Fast lane: online tutorials help users get up to speed: five-minute lessons boast narration, step-by-step instructions and examples taken from a teacher's typical needs.

PEOPLE PURCHASE HANDHELDS to improve their lives. The built-in applications--Note Pad, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks (To Do List), and Memo--prove instantly productive. One can choose from thousands of Palm OS applications to help with personal and professional needs. Multimedia and high-capacity storage are increasingly affordable. And better connectivity to computers and networks makes them even more valuable as day-to-day tools.

People embrace handhelds, however, when they are easy to use. This is about personal productivity, after all. Since their debut, Palm OS handhelds are widely recognized as setting the highest standard for ease of use.

K-12 teachers, staff and students, for example, have adopted palmOne devices in large numbers, most recently extending into the younger grades. Ease of use is paramount in education. A Zire or Tungsten model automates organizing and scheduling, plus handles communication, analysis and document-creation needs and will fit in a pocket. But, perhaps most crucial of all, it's extremely easy to learn how to use these handhelds.

New Web-based tutorials shorten the learning curve even more. Each just a few minutes in length, these QuickTime animations cover basic operations and skills, and are designed to bring a new handheld user quickly up to speed. Visit www.atomiclearning.com/palmOne).

Nearly 25 individual tutorials on how to use a Palm OS handheld are available (see sidebar for titles). Developed by Atomic Learning for palmOne, these short movies walk an educator or student step by step through basic navigation and operations. Topics focus on accomplishing common tasks, such as inputting text, navigating and editing contacts, or finding information. Some lessons take just a minute or two, others are longer, but none lasts more than eight minutes. Moreover, one can stop, rewind and replay parts of the narrated QuickTime movies.

Each tutorial simulates the screen of a handheld. A virtual stylus navigates menus, enters text and selects onscreen buttons. A red dot indicates where the stylus would be touching the screen. Menu choices are shaded when highlighted; text appears in the proper fields. A narrator describes each operation, often with a bit of contextual background or discussion of other choices. It's look-listen-and-learn simplicity.

Being able to replay a segment, or jump ahead to a specific spot in a clip, adds to the utility of these targeted lessons. So does very narrowly defined topics. Suited for a quick refresher or to impart basic skills, this is bite-sized "just-in-time" learning, served up 24/7 over the Web.

Of special import to K-12 users, all of the tutorials feature typical school-related tasks. This means the examples used in these Web-based simulations include references to homework and testing, bus or sports schedules, and categories like reading and math. In "Creating a new event," for instance, the exact steps to schedule a spelling test are presented in sequence, with an alternate method described by the audio narration as well.

A closer look at some tutorials

Some of the tutorials' topics are broadly applicable, such as "Using categories." The narration first explains that handhelds organize information by categories, which work similarly in the Memo, Calendar and Contacts applications. The animation then proceeds to show how to create a new category for memos, and how to assign existing memos to a category.

The tutorial dedicated to "Using menus" begins by noting that the menus on a Palm OS handheld are initially hidden. One can access them two ways, it explains. Tap the menu bar at the top-left corner (where the time normally displays) to reveal available functions and their drop-down choices. Or use the Menu button, denoted by an icon of a solid bar with three shorter empty rectangles below it. Regardless of which method is used, the tutorial also shows how menu choices change to match the options available for that place within an application.

Another tutorial explores the power of the Details button, in this case as it applies to the Calendar application. Adding details to a particular event can include creating a repeating date; changing dates, locations and/or times; setting up an alarm; or assigning it to a color-coded category. The "Using the calendar details screen" simulation leads users through the process of changing the date of a spelling test, adding an alarm, making it repeat weekly on Fridays till the school quarter ends in December, and appending a separate note to the entry as well.

Three of the new tutorials cover Graffiti 2. This handwriting-recognition system, found on all palmOne handhelds, reads a highly simplified form of the lower-case alphabet. Moreover, Graffiti 2 is easier to learn than the original because it's closer to regular printing.

Just exactly how to draw letters and numbers in Graffiti 2, plus do capitalization and punctuation, is both shown and described by the trio of tutorials. One explains how location determines whether a stroke is read as a number, letter or capitalized letter. Another tutorial focuses on the help screens of Graffiti 2. A third details how to turn the whole screen of a handheld into a writing area, for example. In each lesson, proper creation of characters is demonstrated by the virtual stylus while the narrator offers extra guidance.

In addition to basic "how-to" instruction, many of the tutorials provide helpful tips. For instance, one is advised to write characters large--"fill the area"--when entering text or numbers via Graffiti 2. The audio narration usually explains why as well. Using more screen area touches more sensors, which makes the handwriting recognition more accurate. And don't write slowly; that just makes a handheld hesitate as it waits for the input to be finished.

Additional sources for educators and students

A variety of other resources can help K-12 teachers, students and administrators make the most of their palmOne handheld or Treo smartphone. Most may be accessed from palmOne's Education Resource Library (www.palmone.com /us/education/resourcelibrary). For example, two QuickTime movies in the Education Video Library deliver "an inside view of teaching and learning with handhelds" plus "a tour of ideas and resources." Administrators are targeted by one movie, with teachers of elementary grades the focal point of the other.

Also popular is the area's FAQ. The topics of these Frequently Asked Questions revolve around using handhelds and their accessories in classrooms for instruction. However, also generally covered is professional development for educators and education pricing.

More specific assistance--for a discipline or a special population--comes from Education Quick Guides. These nine guides discuss how palmOne handhelds and selected software can successfully address Assessment & Accountability needs or Management & Support issues, for example. Suitable software from third parties and Palm OS developers is listed as well.

And don't forget to bookmark the Education Resource Library's Helpful Sites page. From here, one can access all of the tutorials, an array of tools, plus plenty of timely tips. Curriculum integration is one focus, as are eBooks.

Finally, late-model Macintosh users will be heartened to hear that palmOne handhelds are now fully compatible with the iSync, iPhoto, iCal and Address Book applications for Mac OS X. Plus, there is always Palm Desktop for Mac. Stay current with Mac-related news and assistance at www.palmone.com/us/ macintosh.

So, what can palmOne handheld products do? They can organize life; keep teachers, staff and students in touch; and handle multimedia. They can extend the office or classroom, allowing people to take their work (or homework) along wherever they wish to go. Many models can play music, record voice memos, and take pictures. Many can also serve as a portable portal to the Web. Explore all of this and more at www.palmone.com/us/products/basics/ functions.

TITLES OF TUTORIALS

1. Digitizing the screen

2. Setting the location, date and time 3. Starting applications from the launcher

4. Graffiti 2 quick tour

5. Graffiti 2 help screens

6. Creating a new memo

7. Inputting text using the soft keyboard

8. Using categories

9. Using menus

10. Adding a new contact

11. Navigating and editing contacts

12. Beaming information

13. Creating a new event

14. Navigating the calendar

15. Using the calendar details screen

16. Creating a new task

17. Managing tasks

18. Finding information

19. Setting sound preferences

20. Writing on the screen

21. Setting the key lock

22. Changing font size

23. Deleting items