The Mid-Atlantic Handheld Conference (MAHC for short) was a big success! I presented the morning keynote presentation to nearly 200 educators. There were 24 breakout sessions. You might have already read about my Tiny Spreadsheets session. I wasn't able to blog much of the conference since I was presenting myself, but Brian C. Smith from New York has blogged about the conference and the preconference. Check out his posts:

• Mid Atlantic Handheld Conference
• Emerging from the Hand
• Supporting K-12 Learning Using Handhelds
• Creative, Cool, & Crazy
• From Zero to Handhelds

Brian C. Smith presented his own session about AudioBay. It's software for Windows Mobile that lets you find, subscribe, listen, and create podcasts on one device: a Pocket PC! Brian has a wiki page that explains the AudioBay software. The beauty is that you don't need iTunes or knowledge of RSS to consume and produce podcasts.

The final session I participated was a panel discussion with Mike Curtis, Karen Fasimpaur (from K12Handhelds), Steve Garner (from Seaford Schools), and me. Here are a few notes from that discussion:

• Is the Palm Operating System going to go away since the Palm company is making handhelds that also run Windows Mobile? With over 30,000 different Palm applications out there, there will be a way to run those programs for a long time. The Palm company says it will sell handhelds with the Palm Operating System for the foreseeable future. It is stabilizing its product line so that new models do not come out as often, which is great for education. K12 Handhelds is focuses on making content that is mostly HTML based so it can be used on any platform.
• Unfortunately, many educators in the audience gave poor reviews of the TriBeam charging station. They claim the handhelds do not keep their charge and that the unit doesn't fit devices correctly or function properly.
• Mike suggested taking an AV cart and rigging it for charging. He suggests putting a shower curtain around it to hide the cord mess from picky administrators (and fire marshals).
• A teacher expressed disappointment with Documents To Go because her gifted students could not graph directly on the handheld.
• Documents To Go settings can be configured to have files go to a different location for each user. This can even work with students' network folders for access on any of the school's networked computers.
• The huge benefit of wireless handhelds is not really surfing the net, but accessing networks for students to access and to hand in assignments. Grant Street Software's HiHo-Network Edition is an example of how this would work.
• Mike explained Bluetooth like getting married, but, unlike American marriages, you can marry up to seven devices at once. Before any communication can happen, they must be paired by sharing a password. Participants learned that their phones and handhelds can communicate through Bluetooth. If you have a data plan for your wireless phone, you may be able to access the internet. You can also send address book contacts from your handheld to your phone.
• Steve and Karen suggested that if your are writing a grant, write to include a third party data collector because it's such a hard job. It's important to note that showing growth takes of the schools in Steve's school did not see sizable increases in achievement until the fourth year.

Several MAHC participants spoke into my handheld's microphone and shared what they learned at the conference. Mike and I will have lots of audio from this conference to share on a future episode of Soft Reset!

Labels: palm, pocket pc

Spreadsheets are powerful tools! In fact, spreadsheets became a "killer application" in the 1980s because they were so useful that people were finally willing to buy the computers to run them on. With computerization, spreadsheets are no longer just ledgers to track money; they can be used for all kinds of exciting things! Microsoft Excel is number one spreadsheet application for desktop computers. On Palm OS computers, there's Sheets To Go (part of Dataviz's Documents To Go). On Pocket PC computers there's Excel Mobile (or, on older handhelds, Pocket Excel). Note that you must upgrade to the premium version of Documents To Go to make graphs on the handheld. Excel Mobile has free graphing abilities while Pocket Excel does not. However, even without graphing, there are great uses for spreadsheets.

And why use spreadsheets with students?

• Organize and visualize data.
• Spreadsheets are completely programmable.
• More realistic problem-solving.
• Focus on results and implications rather than calculations.
• Engage & motivate students.

I presented at SuccessLink's Handheld Conference and at the Mid-Atlantic Handheld Conference the session "Tiny Spreadsheets = Great Learning Tools." In these sessions, I shared all kinds of examples of spreadsheets that work well on handheld computers. In fact, I presented three basic kinds of spreadsheets: charts, calculations, and self-checking.

Chart spreadsheets organize information into chart form. Some examples include charting answers to survey questions, tracking the altitude and direction of the sun, organizing colors of candies, and displaying the relationship between circumference and diameter. Of course, some charts will include simple calculations.

