I received this email from Ric Wiltse with the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning:

As a participant in last year's 5th Annual Michigan Handheld Computers in Education conference, I know that you'd be interested in attending this year's 6th Annual conference to be held at Washtenaw ISD in Ann Arbor (MI) on November 9-11. Online registration is now available at http://www.macul.org/page.php?pid=83.

We have a great program lined up for this year's conference. Our keynote speakers are Dr. Elliot Soloway and Dr. Cathie Norris, speaking on Big Change for $mall ¢hange. Other breakout sessions will be presented by Mike Curtis, Christine Tomasino, Mark van't Hooft, Steve Best, Jason Carnes, Richard Vath, Paula Sarratt, Sue Hardin, Jane Frank, Mike Glumac, Susan Roustan, and Monique Shorr.

Topics to be covered at the conference include assessment; probeware; Palm OS aps; reading, science and social studies support, handhelds, iPods and Podcasting, and much, much more. For a complete list, link to http://www.macul.org/page.php?pid=88.

The conference schedule includes a preconference day of half day workshops on Thursday, November 9, the conference on Friday, November 10 and a special post conference for pre and inservice educators on Saturday, November 11.

Our preconference (11/9/ workshop topics include Advanced resources for the handheld, including eBooks and web-based content; Vocabulary activities for any content area, Successful grant writing for classroom technology, Data and multimedia resources for the handheld, Planning for ubiquitous technology, classroom assessment with handhelds, and Handheld computers in the social studies classroom.

Exhibits will be on Friday (11/10) and the conference is sponsored by MACUL Washtenaw ISD, as well as our corporate sponsors Apple, EasyGraphics, Edutek Midwest, Pasco, Prismworks and Qwizdom. Costs for MACUL members for the preconference workshops are $45/each, and the Friday conference is $85, including lunch. The post conference is only $25 ($10 for students). For the Thursday and Friday events, non-MACUL members pay an additional $20 for a membership that extends through next April.

It will be another outstanding Michigan Handheld Computers in Education conference that you won't want to miss. We hope to see you there! Again, to register online, link to http://www.macul.org/page.php?pid=83.

Ric Wiltse, Executive Director
Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning
http://www.macul.org

The Michigan Handheld Computer conference has been one of the best conferences for handheld computing and I highly suggest attending. In fact, the conference has been mentioned several times in this blog:

• Soft Reset #5: Michigan Conference
• Michigan Conference: License Plates, Geeks, & Handouts
• Bird of a Feather

This year's conference will be the first Michigan Handheld Computers in Education conference I have not presented at in a couple of years (please let the organizers know if you'd like to see me at next year's conference). To those who attend: I look forward to reading your blog postings from the conference!

Labels: events

There's a great article published in The Daily Times. PDAs Rise as Educational Tool by Monique Lewis (published September 24, 2007) features the use of Palm handhelds in Wicomico County school system in Salisbury, Maryland. I like these kinds of newspaper articles because they are written to get the public interested in educational handheld computing and give clear examples of how handhelds are used in classrooms.

Integration Coach Chris Cuppett is mentioned in the article and you may want to check out his book, Handheld Applications for the Classroom. Patti Weeg is also quoted in The Daily Times article. She's a technology teacher at Delmar Elementary. Her website, Palms, a HANDy Way to Learn, has lots of goodies for you to download.

Using handhelds at your school? Consider inviting the media to see what handheld computing is all about. If your article turns out as good as PDAs Rise as Educational Tool, you'll probably build more support for your program!

Labels: palm

StyleTap, Inc. issued a press release announcing the last chance to take advantage of discount pricing for the StyleTap Platform. The StyleTap platform opens up the world of applications for the Palm Operating System on your Windows Mobile Pocket PC. After downloading and installing StyleTap on your Pocket PC, it's easy to install Palm applications to your device. In fact, I can beam Palm programs from my Palm handheld to my Pocket PC (I used BeamPro to send more than one file at a time and it worked like a charm). Virtually all of the Palm programs I've installed on my Pocket PC work just fine. Keep in mind that StyleTap doesn't support syncing data between the Palm applications and your desktop computer.

