Remote, but fully wired: schools across Michigan have implemented thousands of handhelds, inspiring students to better explore their classwork and subjects.

Mackinac Island Public School in northern Michigan enrolls 74 students in grades K-12. Students get to school either by walking or biking. In the wintertime, their transportation options change. Most take a horse-drawn carriage of the ever-popular snowmobile. You see, cars are not allowed on this historic island, considered a natural treasure.

Close to 500 people live on the island year-round. When they want to travel to the mainland, they take a boat, small plane--or during the winter when the strait freezes--they ride snowmobiles across the "ice bridge" to reach their cars on the other side at St. Ignace.

Even though this isla of isolation sounds like something out of a 19th century novel, the community is wired with high-speed Internet, and the school is at the forefront when it comes to technology integration. In fact, the school was chosen as one of the sites that would explore the use of palmOne handhelds in the classroom through Michigan's Freedom to Learn grant.

Elizabeth Staats Burt teaches science and math to students in grades 4-7 at the school. She and her students use their handhelds every day in all of their subjects, and she has found that handhelds have added excitement to her claasroom.

"I would not want to go back to teaching without handhelds," says Burt. "They add an element of excitement to learning for the kids."

Goal: Increase Student Achievement

Freedom to Learn (www.mivu.org) was Michigan's statewide one-to-one technology initiative for K-12 schools. The program was designed to integrate computers and curriculum, bridge the digital divide, and expand technology opportunities to students. The goal was to create a one-to-one computing environment to improve student achievement in core academic subjects.

Originated by Michigan Speaker of the House Rick Johnson, a pilot program was approved by the state legislