Slashdot Mirror
How PDAs Intersect With School
An Anonymous Coward writes: "It's never too young to be a yuppie. An engineering professor at the University of Michigan is studying how handheld technology can be incorporated in elementary and high schools. His theory is that PDAs can provide students with a much more interactive and cheaper means of learning than desktop computers. The professor has created a number of interesting applications for using PDAs in school, including a 'cooties' simulator, where students beam around a virus from Palm to Palm and then figure out how it propagated. The New York Times covers the use of PDAs in classrooms here, and Wired News has an article here talking about schools who ban students from carrying PDAs." Both articles focus on Palm OS devices at a school in Ann Arbor, but only the Wired piece points out that the devices were banned there last year.
Ann Arbor Open's policy isn't unique: Several schools around the country are banning handheld devices.
Damn. Busted for carrying an automatic pencil.
Schools really are getting out of hand.
Where I come from, PDA stands for "Public Display of Affection"...
------
Sig
..do you really need a $150 device to spread cooties?
air and light and time and space
to be mass marketed was the eMate. The marketing included a teacher mode, networking via IR, and a rugged case with long battery life.
Many studies were done and a few schools bought them.
In fact, at a national educators conference on March 3rd, Apple reps said "The Newton is an important part of our product line" Someone pointed out that Apple dropped the line 4 days early on the 27th of Feb, as so the rep had to remove some egg from his face.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Why don't they just bite the bullet and replace students with computers? They'd behave perfectly, learn at 100% efficiancy, and never skip class to smoke in the playground.
.. well, staying alive, in this case.
.. they're so not used to it, they think it's disgusting. They might admit that they know milk is good for you, but that doesn't outweigh the initial uncomfortability of getting used to milk (again).
On a more serious note, the easier you make learning, the less learning remains as a primary goal of the human psyche. The goal should be to make learning difficult things personally rewarding, not fun and easy. Fun and comfort is being luaded as the primary experience for any activity, over personal gratification after hard, unpleasant work. It's akin to making your vitamins sugary; if for some reason the sugar isn't there some day, you're likely to pick the comfort of not tasting those nasty vitamins over taking the vitamins, because you just wouldn't appreciate the experience of doing something difficult in order to achieve the goal of
Thanks to iced cappuccinnos, I have friends who've totally recinded any consumption of milk
"Old man yells at systemd"
"My dog ate my PDA"
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
Handheld computers have an advantage over desktop PCs or laptops in that they are small enough to be carried anywhere and relatively inexpensive -- "the cost of a pair of tennis shoes," Soloway said
What kind of tennis shoes do these school kids use?
If phys ed is going to be taught, it should be more "learning to to take care of yourself" and less "pointless running around". Also, I learned more about teamwork working in pairs in science class then I ever did playing softball, football, etc.
Maybe it was just my school, but I always thought phys ed was pretty pointless.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo