Handheld Reality Year 1

New Classroom Setup 2006-2007

2006-06-20T10:34:00.000-04:00

After our presentation at FETC 2006, I received many emails from people asking for more information about how we went about setting up the classroom. People wanted to know exactly what we purchased for my classroom and how much it cost. While at FETC, my principal determined that she could outfit our new classroom with handhelds for about half of what it cost to setup my class. Here are the specifics about what was ordered and the cost to setup Paul's classroom next year. In my classroom, I also have two other pieces of essential equipment. One is a laptop computer and the other is a projector. I use them almost daily, especially when introducing new programs or setups to students.

PALM
935 First Avenue
King of Prussia, PA 19406
Phone 866-373-9162

25----TX---------------------@284---------7,100.00
25----Wireless Keyboards----@ 62.95----1,573.75
10----Stylus 3 paks----------@14.99--------134.90
Shipping & Handling ------------------------30.00
Total------------------ 8838.65

***************************************************************************

2---TC11S Charge,Sync TriBeam Stations-----@449-------849.00
(Discount 89.00 + 40.00 S/H)

TriBeam Technologies
116 W. Eastman Street, Suite 208
Arlington Heights, IL 60004

Phone 847-483-9901
****************************************************************************
GOKNOW (software - Sketchy, Fling It, ) Optional -

25---GO KNOW Perpetual Licenses----------2293.75

******************************************************************************
Tap Smart Handshare (Download from Internet - Allows you to project your handheld)

1-----Tap Smart Handshare-----------------29.95

*********************************************************************************
Total==============$12,011.35 (with software)
A little less than 10,000 for the hardware!

Sketchy Contest

2006-05-15T10:23:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I admit to being nervous when Friday, May 12 rolled around. It was the day that GoKnow would be announcing the winners in their Sketchy contest. My students reminded me to keep checking my email, and whenever the phone rang through into our class, SILENCE descended. Unfortunately, at the end of the school day, there had been no news.

As I sat completing paperwork after school, and visiting with a former student, I thought about when I submitted the files to GoKnow and that the deadline had been 5:00 P.M. It was getting closer to that time and I figured I would go and check out the GoKnow website to see if the winners had been posted. To my happiness, they were posted. I immediately clicked on the Math link to see if any of my students placed in the top 3. None did. Then I went to the Science category. None placed. Finally, I went to the Other category. Again, none of my student files. I admit to being shocked. How could NONE of my students have placed? Then I went and looked at the winners in each category. Now I realized what our weakness was with our submissions. We had no backgound on our Sketchy submissions and our animation was pretty much limited to the subject content. That's why we'll be playing more with Sketchy this week and learning more about backgrounds and animations.

I went to the Teacher link and noticed that Rhonda Drum, our Technology Goddess, had received an Honorable Mention for her Sketchy about The Theory of the Naked Cat. What I didn't notice at first was that my Sketchy was playing as the main teacher file. It seems my Sketchy placed first in the Teacher category.I was excited, but still felt sad that none of my students placed.

I guess my students from this year will just have to work on some storyboards and come visit next year so that they can work with Sketchy and do a submission as fifth graders.

I need to somehow get those files onto my webpage so they're saved and can be viewed by my students and their families. Unfortunately, when I tried to import them to this blog, there were errors and they wouldn't upload. Since there is more than one way to skin a cat, I'll be trying some of those others out. When I figure out where the Sketchy animations will be posted, I'll add a link to this post.

SKETCHY Madness

2006-05-08T22:13:00.000-04:00

Go Know announced it's annual Sketchy contest a little while back and it was something I definitely wanted to do with my class. When I told them about the contest, they couldn't contain their excitement. Of course, hearing what they could win was a wonderful motivator. LOL.

When we started talking about the Sketchy idea, we brainstormed what ideas would fit well under the various subject areas. The majority of my class's ideas dealt with math concepts. I must admit that they really were paying attention when I taught this year. Many wanted to complete their Sketchy on how to complete something in math. Some ideas included adding and subtracting fractions with like or unlike denominators, adding with regouping, basic division with our without remainders, finding the median, etc.

I had a wonderful assistant with the Sketchy idea, Rhonda Drum, our Technology Goddess at school. The Sketchy started with students listing the steps for their concept on notebook paper. From there they transferred their information onto a storyboard where they could draw basic pictures of what would be represented on their Sketchy slides. Then the final phase was actually putting it into the Sketchy program. I shouldn't have been surprised when students started devising shortcuts and began sharing ideas with each other. Although they would be competing for the same prize in the contest, that didn't even occur to them as they helped each other when questions arose. It was a truly wondeful experience to take part in. I just sort of became the final checker when they "thought" they were done. I'd just sit back and say things like, "Did you check your spelling on slide 34?" or "When you look at your animation do you think it should be slowed down some?" It was terrific!

Of course, technology being technology, one can always expect something unexpected to happen. It started when I couldn't synch some of the files to PAAM at GoKnow. I started beaming Sketchy files to other handhelds so I wouldn't lose them in the craziness that was going on with my Hot Synch. On Wednesday, May 3, 2006, one of my students put the final touches on his Sketchy. We synched it to the laptop, but when we went to view it online, it wasn't there. When we checked his handheld, his Sketchy was GONE! It was nowhere to be found and we freaked! Luckily, I had his earlier version on my backup handheld and beamed it to him. He sat there and redid the Sketchy again. When we synched it, it DISAPPEARED AGAIN! We didn't rant, rave, and scream although that might have been a good idea. I beamed it back to him, he redid it for the third time, then I beamed it to my backup handheld. I thought it may have been a problem with a previous version of Sketchy, so when I went to synch his handheld this time, I indicated that I wanted to reinstall the program. Well, whatever I did worked and his Sketchy finally uploaded. What a relief! I couldn't believe how patient he was with what happened. What a wonder!

