It time to start working on your submissions for GoKnow's Spring 2008 Students and Teacher Sketchy Contest. Sketchy is software for Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, and Nova 5000s that lets you draw directly on the screen. Drawing on multiple frames and playing them in order creates an animation. While teachers are responsible for sending in the submissions, students are encouraged to enter one Sketchy animation into one of these categories: Science, Math, Social Studies, Language Arts, or Other Curriculum. Teachers can enter and have their own category.

Even if you haven't purchased Sketchy, you can enter the contest using the 45-day free trial of the software. Sketchy is one of my favorite handheld applications ever and students absolutely love it. Be sure students examine the Past Contests Archives for examples and inspiration.

Submissions are due April 22, 2008. Good luck!

Labels: handhelds, palm, ppcket pc, sketchy, windows mobile

I've spent much of my time lately on the island of St. Thomas. The Palm handhelds we're using are a suitable educational tool for schools in the Virgin Islands because:

• Many teachers are not tech savvy. Handhelds are easy to begin integrating into the curriculum. Having a simple device is a great way to hook them into using technology.
• The schools I'm working with do not have a technician on staff. Handhelds are easy to troubleshoot. Teachers are capable of dealing with most problems with handhelds--little technical expertise is required.
• School buildings are multilevel with no ramps or elevators. Getting a cart of technology from class to class is impossible because of the stairs. A class set of handhelds can be transported in a small tub.
• School building do not have much storage space. Handheld can easily be stored in a filing cabinet.
• The buildings are not air conditioned. Handhelds have no hard drive nor heat-sensitive components. The island's heat and humidity is not a issue for handheld computers.
• Shipping broken laptops off to the mainland to be repaired can take many days and comes at a very high price. Handhelds are relatively cheap. Broken ones are just replaced with a substitute handheld.
• School building have a very limited number of power outlets. Handhelds can charge quickly. It just takes 20 minutes to get a useable charge from a handheld.
• The island encounters many electrical surges and outages. All electrical equipment is plugged into line conditioners, but electronics can still be affected. Handhelds and their chargers are inexpensive to replace.
• Theft can be a problem. Handhelds are concealable and ultra portable, helping to detour theft when transported away from school.

Handheld Computing in St. Thomas is the website for the 2007-2008 project in the Virgin Islands. It details some of the activities and projects students have been doing this school year. There's also plenty of photos so you can see the handhelds in action. The site will of course be updated as the school year progresses.

learninginhand.com/stt

Labels: handhelds, palm

I am working with two schools in USVI that have Palm handhelds for student use. Seventh graders at Moravian School are working on a St. Thomas episode of Our City Podcast. Our City is a great way to introduce podcasting. There are plenty of example episodes, the host/segment format is effective, and creation resources are available.

Before beginning preproduction on their St. Thomas episode, students are listening to existing episodes. We started with Outstanding Omaha. Not only could the seventh graders learn about the place I call home, but they could follow along and refer back to the script in eReader on their handhelds (a printable PDF format is also available). The class discussed what they learned about Omaha and what they noticed about the episode's sound, organization, and content.

Students are now in the process of listening to two of the nearly 30 episodes on their handhelds. I have 25 Multimedia Cards (cheap versions of SD cards) to which I copied random episodes of Our City Podcast. Each card is only 32MB so I could only fit three episodes per card. Nowadays you can get 1GB SD cards for pretty cheap, and 1GB can store all episodes with lots of memory to spare. I required students to choose two of the three episodes on their cards to listen to.

RealPlayer for Palm (free) is loaded on each handheld. RealPlayer can play MP3 files in the background while students work in other programs. I had students listen for certain information and type responses into a word processing document on their handhelds. I gave them a choice of answering two of these questions:

• List two things that the two cities have in common.
• List three things that are very different about the cities.
• Decide which city you would rather visit. Explain why.
• Decide which city you would like to live in. Tell why.
• Which podcaster would make a good friend for you? Tell why.

I bought 97¢ earbuds from WalMart for students to use with their handhelds. Headphones are necessary when students are listening to 30 different recordings at once. You can't beat the under $1 price tag.

The handhelds also have Plucker (free). Plucker enables you to put websites on handheld devices. I made a simple HTML document that links to the Wikipedia entries for each Our City episode. I used Plucker on my desktop to turn that into a file that can be read using Plucker (or FlingIt) on the handhelds. I do wish the school's handhelds had Wi-Fi. I could then just have students points their browsers to Wikipedia (or mobile-friendly versions like Wapedia.mobi). So, another part of the assignment for students was to find a fact about a city that was left out of that city's episode. Students also looked for any differently-reported facts between the podcast and Wikipedia. If there is a difference, it's an opportunity to explore which source is correct.

Although the students had responses to prepare as they listened, their main purpose for listening was to help them produce the very best episode possible. Analyzing other episodes is a great way to know what to do (and what now to do) in their own episode. The seventh graders are confident that they can do a great job. They are excited to educate their listeners about their island paradise. Subscribe to Our City Podcast so that you receive the St. Thomas episode when it debuts next month.

Labels: ourcity, palm, podcasting

As you know, I'm in the business of helping students learn. Most times that means training teachers in workshops. While I think workshops are valuable and necessary, I'd like to tell you about how nearly a dozen teachers in Fort Smith, Arkansas learned about integrating handhelds into their classrooms.

Tilles Elementary School was the lucky recipient of a grant to purchase Palm TX handhelds for each of their fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. I had worked with students and teachers in Fort Smith's school district before and they were kind enough to invite me back. George Lieux, Fort Smith Public Schools' Technology Academy Specialist and I worked on a plan to train teachers and students. Instead of teachers getting a subs and spending a day in a room with me, we did something different. Teachers and students learned at the same time! The first day involved other handheld-using instructors and seven 35-minute rotation sessions. Each class rotated to each instructor with their teacher to learn about care, operation, software, and rationale for their brand new Palm TX handhelds. My rotation period was all about MathAce. Others were about using keyboards, Graffiti, Memos, and beaming. All of this was preceded by an opening assembly I gave to all students to psyche them up about handheld computing (as if they needed to be any more excited).

George developed a schedule with 7 rotation sessions to orient teachers and students to the Palm TX.

The second and third days in the school expanded upon the first day's orientation with real curriculum-based activities. I did 45 minute lessons for math and language arts in each of the grades (10 different lessons in all). Teachers had subs and were able to join all of the classes I conducted. So, instead of me talking, demonstrating, or simulating lessons with teachers in a workshop, they saw it in action with Tilles' students. During their hour-long debriefing, teachers said they really liked this approach. Not only did they learn the technology, they saw it clearly integrated and they picked up essential classroom management techniques. Moreover, it was fulfilling for me. My strength is teaching kids and I enjoyed every second of it.

I did short write-ups of the ten lessons I conducted at Tilles. Additionally, you can read about the project in the short article Education Students Assist in Tilles Schools Project published in the UA Fort Smith News.

Currently I'm in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands working with two schools to integrate handheld computers. I'm taking the same approach as in Fort Smith: teaching students directly. It's great because I get to coach teachers, empower students, and continue to put into practice all that stuff I say about education and technology. And, it's so much fun!

Labels: palm, presentations, professional development

Believe it or not, more people have access to mobile devices than desktop computers. Many handhelds can access the Internet, including cell phones, Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, Nintendo DS's, and Sony PSPs.

The problem is most websites are not convenient to use on a handheld's small screen. So, many sites provide a mobile version of their content. For example, USA Today provides their current news stories in a simplified format at m.usatoday.com.

In 2006, mobile websites got their own top-level domain name: .mobi. When visiting sites like google.mobi on a mobile device, you know you're receiving content formatted for a handheld. Over half a million sites have been registered as .mobi and many more are on the way. Unfortunately, there remains a variety of ways that a website may format its mobile web address, making it difficult to locate a mobile site (if there is one). Once you find a useful mobile site, be sure to bookmark it!

I've added a section to Learning in Hand to help educators use the Mobile Web. I provide plenty of sample sites and tips for classroom use. Educators might be interested in making their own mobile site, so I've included a page with information about ways to create your own mobile homepage. Many web publishers are creating mobile versions of their sites because more and more people are accessing with web with a handheld.

Labels: mobile internet, mobile phone, palm, pocket pc, windows mobile

Micah Ovadia from Ohio has spent more than a year working on his PoducateMe Podcasting Guide. His time was well spent, as the guide is gushing with 186+ pages of information for podcasting in education. One look at the comprehensive Table of Contents and you can see why it took a year to create.

I'm always on the look out for how people define podcasting. Here's PoducateMe's definition:

A podcast is simply a collection of individual audio episodes typically recorded and edited on a computer, encoded in the MP3 file format, then uploaded to a Web server. Users of "podcatcher" software, such as Apple's iTunes, are then able to download episodes from the server to their computer and listen to the recordings on their computers or transfer them to a media player such as an iPod. Because episodes may be listened to at any time and anywhere, a popular analogy is to think of podcasts as TiVo for radio.

I noticed that video is not addressed in the definition. PoducateMe's guide includes some references to enhanced podcasts but none for video podcasts. After reading through more of the guide, you'll understand that audio podcasting can be complicated, simply because of all of the options in hardware, software, and publishing. PoducateMe often suggests alternative solutions to what I generally recommend.

I'll share one new thing I learned from browsing through PoducateMe. I've mentioned SyncTunes before, but it's worth revisiting after reading through Micah's guide. SyncTunes is free software for Macintosh that allows you to automatically sync podcasts (and other audio files) from iTunes to devices other than iPods. What about Windows users? There's BadApple, a free plug-in for the Windows version of iTunes. It's not as slick as SyncTunes, but BadApple allows Windows users to sync iTunes content to any device that mounts as a USB storage device, like Pocket PCs and memory cards.

Another way to automatically sync podcasts to non-iPod players is to skip the use of iTunes all together. myPodder is an alternative "podcatcher" that works with the online Podcast Ready service to automatically deliver podcasts to your desktop computer and portable device. There's even a version of myPodder that runs on Windows Mobile. That means your internet-enabled Pocket PC can subscribe to and receive podcasts without ever syncing to a desktop computer!

There are plenty of other useful bits of podcasting goodness in the guide. While the entire PoducateMe Podcasting Guide can be read online free of charge, it is available as a fully printable 29 MB PDF file for an educational price of $17.95. (The online version cannot be printed and the text cannot be copied.)

Labels: palm, pocket pc, podcasting, windows mobile

The winners of the 2007 Sketchy Animation Contest have been announced! GoKnow says they had over 400 amazing entries. They have posted winners from six categories: Social Studies, Science, Math, Language Arts, Other, and Teacher.

