Handheld Computing – Handhelds in Education. The answer to 1 to 1 Computing?

To a growing number of teachers and school administrators, the answer is (d): handheld computers. Whereas first desktops, then laptops, and most recently Tablet PCs have been considered the holy grail in one-to-one computing, handhelds now seem to be grabbing more attention for two key reasons: cost and simplicity.

It all comes down to simple math, according to handheld proponent Elliot Soloway, a professor in the College of Engineering, School of Information, and School of Education at the University of Michigan. "There are 55 million K-12 kids in America. Fifty-five million times $1,000—the cost of a laptop—isn’t going to happen. But 55 million times $100—the cost of a handheld—that could happen tomorrow," Soloway says.

To expert Cathleen Norris, professor of technology and cognition at the University of North Texas and co-president of the International Society for Technology in Education, handhelds are just "simple, simple, simple." Teachers appreciate the instant on-instant off feature and not having to delve through layers of menus to get at applications. "You don’t have all the functionality [of full-size computers], but most teachers are willing to trade functionality for students having them all the time," says Norris.

The small size of the handheld makes it portable, and its ease of use makes it appealing to both teachers and kids, proponents say. "This is a technology that is classroom-sized, it is kid-sized. It is not intimidating, and it is not overwhelming. It is fun," Soloway sums up.

For all those reasons, handhelds are the most likely computing technology to be put into the hands of every schoolchild in America, according to Soloway and other experts. And when that happens, Soloway says, that’s when education will change in the same profound and fundamental way that education changed when each child got his own pencil or her own textbook.

"Every child should have [his or her] own handheld, just like students have their own pencils," agrees Norris. Ultimately, she says, the classroom should be "handheld-centric, with the big screen, the monitors, etc., on the periphery, as opposed to the other way around."

You’ll get no argument from Mike Lorion, vice president of education for Palm Inc., the acknowledged leader in the handheld market.

"It is not practical to think that every desktop in America will have a desktop computer, given the size, the complexity, the cost, the maintenance, and the lack of mobility," says Lorion. Laptops, at a minimum $1,000 per student, and Tablet PCs, at $1,600 to $1,700 each, are still not cost-effective for schools, he says.

But handhelds, at $100 to $200 apiece, could get schools to one-to-one computing tomorrow, Soloway says, "and I’ll trade off access for functionality any day."

Lorion ticks off a list of advantages to the handheld: it’s rugged, mobile, and versatile, and it has a durable plastic screen, long battery life, and no hard drive to break.

Soloway expects the growth in classroom handhelds to be "exponential" over the next three years: "We think we saw a fast uptake on the internet? We haven’t seen anything yet."

Three generations

Likewise, Norris says the movement will really take off as handhelds become better designed for classroom use and as more education applications are developed.

The first-generation handhelds really were business devices that schools had to adapt to education uses, according to Norris.

Generation 2 devices are emerging now, she says, with a prime example being the Dana from AlphaSmart. This is a somewhat larger device, with a keyboard and a screen the size of three Palms side by side. It uses the Palm OS, so users can do anything they could do on a Palm, and it runs 30 hours on AA batteries, Norris says. An administrative application helps keep students on task by allowing teachers to turn off the sound, shut down beaming capabilities, hide applications not in use, and lock down time and date functions so students cannot change the time or date on assignments they submit.

Another Generation 2 device is an enhanced graphing calculator. It features a "really nice" keyboard along with the well-established graphing calculator and has a program called Notefolio for note-taking, Norris says.

Next up is Generation 3, which Norris expects within the next year. Look for devices that do not have to be retrofitted from business purposes but instead are designed with schools in mind, she says. These products will have features—such as extended battery life, education applications, and answers to teacher needs—that "teachers want and say students need," she says. Manufacturers have "been listening to the education community, and these [devices] will be designed by educators for educators."

Current numbers of handheld computers in schools are hard to come by, but estimates from market research firm Quality Education Data show 22 percent of U.S. school districts own handhelds, and 82 percent of those are Palm devices. Each district owns 15 units on average, and most often the devices are given to technology coordinators and principals.

According to Lorion, the K-12 market for handhelds has grown from $9 million in 2000 to $40 million this year. The market is projected to skyrocket to $300 million by the 2005-06 school year, he says.

The road to schools

Palm, whose roots obviously were in the business marketplace, three years ago embarked on a mission to bring handhelds to schools. Prior to then, Palm’s only real presence in education came in campus bookstore sales, Lorion says.

Software for handheld computers
Three years ago, there were only a handful of software programs for handhelds. Today there are plenty—and here are a few of the most popular ones for education.

Classroom use

* Cooties: A virus-transfer simulation program where students keep track of which "coodles" get sick so they can trace the path of a transmitted virus collaboratively and determine the initial carrier. (Hi-CE)

* Fling It: Sends web pages to handhelds to be viewed any time, without being connected to the internet. (Hi-CE)

* PicoMap: Allows students to create, share, and explore concept maps. (Hi-CE)

* Handy Sheets: Teachers can create worksheets, quizzes, and surveys from a web site. These tools then can be downloaded onto handhelds. (Hi-CE)

* Free Write: This word processor includes a spell-check function, beaming capability, and support for more than 25 pages of letter-size paper text. (Hi-CE)

* Sketchy: An animation tool with geometric objects, pen options, and an interface. (Hi-CE)

* Bubble Blasters: Teachers can use this application to provide practice drills to students. (Hi-CE)

* Go ‘n Tell: Creates virtual scrapbooks with pictures and text that can be converted into an HTML site; designed for use with the Kodak PalmPix Camera. (Hi-CE)

* Locker: Organizes student assignments, events, and notes; can be used to write quick notes to other students; teachers can enter assignments and beam to class. (Hi-CE)

* ImagiMath Suite: A graphic calculator designed to replicate TI-83 functions for the handheld computer. (ImagiWorks)

* PowerOne Graph: Another graphing calculator that duplicates TI-83 and HP48 functions. (Infinity Softworks)
* Teal Paint: Full-color drawing and animation software. (TealPoint Software)

Administrative use

* ScheduleFinder: Gives administrators instant access to students’ class schedules, contact information, and pictures. (TruSmart Technologies)

* PAAM (Palm Artifact and Assessment Manager): A "Palm desktop" where student work can be uploaded for viewing, distribution, and comment by teachers, students, and parents. (GoKnow)

* Palm Gradebook Assistant: Teachers can use this software to record grades; it’s compatible with Excelsior’s Gradebook desktop system. (Excelsior Software)

* FileMaker Mobile: Database software for the Palm or PocketPC OS. (FileMaker Inc.) The Hi-CE programs are available at no cost from the Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education at the University of Michigan. You can download them at http://www.handheld. hice-dev.org/download.htm.

In year one, Palm worked on meeting school productivity needs by designing basic applications: a graphing calculator, grade book, and test preparation software, he says. In year two came network connectivity and assessment applications. During phase three—which is now—the tools are being incorporated into the curriculum. There are now some 2,000 education-specific applications for the Palm OS, Palm says.

To help schools buy handhelds, Palm created a purchase program that provides free units with various purchase packs: three free for every 30 purchased, 12 free for every 100, and 72 free for every 500 Palm handhelds bought.

A Palm Education Training Coordinator Program offers a three-day, $500 training session for school staff development trainers, who leave with a Palm handheld device and certification as a Palm training coordinator, Lorian says. Palm has trained more than 600 K-12 trainers in the past two years, he says, and these trainers in turn are expected to train 100 teachers per year back home.

What’s ahead for handhelds in schools? The two newest innovations are multimedia capabilities built into handheld devices and improved wireless networking capabilities, Lorion says. In three to five years, he predicts, battery life will be longer, the devices will be even more rugged and durable, and the electronic textbook will move closer to reality.

"The future of this [device] is individualized education," he says, "changing from … delivering the same kind of instruction as we do with a book, to an environment where the curriculum can be individualized with kids’ needs."

New products

In April, Palm introduced two new products: the Zire 71, with built-in multimedia capabilities that Palm says make it ideal for classroom use, and the Tungsten C, with integrated 802.11 wireless capabilities that should appeal to school administrators.

The Zire 71 has a 320-pixel by 320-pixel, high-resolution, transflective screen that can be used indoors and outdoors—making it useful for field trips and other outdoor activities, according to Lorion. It has a built-in digital camera, so students can take, save, and print snapshots, as well as organize them into a digital slide show. In addition to standard Palm functions, the Zire 71 allows students to watch video clips, read eBooks, and listen to audio books and MP3 music files. The battery life is about five to seven days.

The device costs about $250 for schools, compared with $299 retail, and an exchange program will allow schools to trade in old Palms for a $50 discount.

The Tungsten C provides standard Palm applications such as scheduling, internet capabilities, and word processing, but also allows school administrators to exchange eMail, get phone messages, deliver slide presentations, and access databases (such as student information systems) wirelessly using built-in Wi-Fi functionality.

A full-screen graffiti area on the 320 x 320, transflective color screen allows users to draw and take notes; users also can create and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint-compatible files, send and receive them as attachments, and view portable document files (PDFs). A voice jack allows the delivery of future voice-over-IP capability, which Lorion suggests would help traveling superintendents stay in touch with personnel in various buildings. (They can keep in touch via eMail and instant messaging now.)

The Tungsten C costs about $425 for schools and $499 retail. It has an eight- to nine-hour battery life with constant Wi-Fi use, which Palm says will get an administrator through an average work day.

One part of the computing picture

Microsoft, which produces the Pocket PC, sees handhelds as an important—but somewhat more limited—piece in the classroom computing puzzle. "The important thing to remember as folks try to move toward one-to-one computing is that different devices are going to provide different experiences," says Tim Tiscornia, product manager for the Windows client in Microsoft’s Education Solutions Group.

He sees the Tablet PC as an important emerging technology, making up 60 percent or more of the notebooks that will ship to schools in the next two to three years. The Tablet PC is a fully operational computer, whereas the handheld "doesn’t have the robust input-output capability," says Tiscornia.

But there is a place for the handheld computer, he says. Teachers might use a Tablet PC in the classroom and then sync information to a handheld to take home. Students might use Tablet PCs throughout the school building and then grab a handheld when they leave campus—say, to go to the zoo to do field work.

The grab-and-go aspect is definitely an advantage of handhelds, Tiscornia says. In addition, they can be used for simple input, output, and assessment—"things where you don’t have to do a tremendous amount of creation or reading."

Despite Microsoft’s emphasis on the Tablet PC, the company is continuing to invest in its Pocket PC products, he says. One of the newer innovations is Pocket PC Phone Edition, which brings full phone functionality to a handheld device. Teachers and administrators moving from school to school can synchronize with eMail over the airwaves to stay current, Tiscornia explains. Microsoft also plans other new applications for Pocket PC devices, he says, though he was not ready to discuss them yet.

In the classroom, the primary uses for Pocket PC devices are for collaboration and mobile learning, he says. An integrated wireless card allows students to collaborate with each other and with their teacher. For administrators, the handheld can be wirelessly enabled to extend the network’s capability around campus.

Tiscornia expects wireless devices to be the focus of accelerated growth in the next two to five years. "It remains to be seen what … the mix" between PCs and handheld computers within that environment will be, he says.

Handhelds motivate students

In Berrien County, Mich., more than 2,600 seventh-graders in 20 school buildings are using Palms, according to Kevin Clark of the Berrien County Intermediate School District. While the 150-plus teachers involved are at various levels of handheld use, almost all of them see positive results, Clark reports.

"Teachers and students are using handhelds to write poetry, take notes, research web pages, diagram processes, and more," he says. "We have found across the board that students are extremely motivated to use their handhelds for school-related work. Tasks that had been met with groans are now met with grins."

According to Clark, the major advantage of handhelds is that "students can use a tool with multiple functions in any location for an affordable price. Laptops have advantages of computing power, big screens, and multimedia capabilities. However, handhelds are not far behind and can easily handle the majority of tasks [that] desktop computers in today’s classrooms are being used for. Plus, school districts can purchase at least six handhelds for every desktop or laptop computer."

The only disadvantage is that many teachers still are not comfortable with handhelds, he says. Educational technology specialists "still have to prove to teachers that this new form of technology is not yet another content area that they have to teach, but a tool they can use to teach their content areas."