Our final Sketchy files were uploaded on the due date, May 5, 2006. Now, we're waiting to see if an email or phone call comes in on May 12, 2006, to inform us that someone from the class has taken a prize in the contest. I really think some of my students have a good chance of winning. It's just unfortunate that they are literally competing against each other.

Their Sketchy files are remarkable! I plan on using some of their work to help teach the concepts next year. I can just see when I begin introducing multiplication or division. I will beam the Sketchy to my students and ask them to review the information. They'll then have the file to utilize when actually completing activities in those areas. It will be great! I was really happy that students were able to take what they learned and can now become the teachers of the future with their Sketchy.

All that is left is for me to play with the files, follow the directions I was given by GoKnow, and successfully manage to upload the files so that viewers to my website can view the Sketchy files created by my students. I'll make sure to post a link when that happens.

FETC 2006 in Orlando, FL

2006-03-23T11:56:00.000-04:00

I admit it, I am OCD! I like having things organized well ahead of time and I like knowing that I have everything set up the way it needs to be. Dealing with FETC this year, taught me that I don't have to be completely OCD ALL the time. Our team knew we would be attending FETC at the start of the school year in August. Knowing that I would have months to utilize the handhelds in my classroom and collect information to share at FETC along the way was always in the back of my mind. Our team met a few times prior to FETC to plan our presentation, but nothing really needed to be done until after January 2006. I was very happy living in my FETC free world. Then the New Year came, along with report cards, conferences, FCAT Writes, and the FCAT test. Meeting about FETC was also moved to the front burner. Our original plan was to include my students in the presentation at FETC, since they are the users of the handhelds and would be able to give an unbiased truthful account of their experience. Unfortunately, the "powers that be" at FETC did not feel that having students attend their conference would be appropriate.

Needless to say, our presentation had to undergo a dramatic change. We wouldn't be having students set up at different tables offering insight into various aspects of the handhelds. As a result, the pressure of presenting slowly started to build up in me. Did I mention that I have NEVER presented at a conference before? Put me in front of a room full of students and I'm fine. But in front of a room full of adults, colleagues-NO WAY! The plan for our presentation developed during lunch at school one day. The idea was hatched to create a TOP TEN list of things we learned during our experience. Actually, it was more like a TOP TWENTY-FIVE list when we started. I actually had the notes we made written on a napkin. The funny thing was, when we met to start the "official" planning of the presentation, we couldn't truly remember what the notes on the napkin meant. Anyway, our Technology Goddess put together a PowerPoint presentation that listed out Top Ten Tips. We also wanted to offer a time for questions to be answered, but we had some questions we definitely wanted to answer. Our result was to have three of my students respond on video to the 3 major questions we wanted to have asked. It was adorable! I can only imagine what it would have been like with all 20 of my students providing answers to people who spoke to them.

Well, as I write this entry, I can reflect back on our presentation. It went well, and it wasn't as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be. My principal, Pat Donovan, and our tech goddess, Rhonda Drum, were up at the podium. I was at the end of the table near the presentation screen with a lapel microphone, and Paul was at the doorway distributing our information sheets. We had fun and tossed the "speaker" back and forth to each other. My students via video were a big hit! We got many laughs, too. I did have a question for the attendees prior to starting. I wanted to know who they were made up of. To my surprise, we had teachers, principals, school technology personnel, and district personnel attend our session. Afterwards we had several people approach each of us to ask more detailed questions.

Our presentation at FETC was listed as follows:

A Beginner's Guide to a Handheld Classroom
Barbara Preziosi with Patricia Donovan and Rhonda Drum

Cutting edge technology shouldn't draw blood! Learn through the experience of others as they share their journey through the handheld minefield. Practical advice and tips!

I really feel that we fulfilled our purpose. We shared our experience and it's been a great time with the handhelds. Attendees had some great questions, above and beyond the three we planted in the audience. Paul from Palm and Walt from GoKnow were in attendance and I was able to point them out to our audience, so maybe some other class will be able to benefit from our experience and get started on their own journey.

Now, all that's left for me to do about FETC is uploading our presentation and notes to my class webpage so attendees can access it. Unfortunately, I am unable to upload the file. Please email me if you would like our slides and presentation summary sent to you. barbara.prezosi@indian-river.k12.fl.us

Plus, we're waiting to hear if NECC wants us as one of their "Birds of a Feather" sessions in July in San Diego. I guess the fun never stops. This experience has enabled me to travel more in the past two years than I have in my entire life. It's so exciting!

FETC 2006 Our First Day

2006-03-22T12:12:00.000-04:00

As we drove from our school to the Convention Center in Orlando, we planned on what we would do once we arrived. First, we had to get our registration documents and badges, then we wanted to go to the exhibit hall. We had people to meet! We needed to go to the Palm village and meet "Paul Palm", the representative who has been remarkable since he was "assigned" to us. Paul was in as we stopped by and we had a chance to speak and look over some new handhelds that were on the market. Since my principal is interested in getting another class up and running next year, we wanted to compare models and cost. Palm has a new handheld out that has wireless capabilities built in. That means the users won't have to deal with the wireless cards like I have. That hasn't been a big issue with me, since my classroom isn't allowing us to hook into the wireless network at our school as of yet. We have an airport (lovingly named Lazlo) sitting in my classroom, waiting to be installed and set up.

Then we walked over and saw Tribeam, the company that provided the charging station for for my class. They also have a new product out in their charger line. They have an 11-dock charger (that can be attached to more chargers) that also completes the synching when you schedule it. This is a wonderful upgrade to a great product. The teacher who has this won't have to worry about having a student synch the handhelds, since it can be scheduled at a certain time of day, after the handhelds are placed in the charging station. Unfortunately, I won't be able to upgrade my model. But then, my charging station holds a total of 30 handhelds with two extra slots.

We returned to the Palm neighborhood and I found the GoKnow booth, being watched over by Walt Coatsworth and Dara. I can never say enough positive things about GoKnow. They are a people company, and they offer such customer service to their users. Walt mentioned that he was planning on stopping by our presentation on Thursday. As I was introducing myself over there, I heard a voice calling my name. It was Nancy Kokat from MathAmigo and she was in the booth next door. I was in heaven. Here I was in the midst of my favorite companies. It was so exciting to be able to speak to these wonderful people, and put faces together with their names and voices. After talking with Walt and Dara at GoKnow, I walked over and spoke with Nancy. She explained some items on the trial software she sent me that I can't wait to look at when I return to my classroom.

It's really a different type of experience when you can speak to representatives about their products. I had a very enjoyable time speaking with Paul, Walt, Dara, and Nancy. I felt more comfortable and confident since I had experience with products and could ask questions about what new things were in the works.

Now if I can only get through the presentation tomorrow without freaking out!LOL

Synch or Swim?

2006-02-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

Another important thing to get started when utilizing handhelds in a classroom situation is a synching routine. I didn’t get into one until late in the school year. For the first few months, I was the person synching handhelds on at most a weekly basis. When some students began to report “missing files” I figured it was time to get better at synching. Since we had Go Know’s PAAM (management system), as long as I was logged in while synching, the files on my handhelds would go to an online area where they are now stored. This is a wonderful resource to have on hand. I can log into PAAM from home and review work my students have done on their handhelds and not worry about having their T5 with me. I even have the ability to type comments online to students that they can view when they log into their accounts.

My system of synching isn’t hard to learn. I have one student who is always early to class, so I chose her to synch the handhelds. She comes in to class about 15 minutes early each morning and synchs 8 handhelds a day. This allows the handhelds to be synched every third day, since I have a total of 24 sitting in my classroom. When they synch quickly on any given day, she just continues. I created a log for her to use. The handheld numbers are listed down the left side and the there are several columns she uses to record the date she complete a Hot Synch. She continues in one column until all the handhelds have been synched, and then she starts a new column. It works out great and she has synching down to a fine art. I’m going to have her train two other students who come in early so the Hot Synch can continue if she is absent.

You can access my synching log at Preziosi's Pride.

Students as Problem Solvers

2006-01-22T12:02:00.000-04:00

One item that kept coming up while students were working on their handhelds is that the wireless keyboards wouldn’t work. I taught them different ways to problem solve when they weren’t able to type with their wireless keyboards.

STEP ONE: Go into the actual keyboard program and turn it on. They are given a small area to verify the keyboard is typing. Then they return to the program they are working in and try it out. In the majority of the cases, this solves the problem.

STEP TWO: Sometimes, they turn on their keyboard in step one and it works for a short period of time. I have them close their keyboards and reopen them. This actually causes them to turn their keyboards off and on with the keyboard itself. It also offers a self-check because when they fold the keyboard, keys are hit and you can see the typing of random letters on the screen.

STEP THREE: Sometimes the keyboard won’t stay on from Step One. Students might hit on, but it immediately defaults to off. At this point, if all other steps have been taken, I just delete their keyboard file and beam them it again.

So far, these are the only steps we’ve had to take to solve our keyboard problems. When a student has difficulty with their keyboard, they don’t visit me unless they need Step Three. I do hear students telling each other to “Troubleshoot your keyboard.”

There is one problem that one of my students experienced with the wireless keyboard that I am unable to correct. The key for the 1 on one student's keyboard became detached while he was opening it one day. I've tried to hook it back on, but I just don't have small enough tools or enough hands to help out. Luckily, we have extra keyboards so I was able to assign him another one. I'll have to contact the company and see if they repair keyboards or offer a help site.

“Paul Palm” Comes Through

2006-01-18T12:07:00.000-04:00

Ever since NECC in Philadelphia, I had been contacting various Palm representatives who told me to “contact them” while trying to locate neck holders for my students so they could actually be mobile with their handhelds. Up to this point, the handhelds were always placed in the charging station for safekeeping when we were working on assignments that didn’t involve the T5s. I sent numerous emails to representatives who gave me their cards only to receive email replies informing me that the emails were “NOT READ.” I admit to getting quite upset with the service I was receiving. Here I am with a class set of Palm OS handhelds and my basic emails, which these representatives told me to send them, weren’t even being read by them. I vented to my tech team and they understood my disappointment, along with my ranting and raving.

To our amazement, a man named Paul Musegades contacted us. He was very friendly, courteous, and amazing to work with. Paul got on the job and sent us a class set of Palm neck holders so my students could carry their T5s throughout the day. This enabled them to have them ready to use whenever they were ready to work on them. They became quite responsible about keeping their keyboards folded up on their desks. They also look adorable with their neck holders hanging around their necks and under one arm. We determined that this was the least restrictive way for them to wear the holders.

To make it more official, I designed student identification cards that mimicked my teacher identification badge for the county. The students LOVE their holders.

A week later, Paul sent up some pens. Now each student has his/her own pen sitting in a slot on the back of their holder. It’s always handy for them.

THANK YOU PAUL-PALM! That’s our nickname for him at our school. It just sounds right!

