth grade and uses Zire 72s with his students. Like I did with many people at the national conference, I used my LifeDrive to record David. I asked him to tell me about his project.

Some highlights:

• The most convenient it’s easy to put together portfolios of student writing.


• Purchasing the handhelds is part of his building’s technology plan.


• Zire 72 blue rubber peeling is not appealing.


• Someone takes a photo of Tony for some reason.


• David’s school has two mobile carts shared among six classrooms. The carts have power cords built-in.


• They purchased everything, including training, from K12Handheld.

  Websites have really helped teachers use handhelds to teach curriculum.



• Dave likes to have students take photos and then use the Margi Presenter-to-Go to show them to the entire class using a multimedia projector.


• The one piece of commercial software David’s school uses is Inspiration for concept mapping.


• Download the presenters' PowerPoint slide show here.

Click here to listen to the 3 minute 30 second recording.

New Resource from K12 Handhelds, Inc.

I found Amy Mann with K12 Handhelds at the PalmSource Booth at NECC 2005. I stuck my LifeDrive in her face and asked her to tell us about K12Handheld’s newest resource. Integrating Handhelds Across the Curriculum was written for students in grades 4-8. It comes with a book, posters, black-line masters, a CD-ROM, and an SD card. This resource has many lessons and everything is there for you to get started. Amy tells us about her favorite lesson, which is a Periodic Table scavenger hunt. Amy also explains that there are a lot of resources for teaching writing, including a Grammar Style Book to be read in Plucker. The lessons even include rubrics for assessment.

Click here to listen to the four-minute recording.

NECC has come to an end...

The National Education Computing Conference has come to a close for another year. I have lots to blog about and audio to post from the conference. Look for these over the next few weeks. Also, thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hi at GoKnow's booth! I have met some wonderful souls over the past few days.

The conference may be over, but my journey home is not. My 8PM connection flight from Philadelphia has been delayed, so I'll be spending the night in airports. I'll arrive home Friday afternoon. I'm emailing this post to my blog from my Treo smartphone, by the way. Despite this travel glitch, the conference was worth it!

NECC Poster Session: Amber Lizak

Amber Lizak from Leads Elementary School in Pennsylvania presented a poster session at NECC titled, “Learning in the Palm of Your Hand: Integrating Handheld Technology.” I stood by as she explained to interested conference-goers what she does in her fourth grade classroom with handhelds.

I recorded Amber with my LifeDrive as she told other educators about how her students’ use handhelds. Once again, being in a jam-packed hall, there is a lot of background noise. Hopefully you can tune out the background and focus on the great things Amber has to say.

Some highlights:

• She has 30 handhelds and keyboard and 20 students, so she has “room for things to go wrong.”


• Students use handhelds for every subject. She uses them mostly for reading.


• Amber’s school has paid for GoKnow’s Handheld Learning Environment and she uses FreeWrite quite a bit.


• She always gives students a choice of using a handheld or using paper. Almost always they choose to use a handheld.


• Amber stores the handhelds in numbered cases.


• Tony chimes in and tells Amber about making Mad Libs with Gone Mad!


• Students use beaming for writing a lot. They use bold, underline, and italics to show proofreading mistakes.


• There are lots of math games and she uses them for centers.


• Amber has a couple of Veo cameras for the Tungsten E (that they don’t make anymore). Students use the camera to find examples of different kinds of angles in the real world.


• Handhelds keep students motivated and interested.


• She uses FlingIt to send web pages to her students.


• Handhelds are nice to take outside to record data – no flying papers blowing around!


• Amber finds it easier to use PAAM to grade student work rather than collecting piles of worksheets. PAAM can organize students’ documents in way that makes it easy to evaluate.


• Amber makes print-outs of anything she grades for parents to review.


• She likes the Tungsten E model, which is no longer available.


• She has been using handhelds for three years now. She started with Palm m100s.


• The extra handhelds in her room set come in handy.


• Amber does not have a web site. Tony encouraged her to share what she does on the Internet!


• Amber apparently has a great grant writer for her district.


• She loves to meet other people who are using handhelds and get new ideas.


• Click here for a list of the software Amber uses.

Thanks for sharing, Amber!

Click here to listen to the recording (16 minutes).