Thursday 1/15/04 Reported & Photographed by Tony

Class Log

While friendly faces filtered into my classroom normally occupied by fifth graders, I finished my preparations for this evening's class. Once most of the students who registered for the class were present, I began with introductions. I started by telling about myself and how this is the third time I have taught this graduate course. Others around the room told us their names, where they teach, and why they are taking the class. This semester's class has teachers from first grade all the way up to high school phyics. Everyone had a slightly different reason for taking the class. However, all participants shared a desire to learn. After introductions, I passed out the “Handhelds in Teaching and Learning” syllabus. I went through the objectives of the class. Furthermore, I explained the assignments and grading for the class. The next piece of business to tackle was dinner. I cooked up a big batch of chili to serve for dinner tonight. Being prepared, I sent around a sign-up sheet for others to bring dinner throughout the semester. I was relieved that my week for bringing dinner was over already! After finishing the introduction to the class and deciding dinner, it was time to dive into handhelds in education. I said something I needed to get out of the way immediately. There are misnomers for handhelds computers. Sometimes they’re called PDAs, PIMs, or, the worst, Palm Pilots. I explained that since these tiny devices are more than simply organizers, their name needs to convey their multiple uses. The best name is “handheld computer,” or “handheld” for short. Hopefully no one in the class will continue to refer to handheld computers as Palm Pilots. Saying “Palm Pilot” is like someone scraping their finger nails across a chalkboard: it hurts my ears! Only one model of Palm was ever known as “Pilot.” That model is no longer made. Models are now called Tugsten, Zire, m515, IIIc, etc. Not Pilot! Next, I explained why handhelds are being used in education. The reasons include accessibility, versatility, mobility, collaboration, ease-of-use, and fun-factor. Additionally, I told the attentive students about the times when handhelds could be used. To help students learn and produce, to meet curriculum objectives, to promote active learning, to assess student progress, and to manage time and resources were included as times when educators might use handhelds. Time simply flew right by! Before I realized it, many stomachs were grumbling for food. The table at the back of the classroom held my home-cooked chili, crackers, and dessert. Everyone got a chance to get to know others in the class as they chatted over hot, spicy chili. After dinner each class, I have a video to show. Tonight's video was titled, "Handhelds in Omaha." Students watched as the series Teaching NOW! recorded a day in my classroom in March 2003. The video lead to many great questions and insightful observations. I proceeded to share some of the results from SRI Palm research. This research showed that teachers felt handhelds helped students learn. In addition, the research gave some more unsurprising news: students are very comfortable using handhelds. Handhelds are simple devices. You can do most tasks with three or less taps on the screen! This all makes perfectly good sense: of course students are going to be comfortable using handhelds. We’re talking about the “Game Boy” generation, after all! To finish the SRI research, I displayed a chart showing the benefits of using Palm in the classroom and the chief drawbacks. Next, I showed a video from Hi-CE. The video featured one of my favorite people: Dr. Elliot Soloway! The five-minute video introduced the class to the great applications produced by Hi-CE. It was also the first time many of the class participants had seen handhelds in the hands of actually K-12 students. Dr. Soloway makes such a good argument for handhelds in schools that I played an audio interview from Wired News. The fourteen-minute interview was with Elliot Soloway. As the students listened to the interview, they wrote down questions or comments. We had an excellent discussion following the interview. In the final stretch of class, we used desktop computers. Using Learning In Hand’s “On the Web…” section, students wrote down tid-bits of information they gleamed from reading online articles. Mice clicked their way through many web sites as students processed information about using handhelds in education. Eight-thirty brought a close to the class. The first session of “Handhelds in Teaching and Learning” flew by faster than I would have ever thought possible. Everyone is looking forward to next week’s class when I’ll begin to teach the basics of the Palm Operating System. I'm looking forward to more wonderful discussions and good food! Back