Handhelds for Students? 212
OmegaGeek writes "Wired is reporting from NECC 2002 that one solution to achieving universal computer access advocated by teachers (and marketing departments too, no doubt) is the use of handheld computers instead of laptops or desktop PCs. Is this a reasonable solution? Does it offer anything for the students other than the ability to beam notes instead of passing a piece of paper? I've also posted a commentary at LearningTech."
In My Experience... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just my $.02 YMMV
Already Tech-Savvy students... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Handheld speed of entry (Score:2, Insightful)
You have the teachers distribute the handouts in a digital form and the written portion of the notes are handled as well.
The only fear that remains are people who don't study or pay attention. Now, they won't have to do anything in class with this set up because all of the vocal part of the class will be recorded and all of the written part will be transmitted. Thus, the only remaining reason to write would be for small details not covered in the written portion.
Interesting idea though. (Albeit, seeing how many of my friends turned their graphic calcs into message sender/receivers(infra-red ports), I wouldn't be surprised if that happened with this as well.)
In Short, NO. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think educators are basically being tapped out for their budget, so they are being marketed (or "marked") by poeple who have computers and want to sell it.
But before we step in to the "can we do it?" phase, we need to step into the "Why?" phase:
What advantage is this going to confer to kids?
A radically changed lesson plan to incorporate whiz-bang gizmos, where neither the lesson plan nor the gizmos have had all their bugs wrinkled out?
No, this is a bottom up approach and you end up having the tail wag the dog. Lets look at computers in some schools- in the late 80's my grammar school had a couple of Commodore PETs (literally 2), it was wheeled out for special occaisions (once a year) and wheeled back into its closet. It was obvious that they bought the hype that "computers are our future, so simply by having one near a classroom it will enrich the students!"
We need a top down approach: what are we trying to teach? How best to implement the lesson plan?
And if you want to teach "computers" (ugh, who'd want to take that class?!) figure out what you want to do- maybe instead of a hand held device one of those microprocessor lab trainers (a computer on a board with a led read out and hex keypad input), or a unix system, or just a plain ol' windows box with Word on it (hey, typing is a skill!)
I hate when people just throw tech at a problem without thinking it through.
This guy,
is doomed.
An opportunity to use technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a pretty pointless statement to make. When the kids ride a schoolbus to school, they're using technology. When they use a toaster to toast their pop-tarts in the morning, they're using technology. When they change the channel on their TV with a remote control, they're using technology. If they have a wristwatch, they're using technology!
It sounds to me like whoever wrote this article is getting kickbacks from the handheld manufacturers.
Chrimany (Score:3, Insightful)
The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory.
My wife takes notes on a laptop (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the extremes, it seems silly to "mandate" such a thing into existence- let the typers type, let the writers write, and let the kids who sleep in the back use a tape recorder!
Re:Handheld speed of entry (Score:3, Insightful)
This is an awful idea (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that children aren't adults, and are (generally) less responsible and tend to throw their bags/coats etc. In short, things get broken. Never mind "I left it at home" excuse derailing a project and wasting time in the classroom. Wired workstations are still the way to go, not only for speed, but also for reliability.
Before asking "can we", the question is "should we"?
My thoughts exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
At this time, we need to be focussing on Equality of Opportunity by making sure every citizen is literate, understands at least enough Math to balance a checkbook and understand how to save money, and understands enough science to know snake oil salesmen when they show up. If a person knows that much, they can take their destiny into their own hands and learn the rest from books, the Net, whatever.
That is not to say we should not strive to make computers available to everyone - internet computers in libraries are a great idea. But first things first.
Laptops for all (Score:2, Insightful)
Already, the English department requires everything to be done on a computer, we offer classes on photography without a darkroom (Photoshop/Gimp) and there is a huge amount of digital photography and video.
Our campus is 90% covered in 802.11b and we have a flexable attitude towards study locations and learning, so we think that laptops will be a great boon to education at this level.
Re:Handheld speed of entry (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure I don't have to tell you how much easier it is to read printed material than it is to read from a lit display. I really don't think it'd be feasible for extended use until ebook readers support electronic ink. It's just too hard on the eyes.
On another note, reliance on spell/grammer checkers is, I believe, leading to people not being able to spell well on their own or form gramatically correct sentences. I'm don't claim to be immune from this either. My spelling can be terrible at times (most of them). I won't even start on how grammer checkers have such bad grammer. Who are they helping?
PDAs improve productivity (Score:2, Insightful)
How the PDAs are handled by these kids (including being broken, stolen, etc.) is besides the point. If we know PDAs will help them manage the information that they're bombarded with daily then they should be used. Working out the logisitics is really secondary.
Some uses for tech in the classroom (Score:2, Insightful)
But beyond just providing an instant reference the laptops provided a way to communicate with the professor during lecture without disrupting class and without fear of embarrasment. The professor set up an IM account that he left logged on during lecture. Anyone at any time could IM the prof questions, comments, or links to reference material anonymously and the professor could then answer them at a convenient point in the lecture. Some might argue that anonymity may not allow the professor to get to know about their students, but I feel that in large lectures, alot of questions go unasked because people feel too embarrassed to ask them. In our class the professor knew exactly when something he said needed clarification. I think the students benefitted greatly from what the technology allowed.
Re:Already Tech-Savvy students... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem for the schools is that most teachers, and administrators are not interested in tech (they are interested in teaching thier core subjects). And they may not understand how to use it, which is not thier fault, they were most likely never trained on it, or have no desire to use it.
The schools are told to embrace tech, and teach it. They do, but find out that the technicaly inclined kids quickly outpace the teachers and are doing things that the administrantion and teachers do not understand, and are not comforatable with.
Before you know it, the studetns are in a locked down envirment, techincaly speaking, with tools that can go far beyond what the students are allowed to do with them. It is no fun learning a tool that you are not allowed to use to its full potential.
They end up teaching tech to the lowest common denominator, and the technicaly savvy kids are frustrated, and move on to something else, or find ways to break the system.
If you want to teach tech, you need tech savvy teachers... otherwise it is wasted effort.
Re:PDAs improve productivity (Score:2, Insightful)
If introducing PDA's does help in one area --organizing their lives-- but brings along detriments (beam cheating, stolen/broken PDA's, goofing off playing games), has the teaching/learning experience really been enhanced?
Using the business model as a starting place is not really valid. Kids are not office workers, they are kids. And kids like toys. Which is what these PDA's will become. Expensive toys that the taxpayer funds. To the detriment of other things like teacher salaries, books, regular supplies.
1 step forward and 2 steps back is not a good way to progress.
PDA's ability to pass notes is... (Score:3, Insightful)
...actually the handheld's killer app in education, once the notes can be passed globally.
I curate MedicalMnemonics.com [medicalmnemonics.com] which is a non-profit database of mnemonics for medical students, which includes a port to the PalmOS.
In the pre-handheld days, you could dream something up, and share it with someone nearby. Now a button click on the handheld shares your new studying technique to about 40,000 other students trying to learn the same thing as you are.
The implementation has received good feedback from the pretty much all the students who use it. Some buy their handhelds, others get them provided by the school. Laptops aren't nearly as popular as handhelds, since walking around all day on the wards in the clinical years--never really sitting down to be able to open up a laptop.
Since slashdot is a technology site, the mechanism of global sharing, used in the application, might prove interesting too: To avoid custom HotSync conduit problems on Linux and other platforms:
Re:Handheld speed of entry (Score:3, Insightful)
Electronic ink will be the big thing to hit displays. But I don't think even that will get away from paper - flicking between pages of a book is simply quicker and easier than flicking through a document.
Grab.