New Program Introduction

2006-01-18T11:58:00.000-04:00

When my principal first wrote our technology needs list for the implementation of a set of handhelds in the classroom, she loaded it up! The district was funding the hardware while our school would pick up the cost of software. It doesn’t hurt to dream big. With our set of handhelds, we received wireless keyboards, Wi-Fi cards, a projector, a laptop computer, a Margi, a printer, and a document camera. Unfortunately the company that made the detachable cameras we requested went out of business so they were no longer available. While at NECC in Philadelphia I was informed that the Margi didn’t work with our Tungsten T5 model due to a discrepancy with a mirror component. Okay, so I had no idea what that meant except it wasn’t able to be used with the handhelds we purchased. I have utilized the document camera with the projector and laptop when I introduce programs to my students. I project my handheld onto our white board while students sit on the floor in front of it. I go step by step through the process of opening the program, starting a new file, and how to navigate through the program itself. After doing that, I have students tell me the steps and follow through with what they say.

I’ve never had to repeat the training more than once. After I model it and explain it, and students walk me through it, they then take the responsibility for helping each other. I’m always amazed at how few questions I get about how to use a new program. Most of the questions they ask me are about what to name their files.

“Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”

2006-01-16T11:30:00.000-04:00

That might be a strong heading for this entry, but hey, when you get your first “FATAL ALERT” or “FATAL ERROR” screen, you feel like you are in grave danger of losing a handheld. Don’t worry though, if I got through it, so can you. We began to experience these messages on the first handheld at the start of August. Since then we’ve averaged about 5 per month. I took a three ring binder and made log sheets for each handheld so I could keep track of any errors or strange things that occurred. Most of the time, the errors could be offset by clicking the reset button that appeared at the bottom of the error message box. When that didn’t work, I would just do a ‘soft reset’ for that particular handheld. Knock on wood, but that’s all that’s been needed up to this point and the future.

The only other quirk I am still finding with the Tungsten T5 handhelds is that sometimes they don’t turn on. I can have a fully charged battery, but the device won’t turn on when I press the power button. I have to do a soft reset to get it turned on. This has happened many times to my handheld and it’s started happening with another one that an adult uses. I’m wondering if it’s a usage type thing, since both of us utilize our T5s a lot more than the students do. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

You can access my Error Logs on my classroom website at Preziosi's Pride.

Memory Loss-Mine, Not the Handhelds

2005-12-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

What’s the one thing I would have changed about this first year utilizing handhelds in my classroom? I would have wanted a fellow grade level teammate to also have a set to work with. In the past, I would plan lessons with one of my fellow 4th grade teachers closely and this worked out great when we were sharing one of our mobile laptop computer labs. Having someone to play with, and toss ideas with, enables both teachers to develop better ideas and incorporate the technology into existing lessons. Being the only 4th grade teacher with handhelds still allowed me to plan lessons with the rest of my team, but the immediate thought of using handhelds in a lesson wasn’t as automatic as in the past with the laptops. Nobody else was aware of what programs I had and the capabilities of the handhelds.

One program from GoKnow that was an “oh my gosh I forgot I had that” occurred during a reading lesson. I was getting ready to photocopy KWL (What I know, What I want to know, What I learned) charts for my students when I remembered that I had iKWL on the Tungsten T5s. In less than 20 minutes, I taught my students how to utilize the program for their reading activity. One thing I love about the program is that students develop a word list of 10 words they associate with the topic being studied. This word list then appears when they are forming sentences for the different portions of their KWL. When they get to the W section, a list of question words and common words appears at the top of the screen, and they can just click on the words with their stylus and have them appear in their questions.

I did have two students who were out of the classroom when I taught the iKWL program. I didn’t have to worry about teaching it to them, they learned from classmates. I love watching students help each other when problems arise.

The Summing Challenge!

2005-11-09T11:25:00.000-04:00

Okay, so sometimes all we want to do is just play on our handhelds. I mean, come on, we can’t always do work on them, right? Well, that all depends on what the students view as work and what they view as play. One Freeware game that I had on my handheld from NECC 2005 was a math game called Summing. I became quickly addicted, even though I didn’t know HOW to play initially. I learned by trial and error and then by reading the blurb online. Here’s the setup, your game screen has 49 colored squares, each with a different digit. The squares are color coded so all the same digits are the same color. The left side of the screen contains a column of 4 colored squares with digits in them. This column contains your target number for each move. The object of the game is to clear the 49 squares on the board in the least number of moves possible. To clear squares, you have to figure out which combination of squares you can add together so the SUM in the ones column is the target number next in your list. Surrounding the 49 squares is a perimeter of blank squares. In order to clear out numbered squares, you touch an empty square that shares a side or corner with the boxes (one or more) you were able to add to reach the target number in the ones column. I think it’s a lot easier to understand when you have the game in front of you. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I did become addicted and when I first played (without knowing how) I was able to clear the board in a little over 300 moves. That was a definite beginner score for me. By the end of my first night, I cleared the board in the mid-80s range.

I had beamed the game to my fellow tech-team members at NECC, but they hadn’t really gotten into the game at all, due to their being busy with other things. I introduced the game to my students, who LOVED it! I informed them that their first task with the game was to become the TOP 5 scorers on their handhelds. The game is automatically set that the TOP 5 scores are 999 moves. This way, each child could become the winner on their own handheld and then challenge their own score as time passed. Oh, the craziness that ensued. One day, the principal walked in as we were playing. Oops, I mean developing strategies to become better thinkers! Well, I had to issue a challenge to her seeing as she was our leader at school. The Big Cheese! The Big Fish in our Pond! In the blink of an eye, students were gathered around her explaining how to play. At first, I think it made her more confused because none of the students wanted to stop to let another one talk. Eventually, we worked it out and a few students would share ideas with her as she worked to clear her board.

