Stephen from Indianapolis, Indiana writes:

I have admired your Planet 5th website and now the Learning in Hand site for many years. My question is this: I have had the Palm 130's for three years while I was a 5th grade teacher, but now for the 05-06 school year, I will be teaching 2nd grade. A 5th grade colleague and I want to do "Palm Buddies" similar to intermediate and primary "Book Buddies". The problem is this: what would you suggest we do! We are not real sure what programs would be best for our 5th graders to teach our 2nd graders or what they would be capable of doing? Maybe just math facts? or e-books? Any advice or research out there for 7 year olds using palms with their older classmates would be extremely beneficial.

I've used handhelds with students in grades K-5. There are by far many more activities and applications to use with the upper grades. However, there are still many things second graders can do. Here are some activities second graders at my school have done:

• MathAce for addition and subtraction practice.
• MathTreeHouse for addition practice.
• Note Pad for drawing or beaming spelling words.
• Sketchy for making drawings and animations to review a concept.
• Quizzler for quizzes about a topic or unit of study.
• MatchWho to make a character to write about.
• SpellIT's Word Jumble mode for practicing spelling words.
• Coconut Fern to play a game of Connect Four against the computer or against a friend.

And if they have a fifth grade buddy helping them, there's even more possibilities. Let me list some buddy ideas that come to mind:

• Fifth graders make GoneMad! story templates and then help the seconds grader fill it out and read it. They could even then write a story template together to share with other pairs of buddies.
• Fifth graders could help second graders create a Quizzler quiz over something they have learned.
• Fifth graders and second graders could write a What-If Builder story together.
• Fifth graders could teach a second grader how to play some of the simpler games from this page.
• Fifth graders use Dictate with second graders to practice spelling words.

There are certainly plenty more way to use handhelds with second graders. Please leave a comment with your ideas for Stephen!

I had the fortune to speak with Kevin, a fifth grader at Mexico City's Centro Escolar Cedros in June at the National Educational Computing Conference. Students at Cedros have used Pocket PCs for a year. Several eager fifth graders from the school showed conference-goers all about their handheld computers in a poster session.
Here's a paragraph from the handout for the session:

Students at Cedros are improving their learning process by making concept maps, animations, researching by using Internet, using Word, Excel and some other interesting tools but the most important they are improving teamwork, the use of technology and building their own for the future.

Kevin was kind enough to allow me to record him (using my LifeDrive). He proudly showed me a Sketchy animation, a writing piece in FreeWrite, a PiCoMap of what he likes to do in his free time, and more. Kevin explains that only fifth grade has Pocket PCs, but next year each and every student will have one at Cedros. I know Kevin will be more than willing to help all of those other students. In the time I spent with him, he navigated around the Pocket PC with such ease!

Although Kevin's English is a little difficult to understand, I think the recording would be great to play for handheld-using students. Handhelds aren't used for learning in just one country–the same devices and applications are being used by students around the globe! Take for instance the 2005 Sketchy Animation Contest winner, Water Journey, from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Listen to Kevin in my final three-minute recording from the NECC conference.

Here are some tips to for using Graffiti® (Palm) or Letter Recognizer® (Windows Mobile) text entry:

• Make your letter strokes as large as possible.
• Don't go too quickly or too slowly.
• Hold your stylus like you would a pen or pencil.
• Avoid pushing too hard – you don't need to carve your letters into the handheld.
• Use the Giraffe game to practice and improve your Graffiti.
• Don't make your characters slanted.
• On a Palm handheld, set shortcuts for words or expressions you use often. Set the shortcuts in the Prefs application.
• Go through the Graffiti 2 tutorial located in the Quick Tour application on your Palm handheld.
• If you don't know a stroke or have trouble with a character, simply switch to the onscreen keyboard, tap the character you want, and then switch back to using Graffiti or Letter Recognizer.
• Keep your eyes on the text entry area and focus on your stroke, not what is appearing on the screen.
• Don't wait for the handheld to display the character you just made. Move on to making your next character. If there are mistakes, go back and fix them after you've entered your line of text.

The last two tips come from Ed Hardy, Editor-in-Chief at Brighthand.com. Read his editorial How to Speed Up Your Text Entry in One Easy Lesson. For more tips, watch videos #4 and #5 from Palm and Atomic Learning. Palm has some Graffiti 2 tips. Finally, apcmag.com's Screenwriting Secrets reveals many ways to increase your speed and accuracy.