You can try StyleTap for 14 days. The preview price of StyleTap is $29.95 until version 1.0 debuts in October. The press release says that the price will increase significantly at that time (but you get a free upgrade to StyleTap 1.0). Keep in mind that. bulk education orders can receive a discount.

If you are using Pocket PCs with students, I highly suggest looking into purchasing StyleTap before the price increases. One of the reasons I typically recommend Palm handhelds instead of Pocket PCs is because of all of the great software available. StyleTap is a really nice addition for Pocket PC users. (And if you are writing a grant or requesting funding for Pocket PCs, be sure to include the cost of StyleTap-it will allow you to do so much more with handhelds!)

StyleTap Launcher is like the Palm's Launcher.	MathAce on Windows Mobile.	Palm applications also appear on the Pocket PC's Programs screen.

Labels: pocket pc

Jonathan Nalder is an educator from Kilcoy, Queensland, Australia. He posted a comment on my Additions to the Blogosphere post with a link to this own blog about mobile learning, M-Learn. Built with iWeb, Jonathan has been posting to his blog since March 2006. He has a two-part post (Part 1 and Part 2) about mobile learning on the cheap and his search for the exact device for educational needs. He settled on the Palm Z22 and has been using them with students since July. Recently Jonathan posted a video overview of the Palm Z22 and its use at his school. The video also gives a quick demonstration of the NinePoll application. The video is available from the free video hosting site, YouTube.

Labels: palm

Many Palm users are familiar with the free dictionary, Noah Lite. Noah Lite has 30,000 words, but no pronunciation guide or example sentences. Noah Lite was the free version to interest you in the $20 Noah Pro. Noah Pro has definitions of 122,000 words, a colorful display, examples, synonyms, and more. Unlike Noah Lite, you can run Noah Pro from an expansion card, which is helpful since it is 5MB in size. Unfortunately, ArsLexis is no longer in business and Noah Lite is no longer available. However, they have made the full version of Noah Pro available for free! Download it here.

Noah Pro has a "Resident mode" where you can highlight a word in another application, do the command bar stroke in Graffiti, and tap the N icon in the bar. Noah Lite then launches and looks up that word. Unfortunately, I could not get this function to work properly on my Palm TX. I did, however, set Noah Pro's Startup Action preference to "clipboard" so that whenever I launch Noah Pro, it displays the word that I last copied. Pretty handy if you ask me!

In addition, ArsLexis offered a thesaurus with 48,000 words. Thesaurus is now available for free as well! It will take up about 400k of memory, either on a card or in your Palm handheld's main memory.

Noah Pro and Thesaurus come with detailed documentation so you can explore all of the features they have to offer. Be aware, that just like many complete dictionaries, words that you would never want to hear come out of children's mouths are clearly defined in Noah Pro and Thesaurus.

Pocket PC users, don't forget you can download the free Encarta Pocket Dictionary. iPod users don't have a free dictionary offering, but for $10, you can have the Merriam-Webster's Pocket Dictionary on your 'pod.

Labels: palm

K12 Handhelds is once again offering free curriculum materials. This time it's for September 18th's Constitution Day. The materials can be used on Palm and Windows Mobile handhelds as well as desktops and laptops! The materials includes:

• Constitution quiz (in Quizzler format)
• Recordings of the constitution and amendments (in MP3 format)
• Web pages about the Constitution (in Plucker/FlingIt format)
• Interactive eBooks about the making and text of the Constitution (in Mobipocket format, which downloading for Palm OS on a Mac was impossible for me-I had to do use a Windows machine to install Mobipocket)

There are lots of goodies to be had, so K12 Handhelds provides a one-page handout with ways you can use their free resources. Some of the suggested activities include:

• Have students create their own quiz about the Constitution in Quizzler. Then have them beam each other their quizzes. (This is a good way to reinforce key concepts that is fun for kids.)
• Have students use the highlighting function in MobiPocket to highlight the main ideas in the “Making of the Constitution” ebook. (To highlight text in MobiPocket, just select it and hold. Then select highlight from the pop-up menu.)
• Have students identify a current events issue that has Constitutional implications (for example, immigration or issues related to terrorism or the war in Iraq). Give them resources to research this issue (online articles, newspapers, etc.; Plucker works well for this on the handhelds). Then have them produce a final product that identifies the Constitutional issues, takes a position, and gives support for that position. The final product can be a written paper, a PowerPoint presentation, or a podcast.

It's so nice that K12 Handhelds makes these resources freely available. Thanks K12 Handhelds! I know a lot of educators will put these materials to good use!

Labels: palm, pocket pc

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of introducing handheld computing to seventh and eight graders at Bethune School in Phoenix. Bethune recently purchased Tungsten E2s for each of their seventh and eighth graders. They also have two classroom sets of handhelds for grades K-6. The challenge was that I had only 45 minutes per class to introduce handheld computing and have them use the Tungsten Es for the first time.

Before students touched the handhelds, I used my slide show comparing the E2 with the computer I had in school, the Apple IIe. It continues to amaze me that the E2 has 200 times the processing power, 256 times the RAM, a much higher resolution screen, and a much lower price tag. I also gave a quick lecture on how to treat handhelds. Like a $200 egg, the E2 should not be thrown into desks and backpacks. Always place the stylus in the silo when not in use so you don't lose it. Also, only the stylus should touch the screen; other objects can scratch the screen and your fingers will leave smudges. An important safety tip is to not leave the handheld on the corner of your desk. Someone could walk by and brush up against it. The handheld will go flying off the desk and can become damaged. The one cracked screen we've ever had at Willowdale was because a handheld was bumped off a desk by someone walking to get a Kleenex.

After convincing students that they had real computers in front of them that needed special care, it was time to turn them on. With 45 minutes, I didn't have time to teach all of the basics of the Palm OS. But I haven't been to keen to having lessons that are just how to use the handhelds. I like to teach how to use a handheld while we're using it for a real purpose. So I introduced some of the buttons and the Home/Applications Launcher. Then the students launched Angles. I demonstrated how to play and how to call up the onscreen keyboard to enter the numbers. The students really got into the game. It was a great program to start with because the math connection is immediately apparent. With time running short, I also demonstrated Divisible. There's no text entry in this application, so it's great for beginning handheld users. I found out many of the students did not know their divisibility rules. However, some really did know their stuff. We had a short contest to see who could get 20 out of 20 questions right first. That means that if a student answered a question incorrectly, he or she would have to reset their score and try again. Within two minutes, two students had completed the task! The students were really bummed when our time was up (and I was too). The students were so engaged and ready to learn anything I showed them on their new computers.

The afternoon involved a three hour workshop for Bethune's teachers. Most of them were also new to handheld computing, so it was my job again to convince them that handhelds are real computers. Then I focused a lot of our time on Quizzler, including how to make a Quizzler quiz. I also showed MathAce, SillySentences, and GoneMad!. With those example programs, I think Bethune's teachers realized the power and potential of handheld computing and are excited to use handhelds in their lessons. I also made it clear to teachers their main reason for using handhelds is not because students need to be exposed to technology. The core reason for using handheld computers is because they are an effective learning tool.

José Vega, media specialist at Bethune School in Phoenix, maintains a blog documenting Bethune's journey into educational technologies and literacies. José wrote A Day with Tony Vincent and Handhelds on August 31, 2006. He tells a little bit about my visit to Bethune and about his school's journey into handheld computing. Also keep an eye on his blog, as his school will also be podcasting!

Labels: palm, pocket pc