Then our other tech team member began to play Summing. Before I knew it, she was emailing me with lower and lower scores. It became a daily routine to announce to each other that we had beaten the lowest score earned: 27, 26, 25, 24, and 23. When she got the low score of 22, the competition got intense. I was then able to get my score down to 21. We proceeded to write it on my classroom board in 3-foot digits with colors blazing out likes rays from the sun. When my students came in that day, they asked me what the number meant on the front board and being their teacher I responded with, “I don’t know. It was here when I got in this morning.” Being that this tech team member is also in charge of our CCTV studio, we chose to announce the explanation to my Web-Heads on our school wide TV morning show. (Web-Heads is what my class named themselves at the start of the year. It fits in with our technology theme as well as my love of Spiderman.) Before we knew it, a new low score was announced, this time by our principal! She scored ¬¬¬20! The class loved it and wanted to get their scores lower. Our principal even mistakenly sent out the message, “Hey Web-Heads-Guess who got 20?” in an email to the entire staff.

On a side note, our school held “Family Nights” at a local McDonald’s restaurant the first Thursday of each month. The first night there, I started up a conversation with the manager and learned that he also used a Palm OS handheld in his work environment. We got to talking and he even got me on the Internet while there since it’s a wireless McDonalds. At the end of the night, I shared the information with my principal and we began talking to him some more. We told him about Summing and ended up beaming it to his handheld. Little did we know what would result from that little beam!

The manager wasn’t there the next month, but he was the following month. I asked him how he liked the game Summing and he said he was addicted. Then he told me his low score. Are you ready? It was 15! I couldn’t believe it! 15? The lowest any of us achieved at this point was 20! He showed me his Top 5 scores list on his handheld and 15 was there. Not once, but a few times, which meant he was able to repeat his success. As my students began coming in to eat dinner, I shared the manager’s score of 15. They couldn’t believe it either and demanded to see his Top 5 list. It was so adorable. Here’s this 9 year old standing approximately 4 feet tall, demanding that a full grown man of 6 feet prove his score. None of them were willing to back down from disbelief without seeing his score. One student would tell another as they walked in the door. I don’t think he got much managing accomplished that night.

You can find the Summing game at
http://www.freewarepalm.com/games/summing.shtml

To Charge or Not to Charge? The Tribeam Question

2005-09-05T08:44:00.000-04:00

Always expecting the unexpected, I realized I had a problem with the charging station we had purchased from TriBeam. The connections from the station to the handhelds were based on a regular charger. The connector was at the end of a short wire that came out of the slot the handheld was placed in. The handheld actually was placed upside down into the slot so the charger could be plugged into it. Students were not allowed to unplug or plug in their handhelds; I did that to prevent possible damage to them. After about two weeks of using the handhelds, I noticed that some of the plugs were losing plastic pieces that covered the metal on the end. There was also a problem with the connection between the station itself and the wire that plugged into the wall. It wasn’t a complete connection and I had to wiggle the wire around to get it to fit properly. Realizing that I couldn’t continue with the charging station the way it was, and worrying about what would happen weeks from now, I contacted the TriBeam Company via email about the problems I was having. Talk about CUSTOMER SERVICE! I sent an email on August 27, 2005, near the end of the school day. The morning of August 29, 2005, I had the following email waiting for me from Henry Kazecki of TriBeam Technologies, Inc.:

“We have updated the design of the TC200. We will exchange your unit with the new model. It will be shipped this week. There will be on cost to you for this exchange. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

All I had to do was box up the old charging station and return it to them in the same box the new one was sent in. About 10 days after my initial contact, I had a new charging station sitting in my classroom. I must admit that I was IMPRESSED with the service I received from the company and the way they stand behind their product.

In this world of ever increasing technology, it is wonderful to have a company that supports their products when problems have been corrected.

Go TRIBEAM Go!

Introducing the Handhelds to Pride 13

2005-08-21T08:39:00.000-04:00

School began and it was time to get into the routine of a new year and a new group of students. Thirty of our handhelds were on our campus, along with the wireless keyboards, Wi-Fi cards, and the Tribeam charging station. After reviewing beginning of the year routines with my class, I began to slowly introduce them to the handhelds. To start with, each student was assigned a specific handheld that would be “their” handheld for the year, along with a keyboard. To ease the use of handhelds by different students each year, I had created names for each, based on our school, the model, and a number. Each handheld started with SEB T5 and then a number ranging from 01 to 30.

When I first introduced the handhelds to the students, I passed out theirs and had them keep them on their desks. Then I held mine up and went through the basics of how to turn it on, how to use the stylus, and how to access the menu and programs. You could have heard a pin drop as I was introducing the information. I would tell students what needed to be done, show them on mine, and then walk them through it step by step while they used theirs. I think that was the only time I ever had to say something once in a classroom over the past 12 years and NOT have to repeat myself. Amazing what can happen, isn’t it? After the initial walk through, I invited my students to explore the Tungsten T5s.

Since our plan for the handhelds in year one was to utilize them to replace pencil and paper tasks, I taught my students how to use the FreeWrite program to do their journal entries. One aspect of FreeWrite I love is the spell check function. Unlike most word processing programs, FreeWrite doesn’t offer possible words to choose from. It only tells the user what words it doesn’t recognize and the user needs to determine the correct spelling of the word. This requires students to locate correct spellings from various sources, including dictionaries and spellers available in the classroom.

