Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

Good list of points.  They mention the same problems we had at my previous school, and we realised the mistakes we were making and used a sensible evaluation cycle to address the issues.  Doesn't Michael Fullen say there is always a downward turn at the beginning of every change?

I love the idea of a school Wiki, like using Moodle - free!  My year 10 students suggested we use a wiki in Science, I might get them to set it up, I haven't got the time, hard working teacher that I am. (!)  My HOD is going to get an e-book for our new Science course in September, alongside new textbooks.  It's not the most inspiring electronic version of a textbook, it seems to be literally the pages on a screen.  The teachers version has links to Powerpoint starters... but I would love an e-book where the kids click on the text and it reads it to them (like Microsoft Reader) and the diagrams are animated with Flash, and the questions are in Word where they can write the answers straight in, and the pictures link to the webcam that they already have attached so they can video their experiement... we are getting there, slowly, but we are getting there!

For me the biggest pains are battery life, weight, instant on/off and the heat these things can chuck out!!!  My students would really complain about each of these problems.

In my school phones are banned, if we see a student with their phone it is taken from them and put in the school office where a parent has to collect it.  In my previous school if we were doing a cool experiment in the lab the pupils would get out their phones and video it, later uploading it to their comoputers and emailing it to me so I could put it on our website.  Now I use a webcam to take pictures and video in the lesson - it has poor quality images really, but we only want them as a reminder of the lesson and their learning, often the pictures or video is the plenary and they can then be deleted or archived.  I would love to see phones and other devices used in education but if they are banned there are ways to still use the technology.

Hello, I teach Science to secondary students in Hampshire - I used to teach in Kent, at a school called Cornwallis.  The whole of year 7 had tablets and I miss that sometimes!

I couldn't agree more.  My pupils don't learn much from looking at poorly written, graffitied, out of date textbooks.  And it doesn't have to be e-books to learn from - I've taught using Onenote, dropping in links to websites and documents, importing pdf files and pictures, using webcams to record experiments... much more interesting and memorable (not to mention relevant) than reading a textbook.

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

Hi Dave, hello everyone,
I've taught a lot with Tablet PCs and the students are much more switched on to the technology (what's the term you use Dave... digital natives?).  I think that these UMPCs would hit my classroom and be as inspirational as Tablets were 3/4 years ago.  Yes, I know there are problems with these little Windows computers, most annoying being the start up time, battery life and overheating; and I would like these devices to have a digital video camera so we could video experiments, but I suppose a USB webcam will do.  I think these have got to be better than a Tablet because of the weight, and surely better than a PDA, where you can't author in, say, Powerpoint.  I can't wait to get my hands on one.. I can't find the Amitek manufacturer you mention - I want to find out how much a class set would cost!
gerry