Spreadsheets that perform calculations, simple or complex, can be useful tools for students. What works out great is when students make their own spreadsheets and then use them to try different calculations. For example, after making a spreadsheet to calculate the area of a rectangle, see what happens when you double the length and the width of a rectangle. A fun spreadsheet to create and use is finding the cost of pizza per square inch. Spreadsheets that calculate surface area can really save students time crunching numbers because of the amount of multiplication and adding that's involved. And, although there are plenty of computer programs out there to do this for you, try having students create a spreadsheet to calculate age and weight on other planets.

Kinds of spreadsheet many folks don't know about are self-checking sheets. This is a spreadsheet where a clue is given and then a word is entered in the cell next to the clue. The spreadsheet indicates if the clue is correct or not. This is done by using "if" statements in the cells that display if the answer is right or wrong. The answers are actually hidden in a column so that students can't see them while they practice. In these kinds of spreadsheets, spelling is important. In fact, I shared an example of a self-checking sheet for homophones. I also have a self-checking sheet for answering math problems that follow the order of operations (remember, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally). I also made a blank self-checking sheet so that it's easy to fill in weekly spelling words, different math problems, or vocabulary words into a new self-checking sheet.

You can download the spreadsheets from my presentations in Excel form or in a form ready to be installed into Documents To Go. You can learn more about great ways to use Excel at The ABC's to Excel site. Most of the creative uses for Excel can be transferred to Sheets To Go and Excel Mobile. I bet you never thought that tiny spreadsheets could be used in so many ways!

Labels: palm, pocket pc

Janis Davis and Connie LaRue, fromOlathe District Schools in Missouri, presented "Crazy Little Things Called Palms" at the SuccessLink Handheld Conference. Olathe has been using handhelds for five years and now has 5,000 Palm handheld in their district and they are more than willing to share the resources they developed. They use handhelds in all grade levels, but their 1:1 implementations are all in high school. The resources are listed on this site: www.olatheschools.com/palm. Here's the description of the session:

Learn how to navigate our website to quickly download fully-functioning software, hardware installation guides, instructional software videos, and basic handheld tutorials. Gain access to our secure video site that shows step-by-step Palm repairs. Participate as we format several types of media for use with the free TCPMP player. Come away with so much knowledge that you can't wait for the school to start!

Here are some highlights from the 90 minute session:

• Olathe replaces handhelds every three years.
• Check out the Guide to 100+ Free Handheld Software Applications.
• They upgraded to Documents To Go Premium because it has spell check. More advantages of upgrading to premium is that you can open native PDF files and graph data. Dataviz gives a deal for large purchases.
• They used the method of "disappearing ink" to make a document with questions and answers. Then make the answer color white. When you want to see the answer, then highlight where the white answer is and you can see the answer through the highlighting. Here's an example in Word from Olathe students.
• Janis demonstrated how to view comments from Excel in Sheets To Go. Unfortunately, you can't add comments in Sheets To Go, you need to do it on the desktop and then sync it over. Then the comments can be used like flashcards: information pops up when you tap the little red dot in the corner of a cell.
• Here's a 5 minute 12 second video on using eReader Pro. With the extra pro options, perhaps the money to upgrade from free eReader to eReader Pro is worth it.
• QuizWiz is free software that works similar to Quizzler. It doesn't have nearly as many options as Quizzler. Also, when the user taps the wrong answer, QuizWiz displays the correct answer immediately in a pop up window. I like how Quizzler forces the user tap the right answer before moving on.
• Olathe has put together a slide show with what they consider essential hardware. Carrycasesplus.com can make Palm carrying cases with foam for about $40 each!
• Olathe has a series of videos with directions for repairing Palm handhelds, including replacing digitizers and batteries. The page is password protected so that students do not attempt these repairs. Janis invites you to contact her for the password.
• The TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player) is a free audio and video player for Palm and Pocket PC. Olathe has a guide for using the player and for converting videos into a format for TCPMP.

Labels: palm

It's the fourth annual SuccessLink Handheld Conference in Osage Beach, Missouri. We're at the Tan Tar A resort and everyone is excited for two days worth of learning, sharing, and networking. Stacey Franks opened the conference with a video by Stan Smith from Warrensburg, Missouri. The video was about a middle school student and her day using her handheld in each class. Stacey also explained to participants that there is a blog for the conference, where the presenters can post thoughts, reflections, notes, and documents. Conference-goers are encourages to leave comments on the posts.