**Free Write is available from Go Know

NECC in Philadelphia PA

2005-06-27T08:37:00.000-04:00

The 2004-2005 school year ended and our team flew to Philadelphia to attend NECC. We were presenting our classroom webpage project at the ISTE showcase and had a “Birds of a Feather” presentation to present also. Originally, my principal and our tech coordinator were going to be the only two of our four member team to attend due to the fact that they were presenting the “Birds of a Feather,” and they had signed up to attend an all day workshop titled “Integrating PALM OS Handhelds Into Your Curriculum.” Of course, my principal couldn’t leave it at that and she found funding to enable the whole team to attend together. Whoever said “money doesn’t grow on trees” may be correct, but my principal is capable of pulling it out of thin air more often than not. Since I would be one of the individuals who would actually be integrating handhelds into my classroom, we chose to switch who would attend the full day workshop that Monday. It would now be the only male member on our team, a fifth grade teacher, and me. Of course by now we should have realized that our best laid plans always encounter some obstacle which requires us to “be the willow” and change our course. Upon receiving all our NECC badges and paperwork, we learned that only one member would actually be able to attend the workshop since it had filled up so quickly. Since I would be the ONE to use handhelds in the coming school year, I was the person chosen to attend the workshop.

The workshop was AMAZING! It was presented by Mike Curtis from Go Know and was run the way a workshop truly should be run—totally hands-on. From the first thing in the morning until the final moments late that afternoon, I was taken through each of the Go Know programs and shown HOW they could be used. In addition to seeing what other users had created with the programs, I was able to create a little project in each one. It was GREAT! The other wonderful aspect was that my team planned on purchasing Go Know software to use with our handhelds in the fall. I learned a lot about the 10 programs we were “playing” with that day and learned something else about handhelds. They keep their charge unbelievably. I had both my Tungsten T5 and my HP iPaq with me, along with a wireless keyboard. Mike Curtis beamed the Go Know demo programs to my Tungsten T5. One thing I quickly realized was that I wouldn’t be able to play with the programs and take notes on my T5 at the same time. What did I do? I pulled out my iPaq and hooked it up to my wireless keyboard. From 9:00 am until 4:30 pm, I was using both handhelds continuously. By the end of the day, I had decreased my battery to about 55% on both handhelds. What laptop has that capability? None that I have ever worked on.

In addition to beaming the Go Know demo programs, Mike Curtis also beamed some freeware math game items, Summing and Math Wiz. We didn’t review those games at the workshop, but they were on my T5. I will talk more about Summing later on. If you have it, then you are already an addict. If not, I’ll be more than happy to beam it to you if we meet up at a technology conference.

Late that afternoon, I called my team as I exited the workshop so we could meet up. Do you know what they were doing while I was WORKING all day? That’s right, they weren’t working. They had been PLAYING! Without me! They went out to lunch, took a tour, went on the DUCKS, and had a grand old time. I must admit to some hurt feelings, since I wouldn’t be able to experience what they did. Then I realized that they wouldn’t have the experience I did either. It worked out fine in the end, because they got me a duck bill to quack as a souvenir.

We continued our journey at NECC, attended some sessions, completed our presentations, and visited the student showcase. That was a wonderful time because we were able to ask students about their experience. The group that was there had utilized various freeware programs the teacher found. One of the programs was Summing, the game Mike Curtis had beamed at the workshop. I had no clue how to play the game so I asked a young student for assistance. She explained that I had to look at the target numbers down the left side and try to add combinations of numbers on the grid to get that number. Okay, her explanation wasn’t that clear, but it started me on the path to figuring out how to play. Starting out, a player needs to beat a score of 999 to clear the board. The first time I played, I cleared the board in over 300 moves. Obviously, this was a true beginner score and the sign that I had no idea how to play. I quickly became addicted and continued to play late into the night. Before calling it a night, I was able to get my score down to the mid-80s.

NECC came to an end and we began our journey home and the beginning of integrating handhelds into the classroom.

Time Goes By

2005-05-13T19:20:00.000-04:00

Upon returning from FETC, the team met and discussed what we were going to do with the handheld situation. The school district would be funding the hardware purchase for our pilot of a one-to-one handheld deployment, while our school would pick up the budget for software. Being the leader that she is, our principal felt she should ask for everything we could dream up and try to get the district to outfit two full classrooms, while hoping that if they said no, we would at least get more than we initially bargained for. Well, it paid off, even though they only went for one classroom set of handhelds. The plan involved the handhelds, wireless keyboards, WiFi cards, a projector, a laptop computer, a color printer, a Margi Presenter to Go, a charging station, and handheld cameras.

On the school's end, we would be purchasing software from a company called GoKnow. We had seen a presentation at NECC in New Orleans and were captivated by the presenter and the products offered. Our group likes to refer to the presenter as "Bruce Villanch" because he reminded us so much of the comedian. We also knew the option was open to locate freeware for Palm on the Internet, since so much existed out there.

After the proposal was submitted to the district, it was approved and the process of waiting for hardware to arrive began. It took quite a while, due to the "deals" we found online with the handhelds while researching at school, weren't necessarily the same "deals" the district would get.

Eventually, boxes started arriving and piled up in our school office. I was told they were there, but it was so late in the school year, I didn't know if I should go ahead and start using the handhelds or wait until the following school year began. Slowly, I began to take boxes to my classroom. Once the handheld carton was sitting in my classroom, I could hear it calling, "Open me up. Let the students play. Come on, I dare you!" Okay, I admit it, they finally got to me. I couldn't let all that technology sit there wasting away while I had students eager to test it out.