The district has found a way to streamline its setup of the handhelds with administrative software from Belmont, Calif.-based Grant Street Software. The schools use Grant Street’s SD Deploy! software to image all student handhelds before they are distributed and SD Assign! to assign a unique HotSync name to each handheld without having to perform a HotSync operation, according to Clark. Using these applications, school leaders were able to configure about 250 handhelds per day, he says, and even more could have been configured if administrators hadn’t had to wait for the devices to charge.

The district recently began using Grant Street’s SD Express! to install additional applications. In the future, Clark says, SD Express! could be used to update applications as well as distribute files such as eBooks—a process he says takes about 10 seconds with SD Express!, as opposed to several minutes with beaming.

With SD Deploy!, teachers can configure a handheld device in less than a minute, according to John Hanay of Grant Street Software. In addition, teachers can pass around an SD (secure digital) card so students can insert the card and thereby install an application in their PDAs. Should the application be deleted, the teacher can insert the card and automatically re-install it.

Another success story

A Michigan third-grade teacher is using handhelds in her class, offering after-school handheld workshops for kids throughout her school, and bringing parents in for Palm nights so they can join in the learning experience—all with enthusiastic results.

Best Practice:
Green Middle School

"Any way you can use a computer, you can use a Palm," says Paula Jameson, technology curriculum resource teacher for Green Middle School in Green, Ohio. With that simple statement, Jameson explains why she is passionate about supplying handhelds to students.

Handhelds came into her school during the summer of 2001, with 40 Palms provided through a Palm Education Pioneer Grant from Palm Inc. Since then, the school has purchased about 200 more.

The public school, which has 1,029 students in grades 6-8, keeps the Palms in sets of 30 with keyboards and educational software, and teachers check them out for a week, two weeks, a month—whatever they need. "It’s like a mobile computer lab," Jameson explains.

The uses are many:

* With graphing calculating software, the devices become like TI-83s for math students in grades 7-8.

* Science classes attach probes and measure pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and turbidity during their annual pond study. With attached digital cameras, they document their findings.

* In reading and language arts, students read chapters and beam questions and answers to each other without disturbing others. Students write essays, respond to questions, and create journal entries on the handhelds, too.

* A special-education class simulated eating out to provide practical applications of math.

* Using graphing calculator software, spreadsheets, and worksheets, an advanced math class studied shadows to predict time of day.

* In a social studies unit on ancient civilizations, students accessed web sites and created brochures on lost cities.

* A business education class researched salaries needed to cover basic living expenses and the level of education needed to attain those salaries.

The school uses many applications for the Palms, including TriBeam Technologies’ WebTarget wireless technology to deliver internet access, dbNow from Pocket Express to help students organize research, and Scantron’s Classroom Wizard to create worksheets.

Palms are mobile, allow internet access anywhere in the school, are easy to hold in one’s hand, and provide beaming from one device to another, Jameson says. Plus, they’re easy to fix, durable, and software can be installed easily. She praises the ecological aspect as well: "There’s no paper, no waste of trees."

"I personally see no use for laptops or notebooks. Desktops have a use, especially for presentation," she says. In fact, the only disadvantages she could come up with for handhelds are that they’re not good presentation tools, and not all web sites are viewed well on them.

"I have seen students excitedly and enthusiastically engaged in learning whenever we use the Palms," says Janine Kopera of Mead Elementary School in Allen Park, Mich.

"Even if it’s a drill-like math flash card lesson or regular note-taking session, it’s new and exciting for them on their handhelds," Kopera says. "As educators, we know that having that ‘hook’ that grabs the attention of our students is the first part to any great lesson. In this day and age, new forms of technology are often the ‘hook’ to make students tune into the content you are presenting."

Her students have used animation programs to show how the planets revolve around the sun and how the moon orbits the earth. "By creating their own mini-movies of motion, students come away with a better understanding of seasons, moon phases, cycles, et cetera," she says.

And there’s more: Kopera’s students use graphic organizing software on their Palm handhelds to strengthen writing, comprehension, sequencing, and other skills, and they use drawing software to create diagrams and illustrations. They attach cameras and go on photo scavenger hunts, where they find examples of what they’re studying, take pictures, add captions, "and ‘viola,’ they have an educational photo album."

Students gain calendar and scheduling skills, beam files to classmates for cooperative learning sessions, and beam work to her for evaluation and feedback. "By having all this work saved on a computer that fits in your hand, the students have a wonderful compilation of their learning throughout the year that they can share with others, use at any time, and take anywhere," Kopera says.