Winning animations include Sound Waves, Ecology Cycle, Nouns, Essay Parts, and Bullies and Me.

Labels: palm, pocket pc, sketchy, windows mobile

The second edition of Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators by Tony Vincent and Janet Caughlin is now available! You might be familiar with the first edition published four years ago. Edition 2 has been completely updated and has an added 50 pages. Besides taking you step-by-step through using Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, iPods, and podcasting, the book gives dozens of examples of classroom use. In fact, the vignettes with teacher lesson idea and their insights into handheld computing is my favorite chapter. There's also a chapter with school administrators telling you all about how they use handhelds to do their jobs better.

The podcasting section is an exciting new addition to the book. It takes you through finding, subscribing, and listening to podcasts in iTunes, on an iPod, a Palm handheld, and Pocket PCs. It even has a tutorial for creating and publishing a podcast using the free Audacity software.

As with all of Janet's Workshop Books, busy educators can pick up Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators and get started right away using their handheld computers. The book's CD-ROM provides useful resources for the tutorials, lesson ideas, and podcasting. There also is this website that has all of the web links mentioned in the book.

Currently Edition 2 is not yet listed on the Tom Snyder website. Call the publisher at 800-342-0236 to order the book. You also order from K12 Handhelds here.

As a shameless promotion for the book, I made a Gizmoz animation of myself telling you about it. You can make your own Gizmoz for free by uploading a photo of yourself and then supplying text or audio.

Labels: ipod, palm, pocket pc, podcasting, windows mobile

K12 Handhelds has made available several poetry curriculum resources for Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, and desktop/laptop computers.

You can download Types of Poetry and Poetry Anthology eBooks. The eBooks are in Mobipocket format and have lots of examples with linked vocabulary words. Mobipocket is a cross-platform eBook reader and you can download it for free. Windows users can even download the free Mobilpocket Creator for making your own cross-platform eBooks. [There are not versions of Mobipocket for Mac and Linux computers--but you can use a Mac to install Mobipocket to a Palm handheld.]

Also available from K12 Handhelds is a Poetry Scavenger Hunt in Microsoft Word format. You can use Palm's Documents To Go or a Pocket PC's Word Mobile to view and complete the scavenger hunt.

Another freebie is a 10-question Poetry Types Quiz in Quizzler format. Quizzler is available for Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, Macintosh, and Windows.

K12 Handhelds also points to additional resources teachers might use, including two great poetry podcasts. The podcasts are from Houghton Mifflin and School Library Journal.

Finally, K12 Handhelds offers a one-page PDF called Poetry Classroom Activities that gives simple and advanced ideas for using these resources. Activities include comparing poems, creating a poetry blog, and highlighting metaphors, similes, and other literary devices in Mobilpocket.

Thanks K12 Handhelds for making these resources freely available!

Note: Recall my tip in Soft Reset #19... If you are trying to download a file and only weird text shows up in your browser's screen, click your browser's Back button. Then right-click (Mac users can Control-click) and choose "Download Linked File" or "Save Link As..." from the context menu. The file is saved to the desktop. If the file is saved with a .txt extension, click the file name and remove the .txt. Then the downloaded file should have the correct icon and function properly.

Labels: ebooks, mobile phone, palm, pocket pc, podcast, windows mobile

GoKnow, the company that makes the Sketchy animation software for Palm handhelds and Pocket PCs (45-day free trial), has announced its fourth annual Sketchy Contest:

Do you use Sketchy in the classroom? Do you know a budding artist that uses Sketchy to convey educational concepts? We're announcing our 4th Annual Sketchy contest, and we hope you will participate. In past years we have received hundreds of Sketchys from all over the world. This year's contest will be even bigger and better!

Last year, as well as subject area categories, we introduced the new "Teacher" category for all you teachers to get in on the fun and we're glad to have it back! Prizes you ask? 1st place finishers will receive a special 1 GB iPod Shuffle. Digital Cameras are on hand for all 2nd place finishers, and 3rd place secures a new addition to our prizes: the Pocket Mind Reader! Numerous honorable mention certificates will be provided for those who have their Sketchys posted on the Web.

Please visit http://www.goknow.com/sketchycontest to view the official flyer and rules. You can also view previous winning Sketchy animations.

Please direct any questions to sketchycontest@goknow.com.
The deadline to submit entries is May 25th, 2007.

Thanks for your interest in Sketchy, and happy animating!
The GoKnow Sketchy Contest Team

Labels: palm, pocket pc, sketchy

Dean Shareski has posted a great video on his Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech blog. It's called The PA Palm Project: Students and Teachers Learning Together. The video begins with the narration:

Step through the doors of grade eight classrooms of Mrs. Dalgarno and Mr. McIntosh and you'll witness a learning environment that looks and feels different from many others.

Twenty-five eighth graders at a school in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada are equipped with Tungsten E2 handhelds and keyboards. Their original focus was writing, but students are using the computers in other subject areas as well. The video is divided into five segments: First Reactions, Making Learning Easier, Efficiency, Student Engagement, Unexpected Outcomes, and The Future.

