Mobile Learning News - November 2005

November 2005

This is the inaugural issue into our series of Mobile Learning News issues focused on the use of handhelds in P-12 education. We felt there was no better way to kick off the series than to feature Tony Vincent, one of the greatest pioneers in handheld education. In today’s issue, you will read a narrative of events that Tony has agreed to share with us and educators everywhere!

Enjoy and stay tuned for upcoming issues of Mobile Learning News:

Handhelds in Science
Handhelds in Math
Handhelds in Reading
Handhelds in Social Studies
Handhelds in Physical Education
Handhelds in Special Education

Tony Vincent’s passion for teaching and technology can be seen in everything he does. Tony taught fifth grade for six years, and in three of those, his students were pioneers in educational handheld computing. His current role as technology specialist at Willowdale Elementary in Omaha, Nebraska, gives him the opportunity to bring the newest technologies into classrooms. Whether it’s digital video, blogs, email, podcasts, or handhelds, Tony helps Willowdale teachers and students understand the power of new technologies and our changing digital world.

In the past, a student’s audience has been the teacher. Students manufactured reports, projects, journals, etc., to please the teacher. My students learn about and use new methods of communication, like web sites, blogs, and podcasts. These are communication tools from the real world, which makes it motivating. Also, because web sites, blogs, and podcasts are available worldwide on the Internet, students have a real audience. With modern communication tools, the audience is global. Producing content for a certain audience is important. For instance, I find that the discussions of our products for the Web revolve around thinking about our audience. “Will students in another school know who Mrs. Kelley is?” “Will second graders who listen to this know the meaning of the word conductor?”

I get so excited about the possibilities that new technologies bring to education that others can’t help but be excited, too. When I conduct a workshop or teach my graduate class, I show examples and model how to use the technology for learning. I give teachers plenty of time to experiment on their own. The key is to encourage discussion among teachers and to get them to brainstorm ways to connect what I show them to the curriculum. I want teachers to see that the big deal is not the technology, it’s what teachers and students can do with it for teaching and learning.

I have seen that students definitely do become fluent users of technology and generally catch on faster than adults. It becomes the challenge of the teacher to teach students how to learn and communicate with these tools. The focus should not be on how the tool works, but what you can do with it. I didn’t realize this the first time I used handhelds with students. I went in with the intention of teaching technology skills and made what I thought was a brilliant plan that would take students through three weeks of Palm “boot camp”.

Handhelds are quite simple to learn. It’s somewhat ironic, but as desktop and laptop computers become faster and more feature-rich, one of the best things about handhelds is that they are simple. The Palm Operating System in particular is very intuitive. You can get to most anything in three taps or less on the screen. In contrast, think about desktop word processing. In Microsoft Word, you have menus, pallets, helpers, tools, and options galore. Word processors for handhelds are not nearly as complicated. The simplicity allows students to concentrate on their writing, not the software they are using.

When introducing handhelds into the classroom, you do not have to buy all of the gadgets and accessories that go along with them. Just get the handhelds. Buy as many as you can, so that you can put handhelds in the hands of as many students as possible. Sure, you can spend lots of money on software, but that’s not necessary for success. If you plan for students to enter more than a sentence at a time on their handhelds, you’ll definitely want keyboards. I would also recommend getting a document camera so you can display the handheld’s screen for the students to follow along. You’ll also need power strips - lots of power strips for charging.

Part of my job as technology specialist is to keep up on the changing landscape of education. To do this, I subscribe to dozens of education and technology blogs. I used Bloglines.com, a free service that aggregates into one convenient place, all of the new posts from the blogs to which I subscribe. It’s nice because I don’t hunt for new blog posts; the blog posts come to me, much like email messages. I also subscribe to several podcasts through iTunes. In addition to blogs, podcasts are another free resource. I find it’s much harder to make the time to listen to podcasts, but I have learned so much through the ones I have managed to listen to. With blogs and podcasts, I engage in a little bit of professional development each day. Although I can interact and learn from educators online, I also attend education conferences. There are even conferences devoted entirely to handheld computing! I continuously provide an updated list of excellent conferences on my website.

I have fallen in love with podcasting! I listen to podcasts every day, including David Warlick’s Connect Learning, This Week in Tech, Diggnation, The Educational Mac, and several others. Even as a child I enjoyed listening to talk radio. Of course, my friends all listened to music and thought I wasn’t very cool because I listened to some old person blabbering on. Even though it wasn’t cool, I would listen to AM talk and to NPR whenever I could. When listening to talk programs, I would suffer through conversations and new stories I was not interested in, just to hear the parts I really wanted. With podcasting, I’m not subjected to many commercials and I get to choose what I listen to and when I listen to it. I don’t subscribe to any podcasts about sports, because that’s not what I’m into. I obviously have an interest in technology and education, so those topics often make up my podcasts. I’ve essentially created a radio station personalized for Tony Vincent.

I have had numerous opportunities to travel and work with students in other states. Last year, after doing a math lesson with some fifth graders in Michigan, one student asked me to sign his handheld in the Note Pad application. The student wanted my autograph (handheld style) because his teacher shared with him that she used many lessons from my website. The fifth grader was also impressed because there was a category on his Palm that read “Tony Vincent,” so I must be famous. This story is cute, but really reminds me that my work is affecting students all over.