September 2006 — Wireless/Mobile Computing
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Takin’ It to the Creeks
Handheld technology is making for a whole new kind of science lesson.
FIELD HANDS Three Seaside High students
use wireless
devices to analyze data in Yosemite National Park.
KELLIE DOUBEK DOESN’T mince words: Full-size computers don’t belong in the field. “You can get a handheld to do the same thing for a fraction of the cost,” says Doubek, an educational consultant who advises Midwestern schools on implementing technology.
Out west, at Seaside High School, right outside Monterey, CA, students in grades 9-12 are proving Doubek right. Seaside students are using handheld devices and wireless probes to measure temperature, stream flow, pH, and other factors at Seaside State Beach, as well as in Yosemite National Park. The study was made possible through a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Palm-based devices with wireless probes are tremendous student motivators, according to teacher Pam Miller, who also serves as science department chair at Seaside. “We’re able to get much more meaningful data, and we’re better able to share access to the data.” The sophistication of the data-gathering devices makes a real difference, she says. “Kids like to feel like they’re doing real science, and this is real science.”
Using handheld devices such as standard Palm or Windows-based PDAs is attractive to schools for several reasons— particularly, as Doubek pointed out, cost. “Handhelds make very attractive grant proposals because they’re a low-cost way to get a lot of technology into a lot of students’ hands,” says Karen Fasimpaur, president of K12 Handhelds, a California-based company that consults with school districts nationally on effective uses of mobile technologies.
Unfortunately, Doubek says, handhelds often aren’t used effectively because educators “don’t realize what a great tool they are.” Probing Around Outside the classroom, there are two basic ways that handhelds are commonally used—either as GPS units or with probes. Probes are mechanical devices that attach to handhelds for measuring air temperature, chemical composition, water flow, force, and much more. They’re a popular accessory for handhelds, according to Mike Curtis, a Michigan-based educational consultant who focuses on mobile devices. Hundreds of types of probes are available, Curtis says, for measuring “everything from ammonia to moisture content, salinity, and light.... Maybe not radiation, but just about anything else.”