In First Reactions, one student explains, "Like getting presents at Christmas, I felt really excited." In Making Learning Easier, the teacher explains that learning to write is much easier because of the word processor. Editing in particular is much quicker. Dalgarno explains in Efficiency that with handhelds, she is able to get through three lessons in the time it used to take her for one. Students can enter their writing much more quickly on a keyboard than by handwriting, saving lots of time. In Student Engagement an eighth-grade boy gives an example of how motivating the handhelds are:

Most kids in our class, they, like some of the people who didn't really come to school because they didn't want to, they are coming because of the technology.

An Unexpected Outcome was that communication among students increased. They are more like to share their notes from their handheld because they are digital and can be beamed or sent to others instantly. Students didn't tend to share their paper-based notes.

In The Future Mr. McIntosh says that the handhelds are a stepping stone to giving a computer with internet access to every child. [Though I say the handhelds are already computers--we live in a world where we use different kinds of computers at different times and locations for different tasks. And many handhelds already access the web wirelessly.] Mrs. Dalgarno tells the viewers that they are just at the beginning of the project. They are currently doing old things in new ways. In the future, she hopes to have students doing new things in new ways. She says they can do this once they learn more about more Palm software.

The 6 minute 32 second video is hosted on YouTube. The Prince Arthur Palm Project has its own blog if you're interested in learning more.

Labels: palm

Perhaps you checked out the video I posted yesterday. It's hosted on YouTube, the free video sharing service owned by Google. YouTube offers no way to download video as they'd prefer you to visit their website each and every time you want to view a movie. If you do manage to download the video to your desktop, YouTube videos are in Adobe Flash format (.flv), which requires special software for playback.

There is software that will download and covert YouTube videos for you. YouTube to iPod Converter is free for Windows users and PodTube is $5 for Mac users. Or, for $15 Windows or Mac users can use TubeSock. Whatever software program you use, you simply paste the web address of the YouTube video you wish to download. The software will pull the video from YouTube's site and then convert it into a friendlier format of your choosing. I prefer videos to be in MPEG-4 format because then I can play them in QuickTime, on an iPod or PSP, or in The Core Pocket Media Player (free) for Palm or Pocket PC.

If you don't want to mess with software, you can use the online service Vixy.net. Like the software options above, you paste the YouTube URL into Vixy's web page. Vixy will convert the video for you and then save it to your desktop--no software required. Don't be fooled by the option that says MPEG-4 for iPod/PSP. Even if you're viewing on a Palm, Pocket PC, or desktop computer, that's your best option. It does take a while for Vixy's servers to convert your video, but you can't beat the price and convenience.

Labels: digital video, ipod, palm, pocket pc

Clocks will be "springing forward" a few weeks earlier this year thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Starting in 2007, most of the United States and Canada will observe Daylight Savings Time from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. This poses a problem for computers, as they are expecting to adjust their clocks in April and October. Companies are putting out updates so that their operating systems will move their clocks forward and backward on the correct dates.

Palm has issued a Daylight Saving Time Updater for it's Palm OS and Windows Mobile handhelds and smartphones. In a classroom full of handhelds, I suggest syncing the DSTUpdater.prc file to one handheld. and beaming it around to all of the other handhelds. Once launched, it's a very quick install. Note: If an updated handheld is hard reset, then the DSTUpdater will need to be installed and run again. This will probably need to be done each fall after handhelds are reset for the new school year.

Microsoft has information about updating Pocket PCs with Windows Mobile here. Desktop computers may need to be updated as well. Here is information for Windows users and Macintosh users.

If you don't update your system for the new Daylight Savings Time rules, it's not the end of the world. You can always manually adjust your computer's clock. Unfortunately, that will involve adjusting your clock up to four times a year. You can manually change the time in March and November and your computer may make annoying changes in April and October (following the old rules).

Despite the confusion it causes, Daylight Saving Time is a great topic for students to explore various science and social studies concepts. Investigating Daylight is a great lesson plan from Microsoft and Daylight Savings Time from WebExhibits is a great resource for students.

Labels: palm, pocket pc, windows mobile

It's time again to list many of items that are piling up in my inbox and in my Bloglines feeds. There's a little something for everyone: Palm, Pocket PC, iPod, Mobile Phone, PSP, and podcasting users...

There's a new Google Maps application for Windows Mobile. It's also available for Palm OS. It requires an Internet connection.

Some Australian schools are using the Nova5000 with students. Read about their experiences in the NOVA5000 Australian Trials blog.

Some U.K. schools are using PSP (PlayStation Portables) in classrooms. Read about their experiences in the PSPTeachers blog. They are using the PSP's WiFi connection to deliver RSS feeds to the students. Be sure to check out their cool charging and storage cart. Click on over to this article from Popular Science to learn how to read eBooks and watch videos on a PSP.

Doug Hyde is a library-media specialist at a Wisconsin middle school. His blog, Classroom in Your Pocket, has a useful post about showing video from an iPod on a television or projector.

Karen Fasimpaur wrote about PocketPicture, a great paint program for Windows Mobile. It's free!

The Podcasts for Educators Weblog has a post titled evaluating podcasts. It links to a PDF file for evaluating podcasts for teaching and learning. In the future, the blog will be publishing an evaluation for students and young people to use. Also at the weblog, learn about podcasting through their Online Learning Studio.

Leonard Low posted his Top 10 Freeware Apps for M-Learning on his Mobile Learning blog. His suggestions focus on mobile phones and Windows Mobile devices.

Rolly Maiquez has a couple of blog posts you might want to check out: Useful Palm Handhelds and Language Arts Curriculum Integration Links and Funding Links.