In addition, she regularly sends the Palms home for "handheld homework nights," and parents report being amazed at how much their kids teach them about the technology and the subjects they’re learning.

"Using the Palms has strengthened my teaching," Kopera says. She says she is more aware of national standards and benchmarks and has more time for inquiry and experimentation in her classroom. "Also, when students are actively engaged in the lessons, your classroom takes on a new community learning spirit where all, including the teacher, are ignited by sparks of cooperative learning and problem solving."

The only disadvantages, she says, are finding the money for upgrades and enhancements, handling technology glitches, and taking the time to save and download material. But, she adds, "if you train your class well, they will become great helpers."

Put to administrative use

In addition to being used in the classroom, handhelds also are being used increasingly by school administrators.

In Michigan, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant recently delivered 1,500 Palms and keyboards to superintendents and principals under "LEADing the Future," a professional development program aimed at integrating technology into leadership. The program is expected to reach 4,000 superintendents and principals—or about 80 percent of the state’s total—over the three-year life of the grant, according to program director Marion Ginopolis.

Handhelds have "the power and mobility … to put resources and information necessary for organizational and instructional decision-making within easy reach of administrators, whether they are in meetings, on the school grounds, in their offices, or anywhere in between," says Ginopolis.

The handhelds were preloaded with Documents to Go from DataViz Inc. and other productivity applications, and they were customized with curriculum software from the Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education (Hi-CE) at the University of Michigan. In addition, a specially created application called the GoLead channel brings 10 web-clipped educational journal articles biweekly to participants’ handhelds, and software under development will allow users to access testing and financial data in state and district databases.

Security concerns

As with any school computer system, confidentiality is a concern. To that end, Asynchrony Software offers a software security package for handhelds, dubbed PDA Defense. "If any educational records or references are kept on [personal digital assistants], which by their very nature cannot always be controlled by the school, it is essential to protect them in case of loss or theft," says Asynchrony vice president David Elfanbaum.

The educational marketplace has been slow to realize the importance of security for handheld devices, he says, but in the last nine months more teachers and school IT personnel have been calling. "It’s a slow process for two reasons: budgetary concerns and just the large amount of back-door devices in the organizations. IT managers are trying to figure out how to address this," he says.

Yet "confidentiality of student records is critical, and because of the [extremely portable] nature of handheld devices, there is a higher probability of loss or theft than with laptops or desktops," Elfanbaum says. In addition, given the personal nature of handhelds, schools cannot easily control what data go on the devices.

PDA Defense costs up to $30 per license, based on quantity purchased, with a 15 percent education discount. The software, which can be used on Palm, Pocket PC, and Blackberry devices, automatically locks the handheld computer and disables data transfer mechanisms, so information cannot be retrieved without a password.

Vendors

AlphaSmart Inc.
973 University Ave.
Los Gatos, CA 95032
(888) 274-0680
Alpha Raven Black

Asynchrony.com Inc.
1709 Washington Ave.,
Suite 200
St. Louis, MO 63103
(314) 436.3101
http://www.asynchrony.com

Center for Highly Interactive
Computing in Education
University of Michigan,
Advanced Technologies Lab
1101 Beal Ave.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2110
(734) 763-6988
http://hi-ce.org

DataViz Inc.
Merritt Corporate Woods
612 Wheelers Farms Rd.
Milford, CT 06460
(800) 733-0030

homefull

eInstruction Corp.
308 N. Carroll Blvd.
Denton, TX 76201
(888) 707-6819
http://www.einstruction.com/index.cfm

Excelsior Software
960 37th Avenue Ct.
Greeley, CO 80634
(800) 473-4572
http://www.gradebook.com

FileMaker Inc.
5201 Patrick Henry Dr.
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1171
(800) 325-2747
http://www.filemaker.com

GoKnow Inc.
912 N. Main St., Suite 100
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(800) 203-3412
http://goknow.com

Gateway Inc.
14303 Gateway Pl.
Poway, CA 92064
(800) 211-4952
http://www.gateway.com

Grant Street Software
1152 Village Drive
Belmont, CA 94002
(866) 787-4778
http://www.grantstreet-
software.com

Hewlett-Packard Co.
3000 Hanover St.
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185
(800) 752-0900
http://www.hp.com

ImagiWorks Inc.
60 East 3rd Ave., Suite 302
San Mateo, CA 94401
(650) 373-0300
http://www.imagiworks.com

Infinity Softworks Inc.
1315 NW 185th Ave., PMB180
Beaverton, OR 97006
(503) 690-3134
http://www.infinitysw.com

InResonance
70 Main St.
Northampton, MA 01060
(413) 587-0236
http://www.inresonance.com

Margi Inc.
3155 Kearney St.
Fremont, CA 94538
(510) 657-4435
http://www.margi.com

Microsoft Corp.
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
(425) 882-8080
http://www.microsoft.com

Palm Inc.
400 N. McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, CA 95035
(800) 881-7256
http://www.palm.com

Pocket Express Inc.
P.O. Box 911
Novato, CA 94948
http://www.pocketexpress.com

Scantron Corp.
34 Parker
Irvine, CA 92618
(800) 722-6876

Home

contact.htm

TealPoint Software
454 Las Gallinas Ave.,
Suite 318
San Rafael, CA 94903-3618
http://www.tealpoint.com

Texas Instruments
12500 TI Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75243-4136
(800) 336-5236
http://www.ti.com

TriBeam Technologies Inc.
116 W. Eastman St., Suite 208
Arlington Heights, IL 60004
(847) 483-9901
http://tribeam.com

TruSmart Technologies Corp.
10 Huntington Hills
Rochester, NY 14622
(877) 532-8217
http://www.trusmart.com

Wireless Generation
11 East 26th St., 14th Floor
New York, NY 10010-1422
(212) 647-1950
http://wgen.net/web

Instant feedback: Handhelds help guide teachers’ instruction

What if teachers could assess what students know instantly? That’s the reality at various schools using handheld computers in conjunction with assessment software.

At Cohoes Middle School in New York, teachers are using handhelds to quiz students, grade tests, and report scores. "We were looking for different ways, from an administrative standpoint, to get applications in the hands of teachers to help make them more efficient," says Principal Joseph P. Dragone.

He began with one social studies teacher, who has 125 seventh- and eighth-grade students in five sections. Using Classroom Wizard software from Scantron Corp. and Palm handhelds, the teacher designed pretests before units to assess what kids know, drills to assess comprehension during a unit, and frequent, short content quizzes to test knowledge.

Students log on and the teacher beams the test into the Palm; kids take the test and beam their answers back to the teacher. Instantly, the results are available to teachers and students on a PC, handheld, or printed report. The tests can be multiple choice, fill in the blank, true or false—everything but essay at this time, Dragone says.

Teachers can use the system "not only to assess curriculum instruction, but to assess pedagogy. If you have a discussion with a teacher and he or she has been teaching something for three weeks, and the results aren’t matching, then it’s a way of looking at the teaching methods being used. It either affirms or contradicts what teachers feel they’ve been accomplishing."

The system has proven successful so quickly that now five teachers are on board at Cohoes, and another set of Palms has been acquired, according to Dragone. Teachers sign the Palms out just as they do other equipment or textbooks.

The whole system—including a classroom pack of 30 handheld computers and the Classroom Wizard software—costs $3,000, and as Dragone points out, "you can’t get 30 computers for $3,000." Next, he hopes to get a graphing calculator piece and other programs—such as an attendance program and science module—for the Palms.

"In an ideal situation you’d like one-to-one computing, where the student’s [handheld] becomes everything. Teachers can beam homework on it, parents can communicate to teachers, it doubles as an agenda book and a communication tool, you can read eBooks on it. In three to five years, maybe your textbook is on your Palm," says Dragone.

"In a perfect world, I see it becoming the resource tool for each kid and the primary communications tool between home and school. I just think it’s really great. It helps kids. It helps teachers. But beyond that, it’s looking at things nontraditionally, and because we’re an urban school and because of the population we serve, these kinds of approaches really help engage kids and motivate them to learn."

Cohoes, which is located in an urban area north of Albany, has 553 students in grades 6-8.