Mark Yehle answered the question, "What is SuccessLink?" SuccessLink is funded by a grants from the Missouri Department of Education. Their job is to find best practices and disseminate them to teachers and schools. Their website has 2,500 lesson plans and has had over 10,000,000 hits on the site. SuccessLink knows that handhelds are great for students and wants to help Missouri students tap the power of handheld computing. I wish more states had an agency like SuccessLink

Elliot Soloway and Cathie Norris took the stage and they have over 90 minutes to present their keynote presentation. That gives them time to talk and answer questions. Oftentimes keynote speeches are under 60 minutes, so it's nice to be able to have the time give their message justice.

I've blogged about Elliot and Cathie's message before on June 28, 2006, February 5, 2006, July 21, 2005 , and June 29, 2005. So instead of recapping what I've already written, I'm including some tidbits of Elliot-and-Cathie-goodness that were new or interesting to me:

• "It's inevitable that all computing will be mobile." That's a quote from 1991 by Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm Pilot.
• A former student of Elliot's works for Apple and invented the iPod. The former student actually worked on handheld software for the University of Michigan. He was always interested in mobile computing. Of course, because of politics at Apple, the former student (who Elliot says is still a "kid") doesn't get formal credit for his work on iPod and iTunes.
• Although it's called a laptop, the technical specs for MIT's $100 laptop is much more like a handheld than a modern notebook computer.
• Turning Technologies offers software (called vPad) to turn desktop, latptop, and Pocket PCs into student response clicking devices. This way you don't need to buy clicker hardware; educators can use the handhelds they already have.
• It's much more powerful for students to make their own multimedia instead of simply viewing the media.
• Cathie calls it "Animate and Annotate" when students explain what they are doing in an animation, like in this long division Sketchy animation. Not only is the math problem being solved, but the student is actually giving insight into her thinking. Jemey Roschelle from SRI calls the creative uses like this "So Simple, So Powerful." The software isn't overly complicated, but the learning is very evident.
• According to research from Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow, it takes 3 to 5 years for teachers to integrate desktops and laptops into daily instnruction. Cathie and company are finding it takes half that time to integrate handhelds. Cathie explains that schools are buying handhelds with less functionality than laptops, but they are using 90% of the handheld's functionarity (instead of 10% of a laptop's functionality).

The conference features all hands-on breakout sessions that are 90 minutes each. I'm looking forward to presenting about quizzing software, spelling test preparation, podcasting, and spreadsheets. There are over 200 educators attending over 25 breakout sessions. I'll be interviewing participants for Soft Reset about what they have taken away from this year's SuccessLink Handheld Computer Conference over these two days.

Labels: palm, pocket pc

While all Pocket PCs have built-in microphones, most Palm handhelds do not. Handhelds like the Palm TX have had no way of recording audio. Now these handhelds can make and store recordings with the Multiconnector Microphone Module from Tech Center Labs. This $15 microphone attachment hooks to the bottom of a TX handheld. Tech Center Labs is not a large company, but has great customer service. In fact, it seems to be a true mom and pop operation from a married couple's home in Arizona.

I received my module a couple of days ago. The module did not come with any documentation, but it doesn't really need any. I simply attached the module to the bottom of my handheld. I loaded the freeware SoundRec and no configuration or drivers were necessary. Though, I did need to soft reset my TX before everything began working properly.

Why do you want a handheld to have a microphone? Well, to record voice, for one thing. Those recordings (usually WAV files) can be imported into iTunes, GarageBand, Audacity, and other audio programs to be turned into a podcast. SoundRec will get the job of recording done. But, if you want more features like the ability to beam sound files, string recordings together, and add notes, there's the $25 Personal Audio Recorder Pro software. Another use for a microphone is to use speech recognition software and internet telephones. Heck, if you have two Wi-Fi enabled Palm handhelds, you can turn them into walkie-talkies with the newly released software WifiTalkie.

Want to hear how the recording sounds? Click here to listen to a recording (6 MB) I made using my new Multiconnector Microphone Module and the SoundRec application. It's me reading this blog post at 22 kHz quality. I saved the audio to an SD card and used a card reader to get the WAV file onto my desktop computer to place on the web.

