PocketClassroom Brings Handhelds To School

[Steve]

Handheld computers are beginning to make their way into classrooms. This week eLearning Dynamics announced the launch of PocketClassroom, the first comprehensive two-way classroom communication and management application utilizing Pocket PCs and wireless networks.

Read about PocketClassroom and LearnTrac at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Po...elds_To_School

[pocketfactory]

Behold! The public education system at work!

[Steve]

Originally posted by Foo Fighter
Behold! The public education system at work!

Foo,

Just wanted to let you know that she was listening to the teacher when I took this picture. She actually got an A on the quiz.

This school has a large percentage of children of recent immigrants from Mexico and South America and having them learn, and learn a bit about using technology, is a good thing.

[Double-Trinity]

It is logical, if a bit unorthodox... although, savvy students, such as many students who as of now already own and use PDAs for school (organization and reference, things like that) might utilize more advanced versions of the TI-8x 'cheating' applications

For those who don't konw what I'm referring to, those are applications that mimic the entire interface on the screen of the calculator environment, so once the teacher goes to clear memory, it mimics the dialog boxes, everything, says "OK", then upon clicking some obscure sequence, returns to the normal environment, memory intact. Before PDAs people actually used the Calculators for a lot of the same reason and didn't want to lose programs in progress and so on, but of course, it it useful for cheating as well.

Such a thing needs to STRONGLY be considered if any serious weight in terms of peopke's grades are to be vested in this, although, for doing lectures, use of these device seems totally logical. Using them in a computer lab environment, even MORE so.

[snaggle]

I head up the eLearning development at the school I work at. I personally feel that technology can applied in productive ways and ways that harm. As we see more and more technoogy filtering into the classroom, instructors would be foolish to assume everything can remain the same with their instruction technique...the pedgogy needs to adapt to make use of the technology, but also limit cheating. Easier said than done, I will grant you that.

But it's all in how you use it...there needs to be a shift in focus from the instruction that values grades and achievement, to more of a collaborative and results-based learning. Something where the end result of the experience in learning is more valuable than the grade received.

I just got back from a Syllabus 2003 conference in San Jose where MSFT was pushing the TabletPC with a vengeance (they are all over the education shows) and we saw a classroom at Stanford's Wallenberg Hall that used Smart Boards (digital dry- erase boards sort of) that the instructor drew on from a wifi'ed TabletPC, and then pushed his notes to all of our laptops in the audience (the one's that had Wifi or email). It was amazing. Now Stanford has the $$ to do that stuff now...but as things become more mainstream, such as the example in the article, teacher need to educate themselves and tailor their curriculum accordingly to take advantage of these things.

[Deep Green]

Great story! I think the PDA as a learning tool in classrooms is a great idea. Much more affordable than PC/Macs, and easier to replace too. I wish I had such cool tools when I was in school - I might have done better