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Handhelds for Students?
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."
I just graduated from a high school where we had a good 450 of those iPaq things floating around. I went to River Hill High School in Clarksville, MD (AKA Rich White Boy School).
The handheld program has been nothing but a failure.
First year, they tried giving them all to the 9th graders. All they did was download porn over the 802.11b (I'm not kidding), and play games. Forget actually using them for anything. The 'school' software we had never worked, and was served off crappy Compaq Armada laptops that never stayed on for very long. Not to mention how often the kids broke them and refused to pay.
After that mess, they tried making 5 or 6 classrooms digital. The most we ever used it for was to browse the web, except when we were showing off for the newspapers and TV. Given the fact that a full unit cost $700 (color IPaq, expansion sleeve, keyboard, case, Cisco 802.11b card), I'd just as soon see the money into buying eMacs or Dells instead of this. Then at least, we could see what we're browsing on the web.