On the subject of voice recording, one really cool student activity is audio flash cards. This works by students recording a clue. For instance, a student might record, "Patriot hero who was captured and executed by the British." Then the student renames the sound file "Nathan Hale." Students can make several different recordings and use them as flash cards. So, a student looks at the sound file name "Nathan Hale" and tries to think what clue is associated with that name. When the student thinks he knows, he plays the sound file to check his answer. The audio can really help students remember whatever they've associated with the title of the sound file. In fact, it's really fun to have various classmates record the clues using memorable or silly voices.

What ideas do you have about audio recording in the classroom? Please share by leaving a comment!

Labels: palm

Palm's July 17, 2006 press release, Kansas School District Purchases 2,300 Palm TX Handhelds, is about Olathe Unified School District's purchase of 2,300 Palm TX handhelds. The district took advantage of Palm's Education Purchase Program to receive nearly 300 free TXs.

Olathe students have been using handhelds for a few years. I think the use of handheld computing in the school district continues to grow because teachers are given proper professional development and have others in the building to help:

Lyon acknowledges that access alone is not enough, so the district has an aggressive staff development program in place. "Staff development is critical to the success of the program," she said. "Each teacher has 15 hours of training on handhelds and how to use them effectively in classroom instruction. They can also repeat the training. In addition, we have instructional technology resource teachers in each building on a daily basis to assist teachers, model lessons, find applications and troubleshoot. Our goal is to have 100 percent of the staff well prepared."

Read more about Olathe schools and what they are doing with handhelds: Success Story: Olathe District Schools Handhelds Go To School Growing Up Connected Handhelds Benefits Come with Costs

It's interesting when non-educators respond to news stories about large purchases of handhelds by schools. Many are supportive, knowing that our students deserve modern learning tools. However, there always seems to be those that are completely against handhelds in schools because they think it would make cheating easier. Many are also afraid the computers will be lost or stolen. Read the comments at the end of these articles from Palm InfoCenter and Digital Trends to see what I mean. I added this comment to the Digital Trends article:

Actually, this is a fantastic idea! Schools around the country are using handhelds (Palm and Pocket PC) as a learning tool. Not only great for word processing (with a keyboard), but there are dozens of great (and many of them are free) software programs for teachers and students. There is even scientifically based research showing that students using handhelds are learning better: http://goknow.com/sbr/

Schools are not finding lost or stolen handhelds to be a problem. Students really do take care of their handhelds because they are very personal learning devices. And, as for cheating, good classroom management can curb that. Plus, handhelds are not usually allowed to be out during tests, so it's not a big concern.

Ian Bell, staff writer for Digital Trends News, wrote about Olathe's purchase in Kansas Schools Order Another 2,300 Palms. While the article is mostly quotes from Palm's press release, Ian ends the article with some of his own commentary: "Now we just need to convince the school administration that iPods are needed in the classroom and we will be all set." Argh! If the school district has 4,600 handheld computers, why do they also need iPods? Just buy $20 memory cards and the students can listen to audio and watch video on their handhelds.

Labels: palm

Although thousands educators no longer inhabit the San Diego Convention Center, the National Educational Computing Conference continues online. Dozens of bloggers have and continue to blog about the annual conference. I've been keeping up on blogs from NECC by subscribing to this Technorati tag search for "NECC". There were several session about handheld computing that I didn't get a chance to attend, but others did blog about them. Here is a rundown of some of the blog posts:

Handheld acceleration in Missouri!
from eLearning Blog
Julie Lindsay from Bangladesh attended a session by Mark Yehle and Stacey Franks from SuccessLink in Missouri. SuccessLink is a state-wide agency that finds best practices and resources and disseminates them to educators. They see great power in handhelds and have spread handheld computing across the state. Mark and Stacey admit that web browsing on a handheld is quite limited. Julie write about some of the handheld computing activities that were shared.

NECC 2006: Ubiquitous Computing Session
from Ubiquitous Thoughts
Mark van 't Hooft from Ohio took detailed notes during this session about everyone, everywhere computing.

NECC 2006 - Day 2a
from The EdTech Advantage
Rolly Maiquez from Guam blogged the session “Playing the Part: Using Handhelds in Participatory Simulations” presented by Betsy Frederick. Rolly tells about the virus simulation from MIT. Everyone participated using a Palm handheld.

