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Articles & Information: WIRELESS & HANDHELDS in EDUCATION

Learning in Hand: A blog & website by Tony Vincent. "...an educator's resource for using some of the coolest technologies with students. ...Tony has documented much of what he knows about handheld computing and podcasting...you'll find useful software collections, the best webs links for handhelds, complete lesson plans, and an informative blog. ...Described by Edutopia magazine as a "tireless evangelist for the power of handhelds," Tony's specialty is creatively using handhelds for engaging activities. ...Tony is a teacher who wants to make education effective, relevant, and fun. He knows handhelds are small computers that can make a big difference in classrooms! He hopes Learning in Hand inspires and motivates teachers to use technology that students crave." 03/22/09

Why an iPod Touch in education? "...a list of iPod Touch apps that are appropriate for education. Some teachers have begun purchasing the devices, but really don't know what kind of apps can be put on them. [The author] may list some 'paid' apps here, but most will be the 'free' ones." 02/23/09

Txtng is gd 4 lrng: "Texting does not erode children’s ability to read and write. On the contrary, literacy improves. The latest studies (from a team at Coventry University) have found strong positive links between the use of text language and the skills underlying success in standard English in pre-teenage children. The more abbreviations in their messages, the higher they scored on tests of reading and vocabulary. The children who were better at spelling and writing used the most textisms. And the younger they received their first phone, the higher their scores." 12/28/08

iPod content interactive for education: Mobile Musings, a blog at K12Handhelds.com (more about them further down this page). This post offers links to programs that offer "...various ways to incorporate more interactivity into iPod content." 06/01/07

Learning with Handheld Technologies: "This handbook on learning with handheld technologies arises from a two year study by the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol... . This study comprised observations and interviews with some of the leading practitioners of handheld learning in the UK, and desk-based research to identify other developing projects in this area. In the course of the project, a number of key recommendations and observations emerged which have been distilled by the researchers on the project in this publication." The handbook includes recommendations on:

• planning and implementation
• outreach
• professional development
• technology provision and support
• teaching & learning

What is mLearning? Today (08/18/06) I saw the term mLearning for the first time. Another label for teaching & learning using mobile technology.

m-Learning.org: " m-learning is mobile learning: using mobile technologies (such as mobile phones and hand-held computers) to enhance the learning process. With a background of more than 4 years of trialling, research and development, m-learning has helped thousands of learners from all walks of life to develop their skills, confidence and motivation to learn." 08/18/06

mLearning Tools: Stephen Downe's article posted in the blog Half An Hour. "...when we are thinking about mobile applications, probably the primary challenge will be to enable people not only to receive relevant content in this multimedia language, but to compose, on the fly, with no more real difficulty than (say) speaking, multimedia messages, that can be beamed to colleagues or broadcast to the world." 08/18/06

Education in the New Digital Landscape: "Instant Messenger (IM) Generation and have grown up with video games, cell phones, pagers, computers, the Internet, and other digital wonders that define their world. For them there has never been a time when these technologies haven’t existed. They are what Marc Presnky calls “digital natives.” Digital natives process and interact with information, and communicate in fundamentally different ways than previous generations before them."11/10/05

Integrating Handhelds into the Curriculum: [K-12] I don't usually include info about books on this site. But this integration idea appeals to me and I think the page is worth looking at. The books aren't expensive and come with CDs containing packaged lessons, guides, etc. Book titles include integration Across The Curriculum, ...into the Writing Curriculum, ...101 Great Educational Uses For...., Tips n Tricks for...., Handhelds for Teachers & Admin. 02/22/06

Custom Curriculum Materials: K12 Handhelds.com's page of FREE materials that you can download. Check out their free poetry unit. 06/01/07

