There have been a few short articles on TechLearning.com this month about handhelds. TechLearning's PDQ (Professional Development QuickTips) has a page for setting up your handhelds. Since it is a QuickTip, there isn't much detail, but the page does offer good delimitations of freeware, shareware, and commercial software for handhelds. Another TechLearning PDQ is PDAs in the Classroom. This QuickTip discusses handhelds as a solution to one-to-one computing. It specifically mentions one of my favorite learning applications, Quizzler. Check out three years worth of QuickTips on the Archive page.

The IT Guy is another regularly updated section of TechLearning.com. The most current The IT Guy is by Wesley Fryer called iPods in the Classroom? It gives reasons why iPods are a viable platform for content delivery and creation in schools. iPods in the Classroom? is also a short article and gets its point across quickly.

Also published this month is Smart Technologies' Interactive Educator. Like Edutopia and Technology & Learning Magazine, The Interactive Educator is a free publication that can be snail mailed to your home or school. Check out pages 38 and 39 for an article written by gadget guru Kathy Schrock. "All the Rage for a Reason" gives reasons why handhelds are a great solution for education. This article may give you some helpful talking points (as if you didn't have enough already) for convincing others to fund putting handhelds in your school. Kathy suggests top-of-the-line handheld hardware like the Palm LifeDrive or HP's iPAQ rx3715. (Unfortunately, my school could never afford such luxuries--and we like our Tungsten Es just fine.)

Happy Reading!

There's over a year's worth of blogging in nearly 200 posts on learninginhand.com! You may not have realized it, but all of those posts are archived. When on the main blog page, only the most recent posts are displayed. To access the archived content, simply click the links on the right. For instance, clicking October 2004 will bring up blog posts about using flash cards in fun ways, a site for using Excel for unexpected tasks, and more. Clicking April 2004 will bring up a post with a link to pictures kindergartners were so kind to draw of me.

Beginning in June 2005, I switched to using the free Blogger service for this blog. This allows readers to add comments to posts. In orange below each post, you'll see a comment number. If there are comments, click the orange link for the date the the entry was posted; the comments will appear below the entry. The readers of this blog are so very insightful, so take some time to read their comments. Many times the comments include incredibly useful tips or great software suggestions.

Selecting Search from learninginhand's menu will search all pages in the site, including blog posts. Try searching for the terms "Soloway" and "pose" for a really entertaining blog entry.

Thanks for continuing to read my blog week after week. I can only hope it is as much fun to read as it is to write!

Handheld computing is certainly not limited to just Palm and Windows Mobile computers. Let's look at some other handheld computers for students...

With podcasting and add-on voice recorders, iPods and other mp3 players (here's one for $50) are finding their way into classrooms. Apple provides lesson plans and resources for using iPods in education. iPod use is not limited to just audio–iPods can store calendar items, an address book, and text notes. Apple even has instructions on pushing these notes out to other iPods. I didn't realize it, but these notes can contain links to other text or audio files. Very cool.

Not yet released is Fourier Systems' Nova 5000. Fourier calls it a "learning applicance" that fills the gap between laptops and handhelds. It has a 10" color LCD display, USB ports, a card slot, built-in ports for data loggers, and runs a version of Windows Mobile. It's built for students and has a sturdy, rugged design. Supposedly the Novas 5000 will cost around $400 when finally released.

How about a laptop for $100? That's the goal of MIT's Nicholas Negroponte. The ultra-cheap laptop is green with a yellow hand crank (for recharging). It's being designed for ownership by children in developing nations with the hope of providing a laptop for every child on Earth. It has a 7 inch screen that swivels like a Tablet PC. It runs all open-source software to keep the costs very low. Andy Carvin has posted an 8-minute video online. He talks with the chief technology officer of the MIT project. Read more about this idea in A Laptop For Every Kid on Wired.com.