Live Blogging: I Learn, therefore, iPod
from The TechSavvy Teacher
Jason from Montana reviewed a session about using video iPods with middle school students. Besides doing the typical stuff with iPods (audio, video, podcasting, and photos), they used Zelek Software's iPod Flash Cards software. It sounds like the project took all of its cues from best instructional practices.

iLearn, Therefore iPod
from Bethany's Education Blog
Bethany from North Carolina also wrote about the same session Jason attended. She clarifies that the iPod Flash Card software from Zelek works with either Mac or Windows. The presenters loaded iPods with audio and video to build students' background knowledge before reading Diary of Anne Frank. Bethany also lists the 8 Rules of Effective Podcasting by Kirk McElhearn. I couldn't agree more with Bethany about her thoughts on Rule #8.

NECC: iPodagogy
from Pondering
iPodagogy is the study of teaching methods using iPods. Two teachers and five students from Edinburgh, Scotland presented a session and shared their findings.

iPod Ideas
from The Savvy Technologist
An extensive list of ideas generated during a workshop about iPods, iTunes, and podcasting by Tim Wilson from Minnesota.

Tags: necc06 necc

Labels: ipod

It's 10 AM and I'm attending the NECC session Developing Learning Applications for PDAs and iPods. Kitty Salinas tells us about a grant to the Alliance for Distance Education called MATRIX, Middle School Achievement Through Technology-Rich Interventions. Besides Kitty, Alan Amundsen, Mike Lawrence, Amy Murphy, Ed Hill, and Gail Tiemann are presenting. People are mobbing their booth to learn how iPods can help middle schoolers with math. Mike Lawrence says that he has always thought the iPod has so much more potential than for just listening to music.

The MATRIX project is developing a curriculum, resources, and applications that will be tested in the fall. They will be using Palms is Ohio, Pocket PCs in Kansas, and iPods in New Mexico and California. The students are from a remedial environment and below proficient academically. The MATRIX project is making lessons that are suitable for supplemental education services under No Child Left Behind.

In Ohio Ed Hill's project is using Palm Zire 72s and TXs. They are focused on value-added use of technology. He explains that they are investigating the motivation factor that they can't get with paper and pencil. Ed notes that Electronic Mobile Technology (EMT) has these features and benefits:

• Mobility (Wi-Fi, multimedia capture, beaming)
• Standard applications (MS Office)
• Input/output of content & information
• Control of learning in student's hands
• Tool for authentic performance/assessment

In Kansas, they are making games for Pocket PC to help students master math vocabulary. They are planning for professional development to help teachers use what they are developing. Their games are based on what you can find on 4kids.org. The products will be available there. It sounds like they are planning some interactive, engaging games.

Kitty notes that iPods have limitations compared to PDAs. Alan Amundsen talks about developing for iPods. They chose iPods because students ask for iPods for Christmas, so they decided to take that and make it fit to their goals to improve math skills. The problem with iPods are that they are a one-way delivery method. They start with the math concepts and then figure out how to get the technology to fit it. The lessons for iPods will include:

• Number Lines
• Ratios
• Proportions and scale changes
• Percents as special proportions
• Rates and ratios

It sounds like there will be video episodes with interactivity. I'm really curious to see how this will work in the real world on a real iPod--how do you make content on an iPod interactive? The lessons for the last 10-20 days of MATRIX's curriculum include

• Introduction to Ratios "The Eye of Power"
• Part:Part and Part:Whole
• Equivalent Ratios
• Scale Changes (including map reading)

Ok, they explained how to they are going to make the videos interactive. Once a student finish a video and answer questions correctly, he or she is given a code. The student will use this code to play the next video on the iPod. This means the videos all have coded titles in the playlists on the iPods. I guess students could just play any video, but then they wouldn't be played in the correct order.

The presenters showed "Intro to Ratios Episode 1.1: The Eye of Power." It was a very entertaining video! It had a great plot and has a math mystery at the end. Then they are told to proceed to the computer to answer the question and solve the mystery. It's shame that students cannot answer the question on the iPod [but that could be done on a Palm or Pocket PC and those same devices could play the video! Why bother with the iPods is what I'm thinking]. After answering the question on the computer, a student is given the coded titled of the next video to play. As part of the lesson, students will keep a blog/math journal and will participate in online chats. The MATRIX project's vision is to make the iPod portion interactive, like Choose Your Own Adventure books, using hyper linking. Currently, that's either not possible or very difficult to do on iPods [but I know that is very doable on Palm and Pocket PC devices].

Those involved in MAXTRIX are furiously writing for the videos, handheld games, and other software. This five-year project, is indeed a work in progress at this point. This presentation didn't have any solid, complete examples of that they are trying to do. However, I think what they are developing looks promising and I hope it will be freely available for others to use.