At the time, we hadn't received any software, just the hardware. Well, what was I to do? I had a demo version of Math Amigo and installed that on the handhelds. It only offered 5 math activities, one of which was quite difficult. It didn't matter to the students though. I went over how to turn the handheld on and navigate to the Math Amigo demo and away they went. You could have heard a pin drop when they were working. I mean, who ever knew that students who were less than two weeks away from summer vacation would want to WORK more? I couldn't stop them. They sat and "played" math for an hour straight one day. The demo offered various activities and students would complete ten problems, while a timer was ticking in the corner of the screen. Since it was only a demo, there wasn't any way to save their scores, so I had them keep track on a piece of paper. They went into competition with themselves, trying to solve more problems correctly in shorter time periods. It was amazing to watch them so actively engaged.

The only downside was that the school year was ending and these students wouldn't be the group that would fully participate in the pilot program. I felt bad when I had to turn down their offers to stay in the fourth grade for another year. You can't blame them for trying though. :)

Florida Educational Technology Conference 2005

2005-01-28T22:50:00.000-04:00

We were finally able to organize some of our teachers and provide them with time to work on webpages. For the most part, Angelfire was the program utilized for our teachers. This is a free, internet based site which allows users to use templates to create their pages or enter their own html code. Three of us took advantage of a free offer by School Fusion and signed up for their program. These options allowed teachers to design their classroom webpages and experience success almost immediately. It is wonderful to see teachers actively engaged with our technology. Once they had webpages up, they couldn't wait to grab digital cameras and start posting photos.

One of the main reasons we were attending FETC in Orlando was to meet up with ISTE and make a presentation about the plan we originated back in June. Although we were looking forward to meeting up with members of the cohort we formed in June, our group was the only one able to attend FETC and make a presentation. We had been hit hard by the hurricanes, but so were many other members of the cohort we joined in New Orleans.

Our presentation went well and we got alot of laughs. This was thanks to the "Geek" of our team who is wonderful when speaking in front of others. Her grasp of the English language and its idiosyncrasies amazes me, while creating a wonderful atmosphere for listeners.

While there, we felt it was important to attend sessions on handhelds as well as talk to promoters at the exhibit hall. We wanted to speak to representatives of Pocket PC's to learn more about the products offered and the specifics of items that went with them. While in the exhibit hall, we went to the Palm One area to discuss our concerns about the memory loss on battery discharge. To our surprise, we learned that this problem had been taken care of in the newest family of Palm OS handhelds that were just out on the market. The representative introduced us to the Tungsten T5 handheld and explained about its new memory system.

Needless to say, the "willow" was bending in yet another wind that was blowing. On the drive back to our town on the east coast of Florida, we discussed the new and improved Palm OS, specifically in the Tungsten T5 model.

What About the Handhelds?

2004-12-30T22:18:00.000-04:00

Okay, this blog is titled Handheld Reality Year 1 and there hasn't been much mentioned about handhelds. All our work with classroom webpages coincided with us meeting and investigating the concept of having handhelds in our classrooms. Our principal, and team member, has been a Palm OS user for quite a while. She has a Zire 71 and uses it on a daily basis to keep track of her appointments, set reminders, take pictures, and document workshops and trainings she attends utilizing Documents to Go.

I began to utilize the iPaq I received at NECC for the same things. I liked a lot of the features, especially the way I could "tell" it what my writing was like. The iPaq allowed me to view various ways letters are formed by hand and choose which were similar to the way I write. This was so much easier than having to learn and remember grafitti strokes that were needed for my Sony Clie when I wanted to input text. My iPaq literally became attached to my hip, at least it's case was always hooked to my belt loop and was easily accessible.

When the team met about the webpages, we continued to express an interest in getting handhelds into the hands of students at our school. We felt the concept was cost effective and would enable students to have more options in class. Even with our mobile computer labs, it wasn't possible for all students in one classroom to be working independently on a laptop. There were only 15 in each cart and that always left some students without a computer, even utilizing the desktop models in the classroom.

The big question our team kept asking was, "Which type of handheld do we choose? Palm OS or Pocket PC?" Two of our team members had been utilizing Palm OS handhelds throughout the past year. They both noticed a major issue that caused concern if we placed the Palms in the hands of our students. Both of them had experienced data loss on their handhelds, not only on the handheld itself, but on the memory cards they installed. If their Palm's battery completely discharged, it would dump the memory on the handheld and the memory card. All their items were lost! Yes, they knew all about synching their handhelds, but the fact that the data was completely DUMPED on a battery's discharge was frightening.

For this reason, and the fact that we had all been introduced to Pocket PC's through ISTE, we began our research. One issue I was concerned with was students' keyboarding skills. We didn't have a computer class in place at our school, although we did have a full computer lab for student use. When I used the laptops in my classroom for writing activities, students took quite a long period of time using the "hunt and peck" method when typing. This had the potential to become a larger issue when handhelds were incorporated, especially if we wanted to utilize them in place of pencil and paper tasks.

Our research led us from wireless keyboards to thumbboards. These are small keyboards which attach to the bottom of a handheld and allow text input by utilizing the user's thumbs. Knowing that the thumb is "THE" digit of our video game generation of students, we felt that purchasing Pocket PC's with thumbboards would be the way to go.

In addition to our personal experiences, we contacted speakers we had listened to at NECC about their experiences with handhelds. For the most part, we found that many who had begun by using Palm, began to switch over to Pocket PC's for various reasons. We never got definitive answers from people as to which they would recommend for a startup program like we were designing.

Palm OS has been around for a long time and the majority of programs were written specifically for their systems. Many of the freeware and shareware programs were also for Palm, although Pocket PC's were starting to build an impressive library of programs too.