Reading assessments

Handhelds are being put to an interesting use—assessing early reading skills—in about 90 school districts in 15 states. On the market since January, the mClass program (which stands for Mobile Classroom Assessment) from New York-based Wireless Generation allows teachers to do guided reading assessments, according to CEO Larry Berger.

The program has cut assessment time in half for kindergarten teachers at Allen Independent School District in Texas, says Mary Clark, English language arts coordinator for the district. Thirteen teachers in six schools are using the program to assess their 486 kindergarten students: The children listen to a story, answer questions orally, and teachers use handhelds to record the answers and print out individual student and classroom summary reports.

"Before, [teachers] would have to write everything down and fill out forms. Now, with the tap of a stylus, they have records, can sync up their Palm, and everything prints out," Clark says. The bottom line: the less time teachers spend in assessment, the more time they have for instruction.

Budget permitting, Clark hopes to expand the program to all 48 kindergarten teachers next year and to other grades after that.

A district in Colorado has enjoyed similar success with Title I teachers at eight schools using mClass since January to compile running reading records, according to John Canuel, director of instructional services for Jefferson County Schools.

Teachers usually do manual calculations and then file the information in folders, where it’s hard to use for comparing, contrasting, or collaboration, says Canuel. With mClass, "we saw the ability of [those] data to come alive and be used in instruction," he says.

Jefferson County plans to extend the project to 10 more schools a year with seed money for handhelds and a subscription to mClass. After that, they’ll be on their own to continue the program if they find it useful, he says. Jefferson County has 140 schools, including 93 elementary schools.

Teachers in both the Jefferson and Allen school districts love the tool. "For too long we have tried to make teachers change for technology. What teachers are seeing is that this supports and honors the work they do," Canuel says.

Indeed, Berger calls this a "tool entirely focused on teacher workflow. In our case teachers are mobile professionals, and one of the most time-consuming and paper-intensive tasks for primary teachers are these early reading assessments."

Not only is administrative time cut in half, but the assessments are more accurate, he says. The assessments are timed on the handhelds, and the results are calculated automatically. When the teacher syncs the Palm into a cradle, the data go to a central database, and in one fell swoop, the principal or superintendent can see the overview.

"The thing that has been very exciting here is that it’s been one of the best alignments of technological capabilities with a policy imperative [required reading assessments]," Berger says. "This takes a bunch of data that [were] sitting in teachers’ filing cabinets and organizes it for them and makes it meaningful for them," he says.

Wireless Generation is in the first year of a five-year, $6.7 million study with the University of Texas on the efficacy of the system.

According to Berger, mClass costs $15 to $20 per student per year, and it runs on any handheld with a Palm OS, but not on a Pocket PC device.

Next on tap for Wireless Generation is an early math assessment program—expected out in six months—that would begin by covering pre-K to grade three or four, Berger says. The reading program is designed for kindergarten through third grade, although it has some use in grades four and five, and mClass QRI-3 is a qualitative reading inventory for grades 4-6.

Point and click

In Georgia, a high school American literature teacher has been piloting the Classroom Performance System from eInstruction, of Denton, Texas, which uses an infrared computer signal on top of a teacher’s desktop computer and numbered controllers at each student’s desk.

Here’s how it works: The teacher hands out questions on paper, then students read a story and point their controller at the infrared receiver as they press in their answers. At the end, the answers are tabulated automatically, and both teacher and student get instant feedback.

For a teacher, the results are invaluable, says Clay Renick, who’s trying out the system at Statesboro High School in Statesboro, Ga. "It helps me to get an overview of how all students answer to see if they get the concept or not. Last fall I was about to give a test, and I did a few review sentences and saw they didn’t get it, so I backed off and didn’t give the test yet. Before this system, they all would have failed."

Another plus is that teachers can type questions in multiple-choice format and scramble the answers, thereby creating multiple versions of the test and completely eliminating cheating, Renick says.

Between September and March, Renick says, students improved an average of 1.4 grade levels in reading comprehension, whereas students normally might improve by nine months over a full school year. Based on strong early results, the program has been expanded to 24 teachers at his school, he says.

It does take about an hour to create each test, Renick says, but he considers it time well spent. The program costs about $2,000 per class.

Marcy Levin-Epstein is a freelance writer living in North Potomac, Md., who writes frequently on education issues.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/reports/hhc/