A Mobile Cause

YOU’VE HEARD THE SPIN: Handhelds increase motivation, encourage networking, are portable, and can costeffectively improve test scores. But implementing a handheld project can be problematic, especially if you’re starting from scratch. What about staff development? Finding appropriate software? Providing adequate technical support?

We talked with teachers and education consultants about incorporating handhelds into instruction. They offered a host of useful suggestions on overcoming the five major challenges of bringing mobile devices into the classroom.

1) Training Teachers. The teachers and consultants we talked to agreed: Staff development presents a considerable hurdle. Without knowledgeable teachers, money spent on new technologies can easily go to waste. Accept that staff development is a big part of a technology rollout, and plan to spend accordingly.

In a just-completed three-year project funded by a No Child Left Behind grant, Christine Tomasino worked with two colleagues and 37 school districts in northern Illinois to incorporate 3,000 handheld devices into fifth- and ninth- grade classrooms. Tomasino, a former teacher and technology director, is now a teaching and learning consultant working out of Joliet, IL. The NCLB project, “Bridging the Disconnects” (www.bridgingthedisconnects.org), used two different handheld devices with wireless and infrared connections—a Palm Tungsten C (www.palm.com) and a Palm-powered device called Dana by AlphaSmart (www1.alphasmart.com), which has a fullsize keyboard. The project focused on reading in the content areas of science and social science.

Tomasino says that more than 100 hours of training were spent per teacher. That sounds like a lot, she concedes, but it included summer training, monthly courses, e-mail support, and “blended” learning opportunities in which other material was taught as well. “Research shows that to change [teaching] practices you need 80-plus hours,” she says

Also, technical support is a must. In many schools, one teacher drives technology forward and supports the devices on the strength of pure knowledge and enthusiasm. That can work, but if you don’t have a technology driver at your school, make sure to get the IT folks you do have on board to commit to providing support.

Initially, the Bridging project specified direct, inclass technical support. Eventually, Tomasino says, teachers will become comfortable enough with the handhelds to take over tech support themselves.

2) Staying Focused on the Purpose. Wireless is often misused, says Kellie Doubek, an instructional technology and literacy consultant who has worked with schools and districts in Illinois and Michigan. Too many schools, she contends, reach for hot new technologies like mobile and wireless without strategies in place on how they plan to use them.

“If you are looking at using technology,” Doubek says, “use the same sound instructional strategies that you would with any new initiative. Administrators and teachers forget that, because they’re overwhelmed by the tool.”

That said, Doubek sees handhelds as especially effective for some educational uses. Along with their mobility and lower price, they promote interaction among students, she says, far more than laptop computers do.

Doubek, who works with Tomasino, encourages client schools to focus on the purpose of the new technology, which should be driving the project in the first place. “If [devices] are being implemented with a purpose, think through staff development,” she says. “First, what is that purpose? Second, what’s your goal instructionally? Third, where’s the technology support coming from?” Doubek advises answering those sorts of questions up front, all the while making sure not to stray from the project’s instructional objective.