Palms in Class

Kids in Pittsburgh USA have received Palm PDAs to use in the classroom, not to organise their busy social lives, but to help them with their normal school work. First and second-graders at Paynter Elementary School received a “Hands-On Learning” grant of $10,000 to help integrate the computers into classroom life. The 75 kids have got 34 PDAs, 7 Bluetooth keyboards and 4 memory cards between them, as well as another $2,500 to train the teachers - gee things have changed since the one BBC computer we had in my primary school!

Anyway, the school board have recognised how instrumental mobile technology has become in everyday life, and incorporating the handhelds into the curriculum has been the work of the teachers in the school itself. One said that she saw “the goal of the grant” as being “to improve language arts skills” among the pupils. The children use the Palms for journal writing, phonics practice, personal writing and math problem solving.

“We realized that the Palm Pilots were a cross-curriculum tool and could be used in all areas like math, health and social studies,” another teacher said. Local officials hope to use the PDAs in other subjects in the near future, including science. They hope to do an observation project on butterflies in the spring with them.

Putting aside my jealousy, I think that this is a great idea and hope that teachers in the UK get similar plans! If you know of any other schemes, or if you disagree and don’t see the point of PDAs in schools, post and let me know.