Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

David Perry's report on the first year of the Learning to Go initiative available from http://wgfl.wolverhampton.gov.uk/PDASite/index.html indicates clear increases in ICT capability however I am concerned about demands for evidence of increases in attainment. There is no clear evidence that ICT whether handheld or not raises attainment across the board for all pupils.Like any other educational tool, it works for some people all the time and for all people some of the time.  Also as with any educational intervention it is impossible to entirely control for outside variables.

There may be some info available from Chafford Hundred CAmpus school in Thurrock, they are now using PDAs and their last Ofsted indicates above average results.

Indications from a project I am running with teachers using handhelds are that PDAs are just one part of an ICT enabled environment with particular affordances for instant access to information, learning resources and multimodal means of recording. However they would not be first choice if dedicated hardware was available and it is having the flexibility of choice of tool and always having one to hand which is so enabling/supportive of achievement.

I'm looking for more freeware/shareware or internet sites that render ok on a PDA. Anyone got any suggestions?

Please complete this new poll and do let me know what the 'other' options are:

Hi Neil,

It's not in the public domain yet but people are working on a report of PDA use in schools for Nesta futurelab.

There is a school in Thurrock - Chafford Hundred Campus - where  all of Year 7 have PDAs, and in Wolverhamption there are 2 or 3 secondary schools and quite a few primary schools in the Learning 2 Go project with PDAs. Other initiatives are coming on line but, I don't know of any stats.

Maybe Graham can help?

I have a good relationship with my supplier but a poor one with Vodafone - not their fault I am constantly opening and closing contracts - they need advance notice and their systems have difficulty keeping up with me. However, there are a couple of people at Staffordshire, Richard Dunnill; Clyde Redfern, and Simon Hughes from Canterbury Christ Church working on another TDA project, some of whom wangled free hardware for their ITT trainees on O2 Best for Business contracts.

My problem is that while phone costs are so high the admin involved in keeping track of who owes what is actually impinging on the success of the project. I would dearly like support from cell phone companies - it will take years for schools and teachers' homes to become seamlessy wirelessly networked - though apparently, they are currently concerned with recovering their 3G investment costs

In a recent funding round teacher training institutions could apply to the Teacher Development Agency for funds to purchase laptops and tablet PCs but not PDAs (even "if they are able to run Pocket PC or its equivalent"). The argument was they "do not have sufficient versatility for classroom use compared to a PC/MAc based notebook".  Is this true? What do you guys think?

Just to say 'Hi' and 'Welcome'. Graham has kindly let us have an area to focus discussion on teachers' (in schools, colleges and universities) use of handhelds in their teaching.

I'm Jocelyn, I work in Education at the University of Bristol and I have been trialling the use of handhelds with teacher trainees. More info is at http://www.bris.ac.uk/education/research/sites/pda


Please tell us a bit about yourself.

Hi - try looking at http://www.mlearn.org.za/CD/papers/Wishart.pdf, one publication - if interested for more - do get in touch.

http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=1

I can second Jon's point abiut the importance of the PERSONAL in PDA - teacher training students who were successful with PDAs for teaching and learning were by and large those who used them personally - taking photo's of a newborn niece, online shopping, as an alarm clock, as a remote control etc

But you have to carry the laptop too. 

RE: VGA devices. Margi is very specific about which handhelds it will work with - I now have a couple I can't use but I really like the PCCF Backpack (from Expansys). I have one for Qtek 2020i - it has extra battery and CF slot (handy for data logging) as well as VGA and video out.

I'd like to add an endorsement to Mike's comment - Bob bravely said what the rest of us had been muttering. How can m-learning be failing when you listen to Nellie de Crom and Annette de Jager from Tshwane University of Technology's beautifully illustrated presentation on their successful use of handheld PCs on field trips into the South African bush to teach ecotourism?

How about starting a discussion for those that didn't go about key ideas to take forward, the one thing that cropped up for me was the number of times people mentioned technology in learner / teacher support, ie on their side, available as and when needed and not in the learners' way.

Don't understand guys,

Why can't you use the email client that comes with the device ? I have XDA II, i-mate and Qtek Pocket PCs all getting incoming mail via an IMAP server

http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=1
Wow Peter - that's a really positive endorsement - have you tried Tiny Red Book http://www.tiny-red-book.com/ It is Palm only and rated as really useful by the ITT students except that it won't do 2 week timetables. Did you access the internet via wireless or mobile phone?

Have concerns about a) the reliability of Palm devices under the hammering students can give them and b) the interface D2Go uses. We are actually working with teacher training students and Tungsten W but they find D2Go frustrating (which may or may not lead to the number of times they are having to soft reset) and are rejecting the Palm devices.

Children may be better as they have not yet learned Windows functionality - the Dudley project uses Zire 72 - http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/community/forum/index.php?topic=6.0. Suggest you contact someone to find out how they're doing.