Dave's iPAQ, a site that calls itself your one stop source for iPAQ and mobility news, has a weekly podcast. The most recent podcast dated August 12, 2005 and titled "Dave's iPAQ Podcast Tips and Tricks" is a compilation of dozens of tips for Windows Mobile users. Educators may not be interested in all of the tips, but if you're an iPAQ, Axim, or any other Pocket PC user, you're bound to absorb several tips for using your Windows Mobile handheld. Here's just a few of the tips and tricks I learned:

• When using the onscreen keyboard, instead of tapping the shift button, simply tap a key and drag the stylus toward the top of the screen. For example, if you tap a lower case b, when you tap the b key and drag toward the top of the screen, it will input a capital B. In the same way, you can tap and drag the 1 key and it will input an exclamation point. This is a pretty cool shortcut!
• Remote Display Control from Microsoft is a free solution for showing your handheld's screen to an audience. Simply install the software on your desktop or laptop and connect your handheld. Launch the software to show the unit's screen on the desktop's or laptop's screen. If the desktop or laptop is connected to a projector, you've got a pretty spiffy way of having a large group of students see the Windows Mobile screen.
• HP Mobile Printing for Windows Mobile is a free printing solution. It supports printing from many Windows Mobile applications by infrared, Bluetooth, and WiFi.
• Personalize your handheld with free themes from PocketPC Themes.
• Tapping the close button on Windows Mobile applications doesn't actually close the program, it only minimizes it. The "closed" applications are still running in the background and using the handheld's resources. Magic Button is a Pocket PC Task Manager that actually quits applications when you tap the button in the title bar.
• You can add any TrueType fonts from desktop version of Windows by copying them to the Windows > Fonts folder on your handheld. Unfortunately, fonts can take up a lot of precious RAM. Fortunately, you can copy these fonts to an expansion card using the free application called FontOnStorage. Read more about doing this at Brighthand's Discussion Forum.
• Password protect Pocket Excel files by selecting Tools > Password in Pocket Excel if you're using Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition. Other versions use the Edit > Password in Pocket Excel. Note that when you sync to desktop, the password will be lost. Password protecting is important when you have student information or grades on your handheld.
• You can choose to have larger onscreen keyboard keys by tapping the up arrow icon (next to the Text Input icon) and selecting Options. Tap the button next to "Large keys". Note that since the keys are larger, you'll need to tap the "123" button to access numbers and symbols.

There's certainly a lot more you can learn from listening to the 50 minute podcast! Click here to listen in your browser.

Click here to subscribe to Dave's iPAQ podcast in iTunes.

Just about every handheld-using teacher knows about MathCard. It allows students to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It's such a simple application and so easy to use. One problem with MathCard is that it is disappearing from the internet. The only place I can now find MathCard to download is from a page that is not written in English. Also, as I work with teachers, they have given me feedback on what they wish MathCard could do. Now there is an alterative to MathCard. Brian Schau has released yet another piece of educational freeware from my wishlist: MathAce. MathAce is similar to the popular MathCard. However, MathAce adds useful features:

• MathAce has the option for negative numbers to be used in problems.
• Besides selecting the Maximum Operand (the highest of the two numbers that are added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided), the Maximum Answer can be selected for addition and subtraction problems.
• The quiz can be timed by setting how many minutes in the preferences.
• Besides a Calculate quiz type, there's also Solve where students solve for the missing number in the equation.
• MathAce maintains a report of the last 10 quizzes taken. The report includes the date, start time, stop time, score, and the preferences that were set to take the quiz.
• The report of the last 10 scores can be exported to Memos! That means they can be saved, printed out, or beamed to the teacher!

Visit Brian's site. There you can download MathAce and read the user manual. His home page has the educational freeware that he has released, including Simplify, Gone Mad!, MixedUp, Dictate. and Angles.

It's hard to believe, but a new school year is upon us (though some of us with alternative calendars have been in session for several weeks already, right Elaine in North Carolina?). Many of us are thinking about those handhelds that have been locked away all summer. Others may be getting handhelds for the first time. It doesn't matter if the handhelds are new or not, you're going to have to prepare them for the upcoming school year.

The batteries on your handhelds are probably completely drained after being stuck in a cabinet or closet all summer. I suggest charging each handheld for three hours to get the batteries up and running properly. Because the batteries completely discharged, everything in the handheld's memory has been lost. Be aware, that from my experience, some handhelds never work again once the batteries have been emptied over the summer. Unfortunately, it's expensive to replace batteries and usually not cost-efficient. Anyhow, as long as the handheld does resuscitate after summer break, it will be just like it was when it was taken out of its box for the first time. You'll need to reload all of the software, documents, and settings on each handheld. There are some shortcuts you can take to make this happen.

No matter how you set up the handhelds, you will need to first turn them on after charging and go through the digitizer screen. You'll also have to set up the date and time. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts for setting these things–but after setting up a class set, you'll be very fast at this task.

My favorite way to set up handhelds is to use Grant Street Software's SD Deploy card. First you setup one handheld just the way you want it. That means you probably turn the system sounds off and add applications and documents. When you have this handheld the way you like it, insert the SD Deploy card while pressing the up button on the handheld. Then tell the card to make a clone of this handheld. Give it a minute or two. When done, insert this special SD card into another handheld. It will automatically make this handheld just like the first one you cloned. Continue inserting the card into as many handhelds as you need. SD Deploy is also available for Windows Mobile handhelds.

