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.

Comments

_DO_ PDAs Intersect With School?

[_Mustang]

I think that would be a much better question. The reality seems to be that we have a totally disfunctional group running the educational system with little or no effort made to coordinate the various levels together to provide a comprehensive education.

1. Interactive (but not-computer) devices being banned from preschool/Kindergarden/grade school children.
2. Middleschool/Highschools banning HP-type calculators and handheld-type devices.
3. Universities that claim to be intellectual bastions of free-thinking; but then go out of their way to lock students into proprietary and expensive software.

Wasn't the whole promise of the "Information Age" and the digital revolution to begin the process of seeding ideas *before* the kids get set in their ways? It's only when the inventions of the previous generation become the *standards* for the next generation that real breakthrough bubble up.
Refusing to integrate these potentially educationally-rich technologies is a huge failure.

It seems that it's these supposed "educators" who need to learn a thing or two.

Re:Can't react to change

[Bonker]

Notebooks and textbooks yes, but I have *yet* to see anyone that could write in palm-scribble whatever as fast as they could take notes.

Even if they hand out the folding keyboards, I think it will be problematic. Personally, I can't type on flat keyboards for anything. They have to have spring loaded keys, or else my hands don't work right.

"Johnny, stop passing ICQs to Mary!"

[SkewlD00d]

Just what kids need... another excuse to not pay attention to class.

<rant>
Maybe education researchers should get off their collective asses and encourage real teaching instead of promoting "Let's watch a film now class." teaching abdication to mass-media and tech wiz-bang nonsense. Having computers solves nothing, in fact, some studies show computers take valuable teaching time away from teachers. I guess they want an open-source teacher-emulation hologram in all the schools, so they don't have to pay those under-paid and under-respected teachers. Poo on them! Academics of the world unite!
</rant>

SkewlD00d

Is it Wired's fault or Soloway's?

[JWhitlock]

Here's from the Wired article:

"I have no data, but I believe kids will read more on the Palm than they do on books because Palms are their generation," said Elliot Soloway, a professor in the college of engineering and school of education at the University of Michigan.

"Books are Perry Como's generation.... The children don't see the Palm as a computer, they see the Palm as media. Media is hot. Media is exciting. That's why they're going to participate in the reading."

Soloway, who is studying Palm handheld programs in schools, said that in order for "computing technology" to be effective in class instruction, there must be enough hardware for all the students, teachers must know how to use it, and administrators and parents must be supportive of the curriculum that incorporates it.

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.

"As long as the computers are down the hall and up the stairs to the lab, they are irrelevant to education," Soloway said.

This guy sounds like one of the pie-in-the-sky technologists that loves tech for the sake of tech, and is unwilling to recognize reality. Now, it that because he is, or because Wired is so pro-tech that everything that passes by their editors sounds that way?

To pick apart his statements:

No, kids won't read more just because it is on a handheld computer. Some kids read with their spare time, others do other things. If I was a kid with a handheld computer, I might read, but more likely I would be installing games or other fun apps. I might even have fun writing games for others to play. But reading? Given the book or the e-book, I'll take the book, until e-book tech gets a bit better.

One advantage, though, is that "Penthouse Forum" looks the same as "Tom Saywer", at least from 10 ft away. Maybe kids will read more...

Soloway then says that if all kids had one, and if all the teachers knew how to use them effectively, and if the parents were behind the curiculum, then they would be useful in the classroom. Well, the same could be said for gym equipment, musical instruments, textbooks, lab equipment, or computers. The fact that this isn't the case for a majority of students is why education is in so much trouble - hand-held computers might just make it worse.

Handheld computers are as cheap as a pair of shoes? Maybe, but not any I wore as a kid... My family had to save money, so I got other kid's hand-me-downs, wore shoes til they fell apart (and were already well out of fashion), and generally wore clothes that kept me from being naked. I was aware of the kids who had the newest and most expensive clothes, and that is was a status symbol. Handheld computers would have to be the same across the board (All Visors, for instance, instead of some Visors, some Visor Prisms, and some Visor Edges), and the parents would bitch and moan - "If Johnny wants the orange one with 16MB rather than the ugly black one with 8MB, then why can't he have it? It interacts with the cheaper ones!!!" Just like in the workplace, hand-helds are a status symbol, just a more expensive one.

Please, let's not put a computer in every classroom. Please, put them down the hall. I have never met a computer program that could teach better than a teacher. Mathematica and Matlab are no substitute for a good math teacher. Shockwave Shakespeare is no substitute for a good English Teacher. Dance Dance Revolution is no substitute for a good Phys. Ed. teacher. Axis and Allies is no substitute for a good history teacher. Hell, even Microsoft Visual Studio and gcc are no substitute for a good programming teacher. Computers are tools, but they are limited tools, and the programs are expensive, and can't replace a good teacher. Let's keep the computers down the hall, where they belong, irrevlevant to education.

Why the Hell not?

[gelfling]

My son has a requirement, as in requirement to get a TI-83Plus. If students can get that functionality plus any other PDA benefit such as their own Avantgo channel then why not. What are you complaining about? If they beam a list of the weeks assignments to it or a list of resources for where to get information I figure its paid for itself then and there.