Lynn Lary points to curriculum resources for a interesting lessons using MIT's free participatory simulations for Palm handhelds. Included are materials and handouts for a unit called "Future CSI" and a unit about the Big Fish-Little Fish simulation.

Those of you who are Windows, Palm, and iPod users may be interested in Palm2iPod that sends your contacts and calendar from Palm Desktop to your iPod.

Here are several new freeware applications for the Palm OS:

• SequenceM: Sequencing application for elementary classrooms.
• ClipExtend: Bypass the 1000 character clipboard limit so you can copy and paste larger amounts of text.
• HealthCalc: Calculate BMI, body fat, heart rate zones, and more.
• Pepe Palm Chat: Send text back and forth through infrared.
• Checklist by Paper Trail Software: Create and manipulate checklists.
• Dekses: Puzzle game where you follow the right number order and move the digits to their correct places.
• Target: Game where you make words out of a 3x3 grid of nine letters.
• tejpWriter: Word processor with a surprising number of features. I like that it can export to HTML. The applications is a little buggy, though.
• SimpleChart: Plot up to three columns of data.
• Subscribe to Palm Freeware's RSS feed.
• Dale Ehrhart has produced many free educational applications. Read about them on his Pre-Service Teacher blog.

And here are some freeware applications for Windows Mobile:

• Hubdog: Read news feeds and subscribe to podcasts on your Pocket PC.
• Free PDA Keyboard: Full screen keyboard for easier text entry.
• Pocket Notes: Notebook program with different pen sizes and colors.
• Subscribe to Pocket PC Freeware's RSS feed.

Labels: ipod, mobile phone, palm, pocket pc, podcasting

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is becoming more and more popular. Why? RSS allows you to subscribe to content, like news, blogs, and podcasts. As you might already know, my preferred method of reading my RSS feeds is the free Bloglines web service. I can check on updated feeds on any computer with a web browser, including my handheld and mobile phone. Bloglines senses which web browser I am using and formats itself accordingly. Check out my public subscriptions if you want to see the RSS feeds I subscribe to.

RSS is an important part of what's called Web 2.0. What's Web 2.0 all about? The amazing video, Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us, by Michael Wesch at Kansas State University, does a great job explaining the new ways the web is being used. RSS is dubbed as a way to "describe the content, not the form. So the data can be exported, free of formatting constraints." Content without form is perfect for small screens as information can be formatted in ways that work best for the tiny computer you're using.

Here's proof of RSS's significance in mobile devices: Samsung's new WiBro SPH-M8100 Smartphone (running Windows Mobile) sports a dedicated RSS button (here are some photos). The button launches an RSS reader application. I wonder if you could remap that button to launch Explorer Mobile and go to Bloglines. I also wonder if this is the first of many phones to have an RSS button.

Labels: blogging, mobile internet, palm, pocket pc, rss

Here's a new freeware math game for Palm and Windows Mobile users: ArithmeTick. The game helps student become faster at addition, subtract, multiplication, and division. Players can choose which operations will be used and the skill level. Once the game begins, it's a race to get as many problems correct as possible. Players are awarded up to 10 points for each problem depending on how quickly the problem was answered. Also, players are awarded extra time for each problem solved correctly. Challenge problems worth 50 points are offered at the end of each level. Since there is no erase button, you should know that if you enter a wrong number by mistake you can clear your current guess by tapping on the problem.

Let's see how high those scores can go! Offer this game to students and post their high scores in a comment to this post.

Download the Palm version.
Download the Windows Mobile version.

Labels: palm, pocket pc

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Labels: ipod, palm, pocket pc, soft reset

On a recent road trip, I enjoyed one of my favorite Palm games: SolarWars. The object of SolarWars is to make money by buying and selling cargo while warping around the solar system. (You might have heard of SolarWars in Soft Reset #6.) You have 60 days (that's 60 different visits to planets) to make as much money as you can.

I was very proud of myself when I achieved my highest SolarWars score yet: $442 million. I retired a millionaire! Although $442 million is a decent score, the highest recorded score on the internet I found was $4,355,154,944 near the bottom of this PalmGear page. SolarWar's documentation points to http://cronus.cnicinc.com/solarwars for a high score list. However, that site is no longer available. I searched for that address on Archive.org's Wayback Machine and found this page from April 2003 with 75 scores (all of which are higher than mine).

Players can achieve a higher score by examining the SolarWars Cargo Chart. I made an overhead transparency of this chart so that my fifth graders could refer to it when buying and selling cargo. Also, be sure to read the documentation in the Readme.htm file that is included when you download SolarWars. It gives valuable game play information and offers this strategy:

Diversify your investments. Start by visiting Earth and borrowing the maximum amount you can. Buy water, food, meds, and weapons on Mars and Earth, and sell them on Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto. Buy ore and dilithum on Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto and sell on Earth, Mars, and Jupiter.

Labels: economics, games, palm

Futurelab is a nonprofit U.K. organization committed to sharing the lessons learned from research and development in order to inform positive change to educational policy and practice. Last month Futurelab published the handbook Learning with Handheld Technologies. The 35 page PDF has implementation ideas and detailed case reports. This handheld book is useful for schools just starting to explore handheld computing and for schools who want to improve their current program. It's based on two years of research from the University of Bristol, which observed and interviewed some of the leading practitioners of handheld learning in the UK.