If you don't have an SD Deploy card, I suggest setting handhelds up through syncing. First, gather all of the applications and documents you wish to have on all handhelds into one folder on your desktop computer (you may even take these files from the backup folder of your handheld or that of one you have saved from last school year). Then sync each handheld, giving each a unique username. Next, Mac users launch the HotSync Manager and select Install Handheld Files from the HotSync menu and choose the first username. Windows users launch Palm Desktop, select the first username in the upper-right corner, and click Quick Install. Mac and Windows users then drag the files from the folder into the install window. Next, select the second username from the pop-up menu and drag the files into the window again. Go through the same process for each username that was created. Yes, it's a lot of clicking, dragging, and dropping (but you'll find a rhythm as you do it). After each username has all of the applications and documents queued up, then sync each handheld again. After syncing each handheld, they will be ready to go!

Things to remember when setting up Palm handhelds: Turn off system sound. Turn down the game and alarm sounds. Install Documents To Go and Noah Lite (these are not easy to beam). For synchronizing, it's very important each handheld has the correct date and time. If you include numbers in usernames, have 1-9 start with a leading zero (i.e. 01, 02, 03). Then your list of users will sort properly.

In a one-to-one environment where each student will have their own handheld, I recommend not putting all the applications you will use on the handheld at once. The extra applications will take up memory and will probably be a distraction to students. I prefer to beam students the applications as they need them (for instance, after learning about Graffiti strokes, beam students Giraffe). I do suggest pre-loading some commonly used Palm applications. These include Documents To Go, Noah Lite, Quizzler, and eReader.

If the handhelds are part of a shared or lab set, it's probably best to load as much software as you can. Then you don't have to mess with trying to beam or load software when these handhelds are checked out.

When setting up, I suggest using a label-maker to put the HotSync username onto the cover of each handheld. If you have a one-to-one handheld environment, the HotSync name will probably be that of the student's. If handhelds are shared among students, you'll need some other naming or numbering scheme.

If your school year has already started before you setup the handhelds, don't forget that your very excited students would love to help you in any way they can. Use this valuable resource to label handhelds, sync them, or set them up. After setting up over 100 handhelds in my school, I know that I grow really, really tired of setting the digitizer, date, time, and time zone on each handheld. But I bet I know some youngsters who would enjoy that task much more than I.

Want to know more about handhelds in the first weeks of school? Check out this page. Want to know more about classroom management, including charging and usage contracts? Go to learninginhand's Management page. Got any more suggestions or advice for setting up handhelds for the school year? Please leave a comment!

Holly Jobe, from Montgomery Country in Pennsylvania, recorded an interview with Martha Rolley, educator and Director of Education Marketing at Palm, Inc. While at the National Educational Computing Conference, Martha shared some insights into handheld computing in education. One of the most eye-opening statements was Martha's remark that schools need to move from "loanership" to "ownership" when it comes to students and handhelds. Martha tells us to think about it this way: How do you drive a rental car versus driving your own car? Which do you treat better? When students have handhelds of their own, they treat them with much more respect.

Holly's interviews are part of a podcast called Getting To One. It features interviews with many educators about a variety of topics, not just technology. Also, there's even an interview with yours truly about podcasting.

Listen to the MP3 audio file of Holly's interview with Martha Rolley in your browser or go to the Getting To One podcast in iTunes.

I demonstrated podcasting to a group of fantastic teachers at the Southeast Regional Professional Development Center's Technology Conference August 4-5, 2005. The conference took place at Southeast Missouri State University and I had a blast showcasing two of my favorite topics: handheld computing and podcasting!

In fact, as part of the closing keynote speech, conference participants and I created a podcast before their very eyes! Not only was I able to show how to make a podcast using GarageBand and iTunes, but the exercise turned out to be a great reflection activity to conclude the conference.

It's amazing to think we put together a podcast in less than a half-hour, but we did! Want to hear it? Click here to listen to the three-and-a-half minute recording.

Music by Emry, a former fifth grader from Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, only 13% of online Americans know what podcasting is. 64% are not really sure, and 23% have never even heard the term before. Whether you're familiar with podcasting or not, I invite you to take a look at learninginhand's updated Podcasting section. The updated pages make the process more clear. I try to help you find podcasts, subscribe to podcasts, and listen to podcasts. Also, if you're feeling ambitious or curious, you can read about creating podcasts with students.

If you're really interested in podcasting, you can learn more from these sites:

iPodcast Directory for Educators
Lots of examples and links to resources from the U.K.

Trend: Podcasting in Academic and Corporate Learning
Read about how podcasting can be used in education

Pod People
Short article from Edutopia magazine about cool new uses of iPods by teachers

A Podcast of Your Own
Learn techniques for making your voice heard on the internet