Willard
R-II School District
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"K-12 will take computing technologies seriously only when they are as available as pencils. When computing technology is literally ready-at-hand, when students whip out palm-computing devices from the backpacks and desks instead of pencil-and-paper, only then will education and educators move to using the technology in a routine, day-in, day-out manner," Elliot Soloway, Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education. |
Most student learning tools have been around for hundreds of years -- textbooks, dictionaries, rulers, and writing instruments. Today's students are equipped with many of these same learning tools but are also using such tools as calculators and computers. One of the newest tools is the handheld computer. What once filled whole rooms can now be held in the palm of one's hand. Today's handheld computers are one of the most recent examples of powerful learning tools.
PAWS: Power at Work in the palm of your hand
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Fifth graders at Willard East Elementary will be among some of the first students in the Willard School District to experience these tools in a classroom setting. Thirty new Tungsten E handheld computers are now being used in a pilot program for 82 fifth graders. Students in all three homerooms will have access to a handheld computer during their Math/Word Study block. While this sharing is not the ideal situation, it will allow every student the opportunity to use the handheld computer for one class period a day. Hopefully, the program will be expanded in the future so that every fifth grader will have access to his/her own handheld during the school year, and will be able to use it in all classes.
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Mrs. Jacque Gray, the principal of Willard East Elementary, learned about using handhelds in the classroom during her participation in the Technology Leadership Academy. She chose to use textbook funds to purchase a set of 30 handhelds with keyboards and 2 hotsync computer stations. Training for Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. Simmons, the special education teacher who serves 5th graders, is being provided by Janetta Garton, the Technology Curriculum Director for the school district.
Many school districts are using handhelds in the classroom. Currently Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is promoting the use of handhelds by providing training for teachers and funding a handheld program in the Bolivar School District. There is research that shows numerous benefits from the use of this instructional tool. For more information please see the Research page of this web site.
What can students do with handhelds?
Almost anything that can be done with a desktop computer can be done with a handheld computer. These handheld computers are not just date and address book organizers. Students will be doing a lot of the things that they normally go to the computer lab to accomplish such as: using a word processor to publish a document, using a spreadsheet to collect data, creating graphs, researching with ebooks or downloaded web pages, taking quizzes, publishing concept maps, and creating illustrations. They will also be doing things they normally do in the classroom, but in a different way. Instead of completing a paper assignment, digital assignments will be beamed to the students to be completed electronically. Please see the Activities page for more examples of classroom use.