Our principal began compiling a proposal to present to our school district in order to fund the project. When she plans, she plans BIG! I guess she figures it doesn't hurt to go for everything you can dream of using. In addition to the handhelds, the proposal included a projector, a Margi, digital cameras for the handhelds, a laptop computer, and many other items. We were traveling yet another path that would lead to change.

Be The Willow

2004-12-20T21:46:00.000-04:00

The hurricanes and their interruption of the school year finally ended and things began to return to normal. Okay, as normal as a school year could be after starting three different times. Due to the storms, our original plan of getting teachers up and running wasn't going to be met in time for us to join ISTE at the new conference in October 2004.

The district had to make decisions, because we lost so many school days. One method of making up time was to only utilize one Wednesday each month as an Early Release Day. This destroyed our original time line of using our Professional Learning days for teachers to learn how to create and update their own classroom webpages.

Alot can be said for Turtles who follow the FISH Philosophy! The least of which is that we don't give up. We persevere and work with what we're given in order to succeed in our endeavors. Although we wouldn't be able to reach our goal by October, that didn't stop us. It just allowed us to "be the willow" and adjust to the winds that blew around us.

Our members had various roles and duties to perform in order for us to succeed with our webpage plan. It started with contacting district personnel about our plan and getting approval. To our surprise, we learned that the district had a program which would allow us to create individual webpages for faculty members. Communications flew and we got excited! We were ready to roll and even had a conference calls with a representative for the portal system we were going to utilize. We sat through an interactive training session with the representative. It was quite a sight to see the four team members huddled around our principal's desk, communicating through her speaker phone, and interacting with the representative online with some of our iBooks.

Weeks passed, we organized more, and were getting closer to the time when we would be able to invite teachers to begin their webpage journey. We set up a final conference call with the portal representative and even invited one of our district people to join us. We felt that this would allow us to have someone local who could help us troubleshoot if needed.

Unfortunately, that meeting didn't go as planned. We didn't end it with a date to start working with our teachers. It actually ended with us returning to GO and not being able to collect our $200. After all our weeks of planning, and conferencing with the portal's representative, it ended with us hearing the following words to a question we posed, "No, you won't be able to do that with the portal." This came as quite a shock to us and the district person that sat in with us. He was just as surprised as us, because it now seemed that this program would not allow the district to do as they had originally planned.

Thus, we "became the willow" yet again. The wind blew us enough that we were able to return our sights to our original plan for the webpages. Use whatever was available that we could find. Make it simple and easy for us to use.

What Doesn't Kill You...

2004-10-01T21:36:00.000-04:00

Our journey continued and when school started up in August, our team met to begin implementing our plan. Little did we know what awaited us! We could have starred in our own reality television show, because the events that unfolded over the next few months were that surreal.

Wednesdays in our district are early release days. Yes, that means EVERY Wednesday! This is so teachers can attend inservices and professional learning communities. In our technology plan, the ISTE team had targeted the Professional Learning Community days at our school for the webpage training. We felt it would be best to instruct a small group of teachers (6), enable them to experience success with their classroom webpages, and then utilize them to assist with carrying out the training for future teachers at our school.

Being that we are a school that lives and breathes the F.I.S.H. Philosophy, our team chose to develop an acronym that would extend this concept. The acronym we developed was L.U.R.E. It stands for Learn IT, Use IT, Run with IT, Explain IT.

We were all set to have our first meeting when the world crashed in on us.

Did I mention that we are located on the east coast of Florida? Well, 2004 brought two sisters to our area, Hurricanes Francis and Jeanne. These two hurricanes shut our school down for a few weeks. Personally, I had ceilings in my home collapse, floors totalled from water damage, and even a convertible car top destroyed. After the second storm, I came home to find the porch roof from the house across the street sitting in my front yard. My principal's home also suffered severe damage. Many of our school families (students, faculty, staff)were displaced due to the storms. Teachers actually started school three times this year. We worked planning week, then a hurricane caused us to close school on our final planning day. Students started the next week and Hurricane Frances came in and shut us down for a few weeks. School started again, then Hurricane Jeanne came in to visit and shut us down again. Eventually, we did start up again AND finish! It should have been an omen of what was to follow in terms of our technology plan, but we just didn't realize it.

In the Beginning...

2004-09-01T21:33:00.000-04:00

It all started at NECC (National Education Computing Conference) in New Orleans in June 2004. I was part of a team put together by my principal and we were attending the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Institute. One of the perks of attending the ISTE Institute was receiving a free HP IPAQ Pocket PC. I already had a rinky-dink Palm OS Sony Clie, but its basic use was as a memo-calendar-address book. It really didn't have any bells and whistles to it. The Ipaq was quite interesting, and it used a Windows operating system.

While at the conference, the four of us played around with our new tech tool while developing a plan for our school. Our plan was to get the teachers at our school using the existing technology we had on campus. This technology included mobile Apple iBook computer labs, SmartBoards, and digital cameras. We didn't want to put more of a burden on teachers, so we chose to target a few teachers we felt would be interested in creating a class webpage for the following year. Several freebies were available to help create the webpages: AngelFire, GeoCities, and Netscape Composer. We just needed to return to our school and find out what was doable from the District's point of view.

While at the conference we also attended key sessions and workshops, many of which revolved around using handheld computers in the classroom. This was the beginning of a new journey on a road we hadn't planned on traveling- using handhelds in classrooms at our school.

The plan we created would be put in place at the start of our new school year in 2004-05. We were scheduled to join ISTE in October 2004 at another technology conference so that all the co-horts could share their successes and experiences.