A PDF of the slide show for this session can be found here. The session concluded at 11 am.

Tags: necc06 necc

Labels: ipod

I came in late to Debbie Lyles' NECC presentation, Beaming Across the Curriculum. You might know Debbie from her Palms for Patriots blog. She also has resources on her Palms for Patriots website. Although I missed her introduction, I really like how Debbie is showing what her high school students have done in combination with handhelds. She shared how using handhelds are integrated with Word and PowerPoint projects on desktop computers. She shared how the students' Zire 72s were used to track stocks, make blogs, produce videos, and record and listen to podcasts. Blending handheld computing with desktop computing is incredibly powerful.

Debbie also mentioned that her students used these Palm programs: eReader, Angles, Dropairs, MyCheckbook, Superlist, Quizzler, and Sketchy.

Debbie shares a valuable piece of advice: when you don't understand how to use an application, just ask! She had a hard time figuring out how to use MIT's Participating Simulations, so she emailed a question to them. Within 30 minutes she checked her email and the answer to her question was in her inbox waiting for her!

The session ended at 12:15 Pacific Time.

Tags: necc06 necc

Labels: palm

Through Bloglines, I've subscribed to photos tagged NECC in the photo-sharing service Flickr. Flickr user prof_derekeb is at NECC and posted a photo of the poster below...

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Labels: palm, pocket pc

I walked into Hal Davidson's NECC session titled The MegaVCR: Media in Your Pocket. He had an iPod hooked up to the projector and he was already playing clips. The clips are VCR quality and would look fine on a television screen, not so pristine on a computer screen or projector (but still very useable). He demonstrated playing and pausing video, just like a VCR. Over 4,000 United Streaming video clips fit on a 30 GB iPod. (that's 250 of hours of video--not that you'd want to really have that many). The videos can be organized in playlists. Videos, PowerPoints, Flash, Music, Photos, and Animated GIFs will work on an iPod.

To connect an iPod to a TV you need a special cord ($19 from Apple). If your television if old, you may need to connect the red, yellow, and white cords into a VCR connected to a TV.

Hal then showed a PowerPoint with video playing of the iPod. Hal recommends that you get QuickTime Pro ($30) if you want to edit video clips--you can just highlight portions and delete. QuickTime Pro also lets you download movies from the web to your hard drive more easily.

When you download videos on the web to put on your iPod, you need to download as a file QuickTime can open. Remember, QuickTime works on Windows, not just Mac, and there is a free version. If it runs in QuickTime, you can get it to run on the iPod. To do that, launch iTunes and choose File > Import. iTunes will suck the video in. Once it's in the Library, it won't necessary go onto an iPod. Right click (or Control-Click) the video and choose "Convert Selection for iPod" from the pop-up menu. Hal says that sometimes this doesn't work, but tends to work 90% of the time. Then in your Library you'll have two versions with the same name. Drag the version that is in mv4 into an iTunes playlist (choose File > Get Info to see which one is which) for transfer to an iPod. Sync your 'pod and it should be ready for viewing on the device.

Hal showed how to convert a PowerPoint to view on an iPod. First, in PowerPoint, choose "Save As" and select JPEG. Choose a location in a folder on the desktop. Then in QuickTime, choose File > Open Image Sequence.. Open the first JPEG and then it will ask you how long you want each slide to appear on screen. It will turn this into a video you can import into iTunes for playback on iPods. With QuickTime Pro you can paste a video inside the already-converted movie. However, if you are a Mac user, you can just go to File > Make Movie... Doing this will play embedded videos for these lucky Mac users. This option isn't in PowerPoint for Windows. Remember to follow the steps in my fourth paragraph above for playback on iPods.

Hal's PowerPoint will be posted on this website: www.haldavidson.net. I'm disappointed that the session focused on iPods with no mention of other players like Palm or Windows Mobile handhelds. I will tell you that TCPMP is a free player that can play most all formats on a Palm or Pocket PC from an SD card--no need to covert the video like you do for the iPod. In addition to other devices, I would have also liked to learn sources with free videos for education (but there was barely time to cover getting video on iPods).

The session began at 2:00 and ended at 3:00 Pacific Time.

Tags: necc06 necc

Labels: ipod

Just in time for NECC, GoKnow Learning released scientifically-based research that demonstrates handheld computer use in K-12 classrooms leads to student achievement gains. The research will help schools nationwide secure funding for handheld computing!

