PDAs and Students
Using PDA's allows students to take greater responsibility for their assignments. For example, when referring to the onboard calendar they can visually see what assignments are due. Knowing when a particular assignment is due allows them to organize their work, play, and study schedules more effectively. Knowing the details of an assignment, including its point value and due date, can help them set priorities. Using the PDA "effectively [gets] 'rid' of all the additional pieces of paper or additional notebooks" (McFadden, 2001).
PDA's assist students in the writing process. They can write, edit, and revise stories, papers, and journals. They can also use the PDA to take class notes. Students working in groups can beam poems or other writings to one another. Individual reading and writing exercises can be completed on PDA's as well (McFadden, 2001; Soloway, 2000; Szuchman, 2002).
Students work together in small
groups to create a poem, acrostics, biocrostics, or other creative writing tasks
using their PDA’s memo software or word processing software. One students begins
the writing activity by writing an entry into the file. This student then beams
the document to the next student. That student adds an entry before beaming it
to the next student for further work. Once completed, students can share the
written work among the group before beaming the finished product to the teacher.
PDA Integration Strategy 2
Students use their PDA's to
create, edit, and revise a reflective journal as they study a novel or work on a
research project. The teacher then, at random, asks students to beam their
journals to her PDA. The teacher beams responses or comments back to the
students.
PDA Integration Strategy 3
The teacher creates text files that allow students to edit paragraphs for punctuation, capitalization, and spelling on their PDA's. The text files are beamed to individual students for revision. Once revised, students beam the file back to the teacher’s PDA (or print hard copies for submission). Over the course of a semester students create a document that contains basic grammar and punctuation rules as well as examples. As a variation on the activity above, teachers could require students to sequence paragraphs in a story by using the cut and paste features.
Students can create simple survey instruments that can be stored on the PDA. Students can use these surveys to conduct field research, including interviews, by recording data and other findings in a PDA spreadsheet, such as Tiny Sheet (www.iambic.com), or in Microsoft Excel. Completed surveys can be beamed to a central computer so that results can be tallied and discussed in class (Greene, 2001; McFadden, 2001).
PDA Integration Strategy 4
Students use spreadsheet software on their PDA's to set up and manage financial information, such as stocks during a stock market simulation. Students obtain daily stock reports by clipping the information from CNNfn (http://www.cnnfn.com/) or the Wall Street Journal (http://wwww.wsj.com). Information, including the name of their stocks, the purchase price, the daily or weekly percentage change, and other information about the stock, is entered into the PDA. Students beam information to team members for discussion and decision making activities, such as what stocks to buy and what stocks to sell.
PDA Integration Strategy 5
Working individually students collect, count, weigh, and sort recyclables or clean trash in their homes for an assigned period of time (Roblyer, 2001). Each student records his findings in the PDA. Once the information is collected, students beam the data to the teacher for compilation. When all data is collected, the teacher in turn beams the data to groups of students who are assigned specific data analysis tasks. Groups hypothesize about what the data suggests for the local community. They also can use the information to make recommendations for action.
PDA Integration Strategy 6
Students use their PDA's to
conduct and collect social science research using a simple survey instrument.
Groups of students fan out across the school to collect data from a variety of
classes or grades. Once the surveys are completed the data can be combined into
one file for analysis and discussion.
Database Applications
Students can use databases to store, sort, and search through large amounts of information. Information can serve as the source of original research and analysis (McFadden, 2000; Hecht, 1997; Roblyer, & Edwards, 2000; Soloway, et. al, 2001). Students can merge individually collected data into a larger database simply by beaming or synching their databases.
Students work in groups to search through and analyze local census data (recent or historic) that the teacher has stored in a PDA database. Students began the activity by exploring the data and learning how to use the database software. Once they are comfortable with the software, they can begin to formulate questions that the database can help them answer concerning the local community during a particular time period (e.g., average family size, infant mortality rates, mortality rates, and other questions such as race and gender ratios.)
PDA Integration Strategy 8
Students go into the field to
investigate the relationship between the local community and the natural
environment by collecting data on the type and number of birds observed in
various locations. Students also record information about the setting (e.g.,
where the birds are located, the time of day that they are sited, date of the
observation, and any other observable information that they discover).
Variations on this activity include having students observe the diversity of
rocks (Roblyer, 2001), plant (e.g., hard wood trees), animal (e.g., small
mammals), and insect species in the local area. Using the database students draw
conclusions about the impact of urbanization on the natural environment.
Laboratory Settings
In laboratory settings where each student or groups of students have access to their own PDA, students can conduct experiments, test hypotheses, and quickly record results A variety of probes, which attach to PDA's expand the investigative potential of the laboratory Software associated with these probes allows students to record and analysis scientific data from the probes. Using this data, students can also conduct scientific research in the field (Soloway, 2000; Soloway, et al, 2001).
PDA Integration Strategy 9
Students graph temperature
changes over time in ponds (Soloway, 2001). Once the field experience is
completed students beam the results to one another or to the teacher’s PDA for
analysis. Variations on this activity include testing and recording CO2
levels in the local area over the course of a semester.
PDA Integration Strategy 10
Working in pairs students use a
PDA to record the results of laboratory experiments. Findings and conclusions
are then shared and discussed as a whole group activity.
PDA Integration Strategy 11
Students clip 9 (download) articles from assigned newspapers to their PDA's. Working individually or in groups, students go through the paper to select and read an article on a current issue. Once the article is read, students use their PDA's to write a summary and critique of the article using a writing prompt beamed to them by their instructor. A variation on this activity would have students clip articles on one topic or event from newspapers with different points of view. Once the articles are clipped, students read the articles and identify the content and point of view for each newspaper. Students come together for a roundtable discussion of the diversity of perspectives presented in the articles.