Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

I've had a personal virtual stalker for 10 years after posting my name on an early ICT forum so suffice to say I'm Asst Head in a London Comp.

I've been using mobile technology for many years including the Apple emates which were just a bit too soon for wireless and an early adopter of thin client technology which may still find its niche with smartphones.

I've little time for laptops with their 2 hour batterylife and self destruct mentalities. Hoping that Origami might be the breakthrough product if the power issue is addressed.

I'm going to be a luddite and predict we'll still be using keyboards in 50 years. I've used each suceeding generation of handwriting recognition software and whilst it gets better, its dam frustrating and at the end I invariably give up.

The problem is the same as speech recognition. The computer might learn your particular way of speaking or writing, but what about  the other 20 users the computer will have that week? Also lots of kids handwriting is dreadful and as the mistakes still seem to be about 5% the labourious time spent correcting soon mounts up.

Finally there is a tactile problem in handwriting recognition. The unbending nature of the screen startes to make my skin crawl. It''s not paper, its not springy like a keyboard.

I think its back to keyboard lessons...

The loner theory only applies to a tiny % of people. The current fave timewaster in my School are the sites where you can post up pictures of your mates (which you took with your phone) and the various comments appended thereto. These sites are being set up and passed around like wildfire especially amongst kids considered to have learning needs!