FETC Virtual Handouts: Handheld Computing
The Florida Education Technology Conference (FETC) was March 22-24 in Orlando, Florida. Although I was not in attendance, there are many resources on the Web from the conference. First, a few bloggers have written about the conference. You can visit their blog posts through Technorati that are tagged FETC2006 or do a Technorati search for FETC. Secondly, conference-goers have uploaded photos to Flickr and tagged them FETC2006. There are a few pages worth of photographs to view. Finally, the FETC website has Virtual Handouts from presentations that provided handout material. I've gone through the handouts that have to do with handheld computing:
Integrating Handhelds Across the CurriculumTag: fetc2006
Ines Schmook, Michelle Phillips, and Kelly Jordan presented motivating techniques to use handhelds in math, reading, language arts, spelling, writing, and science that they use at Spring Lake Elementary. They have made available a brochure about their use of handhelds. A brochure is a great idea to share your vision of computing with staff, parents, and the community. Also, they have a handout in Word with teacher resource books, useful websites, their usage agreement.A Beginner's Guide to a Handheld Classroom
Barb Preziosi, Patricia Donovan, and Rhonda Drum presented practical advice based on their experiences with handheld computers at Sebastia Elementary School. Barb's fourth grade class webpage has many photos of students using handhelds. She has also posted some Excel files she referred to in the FETC presentation, including a Handheld Error Log, a summary of the errors Barb's fourth graders experienced, and a Synch Log. Barb has been blogging about her use of handhelds with students since September 2004 in her Handheld Reality Year 1 blog. Be sure to read her recent posts FETC 2006 Our First Day and FETC 2006 in Orlando, FL.504 Meets PDA: Helping Students Become Organized, Productive and Successful Citizens
Anthony Cooley, a technology specialist for the Florida Diagnostic & Learning Resource System, presented a case study about using a handheld with Blake, a gifted high school student who has Dysgraphia. Blake did not qualify for special education services. But, since he's a student with a physical or mental impairment, he is eligible for accommodations under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. One of Blake's accommodations was the use of a Palm Tungsten T3 and keyboard. He was able to make "incredible gains in productivity, note-taking, and organizational skills" with his handheld and keyboard. Anthony has put together an informative handout of his presentation. Anthony also has an FETC Followup blog for his presentation. He poses questions to the conference session audience. Unfortunately, as of this writing, no one has added comments to the blog. Of course, if you have something to offer or a question for Anthony, I suggest posting a comment on his FETC Followup blog.