.KEYWORD kleinisd
.FLYINGHEAD HANDHELDS IN EDUCATION
.TITLE One school district’s approach to handheld integration
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Like many companies today, schools are doing rollouts of PDAs. But how does a school district make the move to begin purchasing PDAs? In this article, Mark A. Evans, a District Instructional Technology Teacher for the Klein Independent School District in Houston, TX, will discuss his district’s approach to integrating handheld technology into the educational system.
.AUTHOR Mark A. Evans
The PDA battle rages as people are thrown into the decision-making process to determine what PDA to purchase. Companies are doing rollouts of PDAs to improve customer relations, complete faster service turnaround, and do quicker inventory checks.
It is no different in schools across the nation. Customer relations (student and parent relations) are important to schools. Faster and better service (better education, more knowledge in real time, and higher scores) are crucial to a school’s survival. And with all the items (especially items that require longer than one year follow-up documentation) that need to be inventoried, what school could turn away better inventory systems? Some schools across the nation are utilizing PDAs in the classroom already, many through collaborative studies with PDA makers and universities or other research oriented organizations.
But how does a school district (public, private, independent, etc.) make the move to begin purchasing PDAs of any brand and model, and how does a district determine that PDAs even should be purchased?
I am a District Instructional Technology Teacher for the Klein ISD (Independent School District), a suburban/rural school district north of Houston, TX. In our district, the move to integrate technology into the classroom is happening at a tremendous rate compared to our rollout of services and programs in the past. With grants, bond money, and a surge of technological focus, our district is rapidly putting its students and schools on the proverbial technology map. And we have just begun to encounter the decision making process involved in the PDA movement.
In the past, our district as a whole has been very conservative by waiting, watching, and studying results of other districts’ methods in just about every category imaginable. Our district is largely residential, so business tax dollars don’t contribute to our district as they do in many other nearby districts. It has been smart to watch and learn before proceeding. Although there is an awakening to doing things a new way, some of that conservativeness is warranted, especially with regard to valuable technology dollars. With this history and perspective in mind, our district has begun to move forward with evaluating the use of Personal Digital Assistants for use within our district. It will be exciting to learn what other districts in our area are doing, and I hope to report that information once school starts again this month.
Typically, our district has established a standard as a baseline for what technology can be purchased. This sound decision is based on the fact that certain technology will work on our servers, while some of the decision was made due to certain software applications not working on Windows 2000 computers. Additionally, much of the decision is based on security issues of running on a secure network.
We have approached PDA integration in a three-fold manner. First, I have been studying PDA journals, Web sites, organizations, and makers. Through list-serves, Web contact, and personal emails I have gathered (and am still gathering) a plethora of information, projects, and ideas. Second, we have established a PDA Users Group (our Systems Applications Department members, administrators, teachers, and community members are learning and comparing PDAs). Finally, teachers and administrators are being encouraged to write grant proposals and to integrate the PDAs of their choice into projects on each campus, provided that the use of PDAs is crucial to the success of the project. Though barely stepping foot on the PDA battle grounds, we have moved forward.
As the initial interest began to explode, we started distributing and encouraging teachers to write for grants. I distributed information to teachers about two grants that I thought would be very appropriate for our teachers. One was to Palm and SRI, and the other was for EDS (Educational Data Services). Although the EDS grant was not specifically for PDAs, many of the teachers included PDAs in their proposed projects. Two of our teachers had projects make it to the semi-finals of the Palm and SRI grants, but none won the EDS grants. However, the interest and the ideas for integration into the classroom spurred other teachers’ growing interest.
Klein ISD held its first Technology Fair in March 2001, and one of the sessions I hosted at the Fair was for PDA users. I was overwhelmed at how many people attended. We had seating for 25, and there was standing room only for some in the back. There were administrators, teachers, and parents at the session. Most participants had Palm handhelds, a few had Compaq Pocket PCs, and a couple had Handspring Visors. We discussed the ways that people use their PDAs and how PDAs could be used in the classroom. I referred back to the grant applications as examples, and this caused even more ideas to be generated. The excitement was apparent, and most asked to continue the sessions in the future. Interestingly, most were not interested in attending the sessions in order to learn how to begin to use PDAs, but how to use them better and how to integrate their use into the classroom.
Of the people having PDAs in our district, most are members of the Systems Application Department, or administrators that have made the move to electronic organizers. But more and more teachers have already begun to purchase PDAs just since March, and this summer I have become aware of support personnel (social workers, secretaries, maintenance, etc.) purchasing PDAs also. Primarily, people are purchasing them on their own, but a few have made the move to purchase them as part of the school equipment. Granted, as of this writing most of the devices are still for individual users. But in order to make the best decision about what to purchase and why they should be purchased, a few people needed to use them, become familiar with them, and learn as much as possible about them first. I personally raved about my self-purchased Palm Vx. Now, to fairly compare, I have been issued a Compaq iPAQ 3670.
This summer we’re offering two PDA sessions to increase the awareness in PDA differences, to review the brands and models of PDAs, to study classroom integration projects already in existence, and to compare PDA capabilities with the needs of the users. More information will be provided after the completion of these summer sessions.
Technology is changing rapidly, and as Klein ISD moves into the future, there will be many steps and evaluations made to determine what the standard recommended for our district may become. By reviewing other schools’ moves to PDA integration, trials and obstacles might more easily be overcome, making our technology dollars more useful and wisely spent.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Klein ISD, visit http://www.klein.texas.schools.esc4.net/.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.BIO Mark A. Evans is a District Instructional Technology Teacher for the Klein ISD, Klein, Texas. Comments and questions can be sent to him at mevans@kleinisd.net.
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