Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

Hi, All,
  I've been reading along for some time, but realize that it's time to properly join.  I've been involved with technology integration from the informal/community realm. 
  Youth in my NH town wanted more environmental involvement, which led to water quality and eventually to a project in Marine Science that culminated in Bermuda at their biological station in 1995.  The station's Internet use was integrated into our group's method of communication. 
  The group became involved with JASON Project (jasonproject.org) and, as an active user of on-line info, I joined as a moderator, eventually assuming the novel support area.  This year for their Mars focus, I'll facilitate The War of the Worlds and Robot Visions by Asimov.
   Currently, I'm developing what I've learned from working with novels and youth as a grad student in Children's Literature writing my thesis on the elements in novels that instigate interactivity.
Thanks for all the valued information this forum offers.
BAStefany

Reading to catch up on discussions has its advantages.  One post states that handhelds suffer from socioeconomic barriers and another indicates that privacy issues on data still needs to be conquered. 
  To me the issue is control.  Handhelds offer the potential to create a system and cycle of information rather than to "offer" information.  It is at this point that we stall as a system is foreign to our concepts.  A system which is open changes our whole method of process and delivery.  It also requires that those using the system be capable to both utilize as well as input in a reliable manner.   
  The answer to that problem is the age old one, education.  The current education system, however, is threatened by a system that is readily available and user friendly.  The answer is small, user specific "communities" breaking the larger system apart until society can reform its own institutions. 

BA Stefany