Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

My name is Marty Cannon and I'm the Assistant Principal at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Lafayette, Louisiana.  I taught 6th grade world history for five years before taking this post.  During that time I earned my Master's Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.  I took every educational technology class that I could while doing it because I love computers and gadgets and I think they are great tools for learning. 

Palms/PDA's really got my attention about a year ago but I put it on the back burner while I dealt with more pressing things in my arena of discipline and maintenance at the school.  A few days ago I went to an Introduction to Palms class at one of the nearby district's technology center and I came back a believer.  Now I'm trying to find ways that we could use them in our school that spends quite a bit of money each year on technology.

I think this is a great site and I look forward to learning from and with you all.

MC

Hello all

Another lurker, I'm afraid! 

I'm a project development officer for a charity called Learning through Landscapes (http://www.ltl.org.uk), and we help schools and early years settings all over the UK make improvements to their outdoor spaces through better use, design and management.

I attended the hl conference at Goldsmith's last year to see what else was going on in the world of handheld learning, and how it would fit with a small pilot project we were running to get secondary kids outdoors using XDAs and GIS software to map their grounds (http://www.ltl.org.uk/programmes/programme.asp?PG_ID=66).  I was truly blown away by the sheer range of technologies and applications, and the passion of the enthusiasts for their wares.  It also made me realise that we could be a lot more bold with our use of the technology in further implementations.

With this in mind, Learning through Landscapes have submitted a proposal to futurelab for taking the findings of our GIS work and extending it futher into truly interactive map-based handheld systems to enrich outdoor learning environments and experiences.  Fingers crossed!

I hope to attend the hl 2006 conference - see you all there.

Steve

Hello everyone,

I have just found this forum through searching for info on the Ultra Mobile PC / Origami device.  My name is Gerry Gray and I work at a secondary school in Hampshire.  I'm in my fourth year of teaching and for the previous three years I taught at Cornwallis school in Maidstone, Kent.  It was an amazing place to start a teaching career as we used Tablet PCs for the whole of year 7 instead of exercise books and textbooks.  I am passionate about using ICT to personalise learning and a handheld device is such an effective way to achieve this.  I must go now and read all the rest of the information on here.

gerry

Yo!

Just found this site and I must say it all seems rather intriguing ....

My name is obviously Brett and I have been a Primary teacher in London for 7 years now.  I am currently in the envious post of Raising Standards in ICT, which means I'm pretty much the only one teaching the "formal" ICT curriculum. (obviously ICT plays a major role in the rest of the curriculum) 

I also have time out of class "Shock Horror!!"  in which to "raise standards". 
My first priority is to get an all singing and dancing Learning Platform up and running.  I am also looking at ways in which to enrich the children's experience at school, and using PDAs could be one way. (although to be honest in the area I'm teaching in, the main concern is the PDA growing legs and moving town)!

I'm going to do a bit more reading now, but I certainly have the time and energy to work with others to implement almost anything that will engage and broaden children's learning.

Hello!
My name is Jo MacKinnon and I am deputy head at Parrs Wood High School in Manchester. We are an 11-19 school with just over 2000 students and Specialist Status in Technology and the Performing Arts.  We have, for a number of years, had a very strong reputation in ICT innovation, provision and use in schools but are relative newcomers to handheld learning.  We are sure that this is the way forward now in changing how & where learning and teaching happen - and found the handheld learning 2006 conference fabulously useful and inspiring.  We hope to make rapid progress now as an institution and I am sure that we will learn loads from this community that will help all our learners.  There will obviously be plenty of challenges for us along the way - not least of which will be the sheer scale of our school - so wish us luck!

Hi there,
I would like to introduce myself as both a teacher but recently more importantly the mother of 4 dyslexic children.  My 3 oldest are coping in mainstream school with extra support however my youngest aged 10 is so severely dyslexic that although very bright and of average to above average intelligence, is unable to read inspite of lots of specialised teaching.  He is facinated by the world around him and has a fantastic memory, he watches lots of documentaries on TV, and listens to endless books on tape.  His one desire is to be an author and it is very frustrating to him that he cannot use a computer to help him as he cant read.  We have to type out his stories for him and then he cant read what we have written.  Otherwise he can use a computer very well to play all sorts of games as he remembers where to click if something has been read to him once.

I have been trying to find with no sucess information on technology that may help him.  The things I can think of would be some kind of portable device which could read things to him, menus, timetables, newspapers, forms etc.  Also a method of using a computer that would read what it says on the screen and also allow him to dictate - we have tried Dragon naturally speaking but were unable to make it work very well as he has to read to be able to train the programme.  Can anybody help please as I am finding it very difficult to get information - I cannot believe that my son is the only child in this situation.  Thank you so much

Hello,

I've been using this forum for a while and just realized that I never 'introduced' myself. How rude.

I run a small software design and development business, specializing in interactive media on multiple platforms. These include the Web, mobile phones, PDAs, PSPs and anything else handheld that offers the opportunity to have rich multimedia content on it. Traditionally we have worked with educational content in the broadest sense (from curriculum-based KS1 activities to more informal learning and factual resources). Our projects generally have a playful element to them, so I've followed the recent Games and Learning discussions closely too. In the last 10 years or so I've been involved with many projects of that nature, particularly by producing Flash activities for several BBC online departments (History, Science, Health, Schools etc) and other publishers.

I got involved with mobile learning in 2003 - my then company developed the first Mobile Java application published by the BBC (the GCSE Bitesize revision quiz, still going strong). That led to our contribution to the Learning2Go project which at that point was a mere sparkle in David Whyley's eye. We converted two BBC History learning games to the PDA, which proved very popular with the kids in Wolverhampton. More stuff for PDAs with the BBC Innovations unit followed, as well as mobile phone projects in co-production with Tribal CTAD, BSM, BBC Drama and Entertainment and BBC Lifestyle.

More recently I've been looking into new gaming platforms like the PSP, Nintendo DS and even the Wii console, with the view to creating more immersive educational content on these ubiquitous devices.

If anybody is interested in exploring ideas of a handheld nature from a production perspective, or indeed looking to convert their learning content to these platforms, do get in touch. I've enjoyed Handheld Learning's conferences and this forum a lot - hopefully we can contribute to this particular educational (r)evolution!

Wolf Luecker
(Luecker Interactive http://www.luecker.net)