Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

2 thoughts

1- internet access is key - this means money. Cost for an internet connected smartphone or pda multiplied by number of pupils in a class is v.high - need sponsorship from a seriously big player - have those running smallscale studies time to seek sponsorship?

2-ownership: for success pda needs to be seen to 'owned' by the user- enables customisation, use as personal organiser etc - this is not possible is using the 'class set'

ie. unless we can persuade a manufacturer to give pda away in class sets and pay for wireless network or mobile phone connectivity we will have to wait for large scale studies until all kids have pdas in the same way they now have phones.

If a school campus has Wi-Fi coverage then Pocket PCs can be used to access the Internet using that coverage. In fact, in the instances that I know of where Pocket PCs are being used in a formal way as a classroom tool, Wi-Fi network access is a key component.

I think the biggest obstical to using handhelds is time and energy. In most cases it requires teachers to take their own initiative to incorporate handhelds in their lesson plans. I don't think there is a ton of material out their that teaches can leverage to incorporate in to their classrooms, and what is available has to be hunted down. Many teachers may not even know that there are some materials that they can use.

This discussion in some ways is the same as the general topic of using computers in schools. Where you see computers used effectively, I think you will find teachers who first started using computers themselves, realized that they could be used in the classroom, and spent their own time figuring out how to make that happen. The same thing has to happen with handhelds.

An important step that I think educators need to take is realizing that handhelds are not meant to simply be a replacement for desktop computers. By their design handhelds are intended to be an an extension to or augment desktop computers. Going back to the issue of Internet connectivity, obviously most handhelds have much smaller screens than desktop computers, and it takes time and energy to design web content that displays well on handheld screens. Some of the very rich web content that works well on desktop computers does not translate well to handhelds, but what I do think works well on handhelds is small snippets of reference information. I recently wrote about my experience using my Pocket PC at my local library to search the libary's card catalog and find books. (See http://fmcpherson.weblogger.com/2005/01/05) I think this is the type of thing that works well on handhelds because it combines content with mobility.

Interesting thoughts. I would disagree with anorman's 1st point that handhelds are seen as personal tools only. This is actually an advantage when it comes to learning, because handhelds provide students with a personal workspace (as well as a public one through things like beaming) that is theirs to configure and use. I.e. when it comes to desktops in schools, students often have to worry about sharing workspace with other students, being limited in how they can set it up for their own needs and running the risk of losing their work.

In addition to what's already been posted, let me throw another idea out, which is related to the financial issue. We've seen our share of relatively large-scale projects in the US, both with handhelds (Chicago, Il; Putnam, OK; Detroit, MI,  etc.) and laptops (e.g. Maine; Henrico County). While initial investments in these projects were substantial, it looks like sustainability of these projects is a real issue, especially when it comes to handhelds. From what I've seen from working with a group of teachers in a two-county area in Ohio is that handhelds have a life of about three years (and that's if you take good care of them), as far as how long they will last before they die, as well as the point at which they become obsolete. This may become less of an issue with future generations of handhelds, as they reach a plateau in hardware and OS development. However, this plateau seems to be in the distant future.

That said, I think that large-scale implementations of handheld devices (e.g. in an entire district), closely followed over a longer period of time, say at least three to five years, will give us information about ubiquitous technology in teaching and learning the likes of which we haven't seen in formal learning environments. Current generations of students need this type of anytime, anywhere technology for learning. They are already more connected outside of school than in school, and we need to figure out a way to transfer this connectedness to their formal schooling.

Mark

In German speaking countries we are ages away from introducing PDAs into schools. There are some isolated projects at some universities, which use WLAN structures. There might be a breaking through with a pilot soon. Investments by educational boards are only made into teacher training, never into hard- and/or software. So if we introduce PDAs they would become a personal device, as Jocelyn pointed out. But first we must convince parents to buy the handhelds.

One of the main drawbacks for any innovation in schools I see is skepticism toward new teaching ideas (especially if you have to learn the technology first before you get an idea how to use it) and the resistance toward changes in teachers' and students' roles (as I learned from Cuban and can only agree).

As I see from the posts there are some large-scale handheld implementations in the US and the Dudley project in the UK. "Handheld-centric classrooms" are emerging I have hopes.

As I understand it, the idea behind mobile learning is that it enables one to study during down times. While this may work for adults who need to brush up on some training for work, I don't see children looking to study during down time. I think that before you can figure out how mobile devices can be used for teaching in a big way you need to understand how children use mobile devices.

I think the answer is they use the devices to communicate. Give a child a cell phone and I bet you that during the majority of their free time they are using that cell phone to either talk with someone, send or read a text message, or play a game. (If you haven't read it, I highly recommend Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold.)

Besides communication, I think the next logical use of mobile devices, particularly PDAs, is time management. In an educational context you might call this study skills, but I think that with an increasing amount of complexity in student's lives, we ought to be teaching students how to use the PIM functions of PDAs to manage their time.

I'm with swalthes on this one!

I definitely don't think that handheld computers are either replacements for desktop computers or tools for studying during downtime. What gets me excited and the many educationalists I've had the pleasure to discuss this subject with is the opportunity for students to have 100% access to a tool that allows them to gather, access or manipulate information and media whenever they need to.

Perhaps in answer to the subject of this discussion it maybe a problem of the perception of PDAs that began life as glorified electronic organisers, however now they have much more potential - even basic models can play full motion video and connect to the internet. It may be that people just got used to the futureshock that brought us the last 20 years of personal computing and that the next shock is that, hey!, we don't need to be deskbound to learn. I've heard a number of times that handheld computers won't be used for browsing the web because their screens are too small or they don't run flash - well guess what? maybe the websites need to change, maybe the way in which learning materials are delivered need to take into account the opportunities presented by a one per child or leave no child behind philosophy.

I'd suggest that one of the things that stands in the way of the many small scale and exciting projects from making large scale mainstream contribution to learning is a myopic sense of the possible. Present company excepted naturally 

There is a definite difference  between schools and Higher education use.

For me the useful aspect IS studying during downtime and at times and locations where it would not normally be easy or possible to study.

This is probably more useful to part time and HE students especially those with part time jobs etc.  But yet again this highlights the personal nature of the devices what one  person finds useful another does not. 

We need more materials suitable for PDA delivery and that doesn't mean rehashing 20 year old lecture notes into Powerpoint or PDFs....(Which is something that is spoiling many VLE's)

My feeling is they may be even more useful to post-grads than undergrads..particularly for scheduling time and collecting information. Even mundane stuff like transferring useful references found on the web before visiting the library is something a PDA makes so much easier.

We are all still adjusting to how things can be done differently with a PDA/Phone and whatever extra facilities are integrated into the device. I didn't expect the camera on my PDA to be much use but I now use it for lots of tasks.
(ie i find the camera useful for photographing the cover of an interesting book or journal to save actually writing down the details
and keeping copies of things like class lists to save a trip to the photocopier!)

I wonder if a section on the  forum for interesting ways of utilising PDAs would be useful, for short one or two line explanations of something that helps make the device useful to you or someone you know.