Leapfrog has been producing the iQuest Handheld for about two years. Retailing for $50, the iQuest Handheld is for children ten years and older. There are various game modes for students to use when studying subjects in school. In fact, LeapFrog has correlated content for the iQuest Handheld with major textbooks. You'll need to buy subject specific cartridges at $15 each.

Last month LeapFrog released its FLY Pentop Computer. It's not a desktop, laptop, or palmtop–it's a pen! The FLY uses special dot matrix paper ("FLY Paper") to read what a student writes. For instance, writing a "C" and then circling it starts calculator mode. With its built-in speaker (or optional ear buds) the pen will then instruct you to draw a calculator on paper. After drawing the calculator, just tap the buttons with the pen and then the FLY will tell you the answer. The FLY also has a scheduler and various games you can play. You can even draw a set of drums and keyboard and then play them! With additional cartridges ($25-$35), students can enter their own spelling words and practice them, translate words to and from Spanish, and work through multiplication and division problems. The FLY Pentop Computer is $99 and a 60 notebook of FLY Paper is $10. You've got to check out LeapFrog's online demo of the FLY. It really is an amazing piece of technology. However, for $99 you could get a Palm Z22.

There are so many ways to put learning in the hands of students. Heck, there's even a cell phone that lets kids earn extra minutes by playing learning games. Currently, Palm and Windows Mobile computers seem to be the most versitile since they have computing platforms where anyone can development software. However, task-specific handhelds can be great learning tools as well. Whatever the "handheld," students are able to interact with content, organize information, and communicate with powerful devices that can fit in their hands.

Soft Reset Show #5 features audio from the 5th Annual Michigan Handheld Computers in Education Conference held November 4, 2005. Tony and Mike discuss the conference and some things they learned while there. Listen for conference participants' reflections and ideas about the conference and using handhelds for learning. You'll also hear why a Fruit Roll Up seems to be a big deal to at least one student.

Show Notes:

• Andy Mann is the organizer for the Michigan Handheld Computers in Education Conference. Check out the photos from the conference.
• Tony's Tip: Take some time to go through the presenters' handouts from the conference. In particular, see Gayle Underwood's Handhelds with Special Needs handout.
• Mike's Tip: Subscribe to Google Alerts. Enter search terms like handhelds and grants, handhelds and conferences, ubiquitous computing, etc.
• Inspiration for Palm and Pocket PC has some great templates for use by even very young children.
• Quizzler can be used for a fun Tic-Tac-Toe game.
• RCET's Ubiquitous Computer Conference: Bridging Research & Practice is December 1 & 2, 2005 in Kent, Ohio.
• Email Tony and Mike with your questions in audio format to softresetpodcast@gmail.com.

Enjoy the show! Click an icon below to listen or subscribe.

Let's continue our look at unique and cost-effective ways to organize and charge class sets of handhelds! Rolly Maiquez, Technology Teacher & Coordinator, and Cecille Nazareno, Middle School Teacher, at St. John's School in Guam have a low cost solution. Their charging basket keeps 22 handhelds and keyboards organized and it charges using one wall socket. It sits perfectly on an A/V cart! Here's the breakdown:

Laundry Basket - $3.50
Blue Utility Basket - $2.50
Utility Trays - $3.00
Power Surge Protector - $26.00
Y-Splitter Cables - $38.25
Total - $73.25

$73.25 is much cheaper than the $699 TC200 Tabletop Charging & Organize Station. For photos and more description of the Charging Basket Solution, click here.

Sudoku is a logic/puzzle game that has become very popular. The game is played on a 9 x 9 grid. Some of the grid's cells contain numbers. The object of the game is to fill all empty cells of the grid with digits 1 through 9. To solve the puzzle, every row, column, and 3 x 3 section must contain the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 once and only once. With a true Sudoku grid, there is only one solution for the puzzle. Try going through this illustrated Sudoku tutorial to learn more about game play.

It generally takes from 10 to 30 minutes to solve a puzzle, depending on your skill and experience. Sudoku puzzles can be found in many places. Along side crossword puzzles, many newspapers are publishing daily Sudoku puzzles. And, as you might guess, there are Sudoku games for handhelds and other computers!

