March 2006 — Wireless/Mobile Computing
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A Mobile Cause
Administratively, Vincent says, there’s not a lot that can go wrong with handhelds once things are set up. His students use inexpensive Palm units without wireless capabilities. The handhelds periodically are synchronized with Vincent’s own handheld, using infrared beams that travel to and from the devices. They can also be connected with a standard computer via a USB port.
By buying lower-end handhelds without Wi-Fi capabilities, Vincent saves considerably on each device, spending about $199 per handheld plus $60 for a larger keyboard—and he doesn’t need to worry about wireless coverage in the classroom. He says the typical handheld has a four-year life span, after which problems start to crop up. “But if you divide the cost of the handheld and keyboard by four,” he points out, “it’s costing less than $65 per student per year. I’d say that’s a bargain.”
Handhelds in Action
5) Handling Bandwidth and Battery Issues. Whether you go wireless or choose to communicate via the infrared capabilities of most handhelds, you may run into bandwidth problems if the students are all using the devices at once to share data. Vincent suggests careful planning to avoid traffic jams. “If [students] all try printing at once, it will take half an hour. Split it in half. It just takes some experience.”
Tomasino says that bandwidth issues are one reason that in many cases she prefers communicating with handhelds using infrared versus laptops using wireless. “I think wireless has a place,” she says, “but it’s not the only [technology].” Also, she points out, wireless devices are typically much more expensive—and often unnecessary in gradeschool classrooms, where the focus is more on simple uses that don’t involve the Internet.
Vincent offers similar sentiments. His local community recently passed a bond issue that will pay for wireless laptops, he says, “but I’d almost rather have handhelds.”
Another classroom challenge with any mobile device is maintaining battery life. Surfing the Internet “sucks the battery life out of anything,” Tomasino says. Knowing that, teachers can plan accordingly and avoid using the wireless devices in class for idle Internet browsing.
Another solution: a device like AlphaSmart’s Dana, which offers 30-plus hours of battery life. In Tomasino’s Bridging project, the fifth-graders using the Dana didn’t have battery-life problems; the high school students using PDAs sometimes did.
Spread the Word
Despite the challenges that any new frontier offers, introducing handheld devices can have a tremendous payoff. Tomasino says that following the end of her three-year NCLB project, formerly technophobic teachers now say they can’t live without their classroom handhelds. And the project produced immediate and dramatic improvements in reading skills—the areas that were focused on. But even so, “the handheld environment is still pretty small,” she says. “We’ve just got to get the word out.”
Linda L. Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, CA. She can be reached at lbriggs@lindabriggs.com.
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