Two research studies were conducted by the University of Michigan. One looked at simple recall of math facts in two third grade classrooms. The University of Michigan developed a game called Skills Arena for GameBoy where students practice basic math facts. One class used the handheld games while the other used flashcards. And the results?

• In the five-week instruction with the handheld, the handheld game group (HG) outperformed the flash card group (CG). The HG students performed 7 percent better than those of the CG group on the gain scores from pre-test to post-test.
• In the five-week instruction, the low-achieving students using the handheld performed 11 percent better than the flash card group. Thus, Skills Arena helped the low-achieving students; Skills Arena was a way for low-achieving students to succeed just like the high-achieving students.

The other study looked at science concepts and procedures in a two year study in three seventh grade classrooms in Detroit. The study looked at three different science units. The study had some students using handhelds with GoKnow's Handheld Learning Environment while others did not. However, the tasks were the same. For instance, handheld users would make a concept map in PiCoMap while the non-using class would make the map on paper. [Dr. Elliot Soloway talked about this research last week at the Lexington Handheld Computer Conference.] The results:

• In the first year of using handheld devices, the handheld groups performed 2 percent better than the paper and pencil groups did in combing all gains (%) of three units.
• In the second year of using handheld devices, the handheld groups performed 13 percent better than the paper and pencil groups did in the combined gain score (%) of three units.

If you are trying to convince someone to fund getting handhelds in the hands of your students, be sure to cite this research. In fact, GoKnow has one-page snapshots about each of these studies. While you're at it, read GoKnow's research results announcement.

Tags: necc06 necc

Labels: palm, pocket pc, research

I had the privilege of being part of panel with some great edtech thinkers: John Hendron, Thor Prichard, Will Richardson, and David Warlick. The focus of the panel discussion was "Web 2.0", which is a term to describe the next generation of services on the web. These services include blogs, podcasts, social bookmarks, online applications, and many more webby tools.

The panel discussion was part of the Special Interest Group for Technology Coordinators' (SIGTC) Member Breakfast. The notes for the discussion can be found on this wiki page. David Warlick, while sitting on the panel, live blogged the event. Or, if you have 58 minutes, you could listen to the MP3 recording of the panel discussion.

For more of what you are missing at this year's National Education Computing Conference , click here for up-to-the-minute blog posts and photos. It's all arranged in reverse chronological order and represents content from many different people and blogs--all aggregated in one place. How's that for "Web 2.0" for ya?

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Labels: blogging

Why Does Technology Work in Some Districts and Not Others? I had that same question, so I attended a session at NECC with that very title. Presenting is Cheryl Lemke, CEO of the Metiri Group, a consulting firm dedicated to advancing effective uses of technology in schools.

Cheryl says that districts should have a shared vision of 21st Century Learning. What is it that you are really trying to accomplish in your school? Instead of actually developing a technology plan, develop a vision statement about digital learning. Teachers at my school, Willowdale Elementary, have done this and the entire staff is on board with Willowdale's vision.

Cheryl lists 21st Century Skills:

• Digital-Age Literacy
• Inventive Thinking
• Effective Communication
• High Productivity

You've probably heard those people that say there is no research to say that technology does not improve achievement. Not so. The Metiri Group has research listed on what works, what's promising, and what they cannot recommend.

Research suggests that teachers who assign intellectually interesting work have students who make more grains in achievement. What does it mean to have intellectually stimulating work? There's relevance beyond the school day. Also, there's deep inquiry involved. The third is knowledge construction.

It takes a teacher 25 times before they put something into real practice in their classrooms. That takes a lot of leadership and professional development time!

One type of use of technology doesn't make for great integration. Technology should be used for a variety of tasks, simple to complex, and for a range of activities from drill/skill to constructivist.

Unfortunately, Cheryl does not yet have the web page for this presentation online. It will appear on the right side of this page.

Cheryl presented lots of tips and some real-world examples. She also shared some research collection that was over my head. I do think the question of why does technology work in some places and not others is an important one that everyone should consider. I wish I was able to take the ideas shared in this session and distill them into something easy for my blog readers to digest, but there were a lot of ideas coming at me. But, I'm left with something I already knew: it's not the technology, it's how you use it that makes a difference in learning. The session began at 3:30 ended at 4:30 Pacific Time.

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