For Palm, try out these two freeware applications: SuLite and Sudoku. I like SuLite because you can change the Display Options to use colored blocks, mathematical symbols, or letters instead of numbers on the grid. Sudoku will generate random puzzles for you (though it may take a while for the puzzles to be created). Sudoku is also in constant development and more features are being added with each version release.

For Windows Mobile, try Sudoku Solver, which can solve games or create new ones for you to solve yourself.

You can purchase Sudoku games for your handheld if you want extra features or a cleaner interface. Read PalmInfocenter's article about Sudoku from for Palm ($9.95 - Palm OS 5 only) or for Windows Mobile from Astraware.

You can even play Sudoku online right in your web browser here, here, and here (Flash Player required). Or, download a free version for Windows. There's even a free Dashboard widget for Mac OS 10.4.

Learn how to make your own Sudoku puzzles on paper for yourself or others to solve. Let's Make Sudoku: Elementary Course shows you step-by-step how to create a puzzle. The site says it's fun and easy. In fact, here's a PDF with four blank grids to help you out. I think students would really enjoy learning to make their own Sudoku puzzles.

Sudoku is a very addictive game, so whether you use paper, Palm, Windows Mobile, Windows, Mac, or the Web, have fun!

Here's a Sketchy animation I made for Thanksgiving:

I use this animation to demonstrate to students how to use eyebrow movement to show emotions. View more Sketchy animation examples here.

There's a new book for educators who are interested in podcasting with students. KidCast: Podcasting in the Classroom is by fellow Nebraskan Dan Schmit. According to the publisher, KidCast will get you and your students started with easy to follow directions to help you:

• Learn the basics of finding and listening to podcasts on the Internet.
• Organize your own podcast show.
• Find low-cost easy to use audio recording and mixing software.
• Create RSS feeds to allow others to subscribe to your show.
• Promote your podcast to build your listener base.

In addition, Dan has a companion podcast for the book. Click here to subscribe in iTunes.

There's another book from Dan Schmit that can help with podcasting. GarageBand Mechanics helps teachers use Apple's GarageBand by offering how-tos, tips, and curriculum centered projects for learning and implementing GarageBand in their classrooms. Have a look at a PDF excerpt from the book.

Dale Ehrhart, education student extraordinaire, has fashioned his own "handheld cam" and is kind enough to share photos of it with us. Dale needed to show his handheld's screen for a class he is taking and he doesn't have access to a manufactured document camera. He created the solution you see pictured below. He used a milk crate, a stick, a plastic bowl, and some screws to make a contraption where he can position his camcorder above a handheld. The camcorder then outputs to a television. Pretty creative, I must say!

Dale says his wife had many glowing comments, including:

• "Did you put a hole in one of my plastic bowls?"
• "You're going to drag that thing around school?"
• "You're such a dork!"

I won't tell Dale's wife that if he has access to a Windows machine, he can use software like PDAReach or TapSmart HandShare free for 14 days and there's no hardware to buy. Using the handheld's USB cable, you connect your handheld and computer. The Palm's screen appears on the Windows computer's screen. Since what's on your handheld is also on the computer's screen, it can be projected just like you would a PowerPoint slide show. Unfortunately, neither of these solutions are Mac compatible.

Click a photo for a larger version. Notice Dropairs on the screen in the first photo? Dale has created several Pair Boards for Dropairs.

I had a great time at the 5th Annual Handheld Computers in Education Conference in Holland Michigan last week. You'll hear more about this conference in the next edition of Soft Reset.