The Handheld Educator: Top 10 Reasons To Use Handhelds: A one-page summary of Best Practices for Handhelds in Education. "Teachers rely on best practices, the strategies learned from experienced educators and researchers, so they can use the most effective methods to teach their students. Many components make up a best practice. Some techniques are ageless and withstand the test of time. And some that are new and innovative, like using handheld computers, show great promise." 01/29/06

eLearning On The Move:"Over the past seven or eight years, universities and colleges in the US have been introducing wireless technology into campus life. In the UK and at universities in other countries around the world, pilot projects that started at the end of the 90s are now giving rise to "wireless ready" learning environments, overcoming the restrictions of hard-wired technology. In the ever-more competitive national and international markets for students, this is a campus facility that universities are increasingly dangling before the eyes of potential freshmen." 01/29/06

Technology-Enabled Teaching/eLearning Dialogue ~ 'What if' Pervasive Computing? "In summary, I believe that the preponderance of current evidence argues for accelerated deployment of pervasive computing to capture the productivity of time between tasks, the creative contribution of assembled community to idea creation, and for timely access to information to satisfy the itch of curiosity. I hope we all balance this enthusiasm with an appreciation and acceptance of the unanswered questions about learning--how can vetted information sources retain the credibility deserved by their multistage creation? What is the relationship of attention to retention, focus to further formulation, and information access to knowledge building?" 11/10/05

Handhelds in the K-12 Environment: A blog created and maintained by Kathy Schrock (Kathy was one of the first classroom teachers to mine the potential of the Internet, having teamed up with the Discovery Channel to create her great resource site, Guide for Educators.) 01/06/04

How PDAs Work: From the fantastic HowStuffWorks site, an excellent article for those of us who don't yet own a handheld. Explains the various types/brands, their differences in technology and use, and more. "In this article, we take look at the PDA -- where it's been, how it is converging with other devices, and where it's headed. We also examine how PDAs work and give you some pointers on how to select one." 01/29/06

K12 Handhelds.com: A site devoted to the use of handhelds in education. Page topics include the two below, as well as Products, Classroom Solutions, Bookstore, Grants, Cool New Stuff, Professional Development, Events. 01/29/06

Mobile Musings: This site's new blog. "This blog will feature a variety of thoughts, news, best practices, and other items of interest related to mobile technologies and one-to-one computing." 08/18/06

101 Great Educational uses for your handheld computer: The article groups the uses under the headings Administrative Applications, Communication and Collaboration Applications, Teaching and Learning Applications. 01/29/06

Getting Started: "Just getting started with handhelds? Here are some of the things that you will need to think about and resources that will help." 01/29/06

Click to my resource page on Blogging, Podcasting, Videoblogging, etc. (includes lists of PODCAST SITES FOR EDUCATION, as well as various tools for creating audio, video, and other media)

Handheld Computers in Education: This article from wwwTools for education covers definitions and background into, then offers a long, categorized & commented set of links to several excellent resources and articles on the topic. An excellent starting point! 01/29/06

iPod touch & iPhone Apps for Education: In this example of Google Moderator, see this page to view reader suggestions and votes for which applications work best for them. As I write, there's a list of 25, the top one being iTunes mobile. 03/03/09

iTunes ~ a source of FREE wireless educational applications! Yes, it's true. Here's what to do.
> Open iTunes and click to the Store.
> Then select App Store.
> Then select Education.
> Then select Top Free Applications.
There are more than 90 today! 12/31/08
Here's a screenshot of the top 12 I found, just as a sampler for you:

Graphing Calculator: (The link opens your iTunes application, so won't work if you don't have that.) My buddy/colleague Randy Decker teaches Math 11/12 (British Columbia schools). He says: "There's  a free download of a Graphing Calculator on iTunes Apps Store. I'm quite impressed with it. I would recommend this application for use in Math 11 in British Columbia. It can tackle almost everything in the curriculum. Its display is far better than the Ti-83 or Ti-84. One can easily compare graphs because each is a different colour. It lacks a TVM solver. However, one can use graphs to solve some financial problems such as finding the time required to double an investment. One feature I really like is the ability to take a screenshot of a graph and email it." 12/31/08

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