The second page of the handbook lists the key recommendations from the research.

• There should be an authentic purpose with clear learning goals.
• It is harder and takes more time to manage a small set of devices than it is to manage models of use where each learner "owns" their own.
• Professional development is very important. A collaborative community of practice that involves the whole school will help embed handheld technologies in the curriculum.
• Wireless internet connectivity is preferred because it makes the devices much more useful.
• Schools need to figure out long term storage of students' data as they will produce so much work it won't all fit on the devices.
• Spare handhelds should be on-hand for quick replacement of broken units.
• Teaching styles must accommodate personal ownership of learning.
• Successful projects used handhelds for accessing content and for producing projects.
• Adoption of handhelds goes smoothly when integrated with with existing technologies like interactive whiteboards, software, and data projectors.

All of the recommendations in Learning with Handheld Technologies seem to apply to all school technologies, not just handheld devices. The handbook also contains a listing of many handheld learning projects from around the globe. The projects include all kinds of devices like Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, and iPods. You can download the PDF or request a free hard copy of Futurelab's handbook.

Labels: ipod, palm, pocket pc, research

Leading Step's Grammar Games: Constructor is a new Palm application and you can download a free 15-day trial.

In game mode, students answer questions to earn puzzle pieces. The questions are completely customizable. Constructor is programmed with hundreds of sentences and students tap specified parts of speech in those sentences. Constructor allows you to specify a "Game Plan" that includes the types of questions and what kinds of sentences that will be used. Game Plans can be as simple as finding nouns in simple sentences to as complicated as identifying the kind of infinitive in sentences with predicate nominatives. The teacher can set a Game Plan on her handheld and beam it to student handhelds. Because it's so flexible, Constructor can be used in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. In addition, Constructor is set up to support up to eight users on one handheld. The users' answers are tracked and can be reviewed. Games can take some time to finish, as students may answer up to 80 questions to win up to 50 puzzle pieces. It's nice that there's always a help icon for students to tap for helpful grammar information.

Constructor retails for $14.95, but if you plan to purchase more than 10 licenses, you can contact the company to receive a bulk discount.

Labels: palm

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Labels: mobile internet, palm, pocket pc, soft reset

Kathy Schrock wrote a two-page article about eBooks in the current issue of i.e. magazine from SMART Technologies. E-Readers: Can Electronic Books Help Reluctant Readers? starts on page 10. Certainly the answer to the title of the article is a resounding yes!

Kathy mentions Dr. Terry Cavanaugh's book, The Digital Reader: Using E-books in K-12 Education. The book is full of advice and resources for teachers. It offers a list of five strategies for high school teachers to support reluctant readers. Though, these strategies can surely be used for all readers. Kathy briefly explains the strategies:

• Offer a wide range of reading materials.
• Use pre-reading techniques.
• Incorporate large-print materials.
• Engage multiple modalities.
• Teach important vocabulary.

Kathy summaries why eBooks are great for students: "The use of electronic books and the myriad of features available, can be of help to all students. The ability to access reference material while they are reading, highlight text with a virtual highlighter for note-taking and studying, and create a side note within the e-book to come back to later, are all key factors that enhance student's reading ability."

You can download the Autumn 2006 edition of i.e. magazine in PDF format. You can have a paper edition mailed to you by subscribing for free here.

Labels: ebooks, palm, pocket pc

Just as they post manuscript and cursive alphabets for student reference, many handheld-using teachers post Graffiti 2® alphabet and number references in their classrooms. I created a PDF that anyone can download, print, and cut out. Posting the Graffiti 2 strokes with the alphabet reference classroms already have is great for students. They don't have to access the help screen or fumble for handouts; it's only 60° head turn away.

The PDF I've provided only has letters and numbers. Chris Cuppett, a technology integration coach from Wicomico Schools in Maryland, has made a document with 18 more Graffiti 2 strokes, including many for punctuation and mathematics. You can download it here. Chris sent me some photos of how he posts the Graffiti strokes outside of his office. Click for larger photos. (Chris is author of the new book, Handheld Applications for the Classroom, FYI)

Labels: palm

The second day of the Handheld Learning Conference 2006 was held Friday, October 13. A full morning was planned with speakers taking the stage every 20 minutes! Thursday's sessions were mostly about policy and technology. Friday's sessions were more for educators and had examples of learning with handheld devices. Here are some notes I thought I'd share:

• Martin Ripley spoke about 21st Century Learning. Martin talked about a better definition of 21st Century Learning that not only includes books, spelling, and mental math, but also problem solving (with technology). Recently Britain's science standards have been called "more suitable for the pub than for the classroom." Britain has an assessment system not unlike the U. S.'s. Instead of "No Child Left Behind," they have "Every Child Matters." From speaking to delegates to the conference, it seems that the U.K. often follows the U.S. lead in education (and I love the word delegate to describe a conference attendee--it implies that those in attendance take what they learn back to others).
• There is one project in the U.K. that seems to be mentioned every few minutes in each presentation. It's the Learning2Go Project in Wolverhampton school that currently has 1,000 devices in the hands of students. David Whyley spoke about "The Wolverhampton Experience." The project has been a big success, especially with teachers and students. David says that teacher training is the most important part of their initiative. Wolverhampton seems to use a lot of multimedia and websites with their Pocket PCs. I've noticed many Fujutsu Siemens Pocket PCs around the conference and those are the devices that Wolverhampton students use. Wolverhampton schools have noticed better students behavior and a positive impact on reading as a result of their project.
• Wolverhampton has five points of its vision for their mobile learning initiative:
  • Enable "learning without boundaries..."
  • Bridging learning between home and school.
  • Learners -- using technology as if it were second natures.
  • Tapping into the learners' culture.
  • Improved achievement and attainment via raised aspirations and motivated learners and their families.
• Gerry Gray from Court Moor School spoke about teaching with Tablet PCs. Tablet PCs run a version of Microsoft Windows that you can write on with a stylus. While I think Tablet PCs are pretty darn cool, I think they are just too expensive for schools--they are more costly than laptops. In a perfectly funded world, I think Tablet PCs would be a wonderful learning tool. Gerry showed an electronic textbook that her students can write and draw on. How useful! Gerry showed many other examples of her students' work. I'm jealous of what she and her students can do with their computers! Students use Microsoft Office OneNote to make pages that can contain typing, handwriting, drawings, images, and videos!
• "Stealth teaching" was mentioned where learning is made so fun, that students don't know they are learning. Personally, I think learning should be fun just by its very nature. Hopefully it doesn't need to be done covertly and students realize they are learning and love it. I believe in telling students learning objectives for each lesson so they know that whatever activity we're doing, there is an educational reason. I think of a video I made with my fifth grade students telling about their favorite Palm applications where, even though its the last day of school, they remember exactly what or how they learned using a particular piece of software.
• Three gentleman from Bradford talked about their KS4 PDA Project. The school paid for the handhelds, but parents pay for the insurance. Kids talking to each other is important. It was noted that when you take students into a computer lab, 30 students can quickly disappear--you can't see them because of "all of the kit." With handheld devices, students can still see one another and does not cut off communication. They told about a great field trip experience where some students visited a museum with smartphones. The students took photos and blogged right from the museum with the devices. Then students who were left at the school would read the blog and text message the field trippers questions to ask the docents or ask to take more photos of certain items. It sounds like everyone, whether they went on the trip or stayed at school, learned a lot!
• Professor Miguel Nussbaum from Universidad Catolica de Chile showed an exciting series of applications for Pocket PCs called Edunova. It's based on students working in groups of three. Through Wi-Fi and a server, students interact with questions where all three exchange answers and then must agree on a final solution. The teacher's Pocket PC displays a color-coded matrix showing what's going on in each group. This is going to be a great tool as it elicits student discussion and has a great teacher management piece.
• Stephen Carrick-Davies Chief Executive, Childnet International, spoke about online safety issues. Stephen says the real danger of the Internet is that adults will focus on the dangers and forget the benefits.
• I spoke about my five reasons for loving handheld computers. These include freeing the computer lab, teacher tools, free software, engaging activities, and animations. I've given this speech many times in the states, but this was first time abroad and by far the shortest time I've had to showcase why handhelds are great for teaching and learning. Aside from a few other speakers like Gerry Gray, I was the only one to really talk about hardware and software. In fact, most speakers emphasized that its not about the technology and all about learning. So true. However, teachers need to know the capabilities of the devices so they can plan learning activities! Most delegates didn't realize that they can run Palm OS applications using StyleTap and were very excited with what they saw. I wish I had more time to share other pieces of software.
• Paula Bouw, School of Education Leiden University Applied Sciences, presented "Innovation in Education? Please, switch on your cell phones!" There has been a lot of talking of using cell phones in learning. I was told that virtually all U.K. 12 year olds and up have mobile phones, so it makes sense that schools would try to use these as learning tools. The cell phone activities focused on taking photos and movies with cell phones. Students could share these via Bluetooth. One example was making an English ABC book. She shared a quote, "A photo is worth a thousand teachers." Students know that they learn a lot from images. To me, learning activities that use cell phones seem somewhat contrived. Smartphones, on the other hand, can so much more and right now, but those aren't the kinds of phones students already have (yet). But, if all of the students already have a mobile device, why not use it as a digital camera and messaging system?
• Representatives from Wireless Generation spoke about their mClass Assessment software for Palm handhelds. They claim 100,000 teachers are currently using mClass learning in the U.S. and growing 75% per year. What I like is that when teachers use software to help them do their job like mClass, they begin to see how handhelds could be used by students for learning. 100,000 is a lot of potential handheld-using classrooms.
• There was very little talk of Palm handhelds. In fact, I was the only a very few speakers even uttered the word "Palm." Pocket PCs are certainly the way schools in the U.K. are going. With the Edunova system mentioned above, I can see that Pocket PCs are getting content, software, and abilities that aren't available on Palm handhelds. Furthermore, with the availability of the StyleTap platform, Pocket PC users can run most Palm OS applications. Today there really are no barriers to going the Pocket PC route. In fact, Fujitsu Siemens is making the EDA, a Pocket PC made just for schools. The EDA is rugged and comes with a suite of software much like HLE from GoKnow, including Inspiration and an animation program. The EDA syncs using software that will allow multiple types of devices to sync content called Red Halo. Red Halo will use a local school server through Wi-Fi for students and teachers to access online. The EDA will ship in January, but after talking with sales reps, it may not be available in the U.S. If the EDA is successful in the Europe, it might be sold in the U.S.
• Podcasts for each of the keynote sessions are available online. Presentations slide shows are available as well.

I absolutely enjoyed the conference and my time in London! As you can see, I learned a lot. I'm honored to have been a speaker and look forward to being involved in the Handheld Learning 2007 conference.

Labels: palm, pocket pc

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Labels: palm, pocket pc, soft reset

The Handheld Learning 2006 Conference was held October 12 and 13 in London, England. I had the pleasure of attending and presenting. This is the largest conference dedicated to handheld computing and learning I have ever attended. Nearly 600 conference-goers gathered at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center, right down the street from Buckingham Palace and Big Ben in Central London. Graham Brown-Martin and his team did a fabulous job organizing this event!

I presented a workshop, "Look What I Can Do For Free" that demonstrated many of the great freeware applications that are out there for handhelds. I focused on applications for the Palm OS, although it seemed most conference delegates are Pocket PC users. Those who use Pocket PCs can run most Palm applications using the StyleTap Platform.

As you know I like to do after conference, allow me to share some highlights from the two days. Here's information from Thursday, October 12:

• It was nice to see that the conference was supported by large companies like Microsoft, Apple, Palm, Samsung, and Fujitsu. The U.K. Department of Education and Skills also helped with the conference.
• Doug Brown, Head of Learning Technologies, Technology Group, says that sometime soon we will not be having conferences about computers. It's not like we have conferences for other tools like pencils. Doug tells the story that things besides the actual technology need to change. He told the story from 20 years ago where there was one computer in a classroom. He worked with educators and told one teacher that the computer could be used by students as they finish the lesson. The teacher said, "That won't work. Students do not move in my classroom." Though most teachers are past this attitude, there are more changes to make for mobile learning to be most useful to students. U.K.'s computer to pupil ratio is 6 to 1 for primary and 3.5 to 1 for secondary. It seems that 1 to 1 is the goal. However, most people have more than one computer. So, is 1 to 1 the right target?
• Professor Stephen Heppell presented the keynote address. His daughter recently became a teacher. If you take the processing power of all of the computers she had in primary school, that power is exceeded by one of today's mobile phones. Stephen posted an interesting slide that said, "In the next 30 years more children will leave school than in all history." What we do in schools in the next 30 years really does matter! Go to heppell.net for some videos of great learning projects called Be Very Afraid.
• Tony Parkin, Head of ICT Development, Specialist Schools & Academies Trust, made a great point. Like in the U.S., the U.K. has had many pilot projects with handheld learning. Tony says that with so many pilots, it's about time this plane gets off the ground! I've seen many pilot projects and I do hope that handhelds take off and go mainstream because I know what it's like to teach with a room full of them--rewarding, exciting, engaging, worthwhile, etc.
• Vanessa Pittard, Director of Evidence & Evaluation at Becta, presented about evaluating handheld learning projects in schools. She says we are learning a lot more about handheld learning, but there is still much more to learn. To expand handheld learning in schools, Vanessa says that in order for it to go mainstream, its results need to be repeatable. Right now most projects are in classrooms with teachers who are enthusiasts for technology or certain learning approaches. Vanessa explains that technology should not be a solution looking for a problem. Educators should identify problems and see what technology may be the solution.
• Professor Terry Russell, CRIPSAT, University of Liverpool, presented "Evidence for Efficacy: Some Thoughts." He uses the term "embedded" when referring to effectively and consistently using handheld computers. He showed several videos of handhelds being used by students. He showed a video of students video recording a P.E. class. The thing is that the class was playing floor hockey. Looked like a handheld disaster waiting to happen with the pucks and sticks going every which way! One of the benefits of handhelds going home, parents have a better connection with their children. The student can show exactly what they did in school right there on the handheld.
• "These Things We Know" by Professor Angela McFarlane, University of Bristol was presented via video link from Oslo. I was thrilled to learn that Futurelab will be publishing a Handhelds Handbook in the next few months. It will have information from school projects and research from 30+ projects. Angela explained that handheld computers can't just be dropped off one day and have your program be successful. Having a plan, technology support, and professional development are very important. It's difficult to manage small numbers of handhelds when there isn't one for each student. Those projects have not been as successful. Professional development time for learning to use a handheld is quite short. But time for collaboration with other handheld-using teachers has been found to be important. It's also important that the whole school support the project, even from those who are not involved with the project. This is especially important in secondary schools where teachers share students. Angela states something I always recommend: have spare devices around to swap in just in case a handheld breaks and needs to be sent away for repair.
• Graham Brown-Martin started his "From Here to Ubiquity" presentation with the assertion that by 2012 the desktop computer as we know it will be dead. We used Qwizdom handsets to instantly vote whether we agreed or disagreed with Graham's statement. It was really interesting to watch the graphs grow as we voted.
• The first day of the conference finished with an industry panel discussion with panelists from Microsoft, Apple, Symbian, Samsung, Sony, and Nokia. PSP. Chris Deering, the chair of the panel, asked the representatives of the companies about non compatibility among their devices. The person from Sony made a good point that the devices can all display file formats like jpeg photos and mpeg videos. Those are the types of files educators will need to stick to.
• Podcasts for each of the keynote sessions are available online.

The entire program (or programme as the British spell it) is available online if you'd like to read about the conference presentations. The Handheld Learning Conference is an extension of the Handheld Learning website and forums. Be sure to check out all of the conversations at this active site!

Labels: palm, pocket pc

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

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