I found it ironic because I snapped the photo you see at the right on the way to the Omaha airport bound for Michigan. I took the photo because I knew that at least a couple of the handheld users at the conference would have the same thought as me when seeing a license plate that contains PDB. Not many of the 150 listeners to my presentation laughed when my freshly taken digital photo appeared on the screen. However, Palm users should be familiar with files that end with the extension .pdb, which stands for Palm DataBase. The extension associates these files with Palm Desktop, much like .doc associates files with Microsoft Word and .ppt associated files with PowerPoint. Quizzler quizzes, eBooks, and Dropairs Pair Boards are files that use the .pdb extension. Anyhow, my excitement of seeing this license plate made me realize that I am a geek. Going the extra step and taking a photo of that plate only confirmed my suspicions of geekiness. I'm pretty sure all 150 participants laughed at my realization (but I think they knew my level of geekiness the second they met me).

The conference featured 32 breakout sessions. Whether you attended the conference or not, I encourage you to check out the online handouts, many of them are PDF files. There handouts page includes links to great information like Making Your Own eBooks for palmOne Handhelds and Surfing the Web on a Handheld from Mike Curtis, Using a Handheld as Part of Your Assistive Technology Toolkit from Gayle Minnick-Underwood, Free Must-Have Palm OS Handheld Applications for the Classroom by Christine Tomasino, and much more!

The December Issue of PC World magazine contains the article Solid $500 Laptops. The magazine reviews three bargain laptops from major manufacturers. Although the laptops in the article are inexpensive, the average selling price for a laptop in August of this year was $1,100 (a few more times the cost of a single handheld). However, the average cost of laptops has been declining rapidly. In fact, because of low prices, laptops now outsell desktops! PC World notes that prices will continue to drop:

The cheapest notebooks could sink to the $400 range by the end of this year and may even drop as low as $300 by late 2006, according to various computer vendors, chip experts, and PC industry observers. In fact, as we went to press CompUSA was selling a Compaq laptop for $425 after $300 in various rebates.

"It used to be notebooks would sell for close to $600 only as a stunt," says Mark Margevicius, an analyst with Gartner Research. But now some laptops have sold for that price consistently, he says.

So my question for you is: Why buy handhelds for students when you can get a laptop for close to the same price? Please click the orange link below that reads Wednesday, November 02, 2005. Let's outline reasons why handheld computers are appropriate for education, knowing laptops are now on the cheap.

There are hundreds of us who read this blog regularly, so even if you've never left a comment before, let's have as many blog readers as possible join the discussion through commenting! You can even leave comments anonymously. And who knows, perhaps we'll read your comment on a future Soft Reset podcast!

Here some additions to the Web you may want to check out!

Brian Schau has posted a page of MathAce testimonials from students in grades six through eight. There are some great comments, like this one from Melody:

I love the new MathAce. My grade has improved so much. I like it because it helps me alot. I know you have put so much time into this program, and I would like to think you for that. I have improved so much. I went from 61/65 now its 96/96. Knowing that you probably put a lot of time to make this for a bunch of kids is very cool, and I love this program.

MathAce is freeware for Palm handhelds that helps students practice their addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts. Download it here.

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Western Illinois University is publishing Mobile Learning News. The November issue is online and is dedicated to me. Cool, huh? I answered some interview questions and you can read my responses in the issue. There's also plenty of links to handheld computing and other emerging technologies. I look forward to the future issues of Mobile Learning News that will feature handhelds in various curriculum areas.

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TechLearning posted the article PALMing Your Way Through the Educational Maze. Marty Mayer and Dina Mayne suggest that handhelds are a viable way to successfully negotiate many of the responsibilities of teachers. In fact, they have developed the catchy acronym for what handhelds can be used for: Professional development, Administrative tasks, Lessons, and Managing the classroom–PALM! Marty and Dina then explain the relationship of handheld computing and each of these areas. The Managing the Classroom section has a concise listing of some of the possibilities when students have handhelds and the Lessons section has links to some useful resources. (Notably absent from the Professional Development section is listening to podcasts and reading blogs.) To summarize the authors' thoughts, here's a quote that many handheld-using educators have found to be true:

A handheld device can minimize those tedious tasks that erode so many possible teachable moments and can maximize collaboration and cooperation between teacher and students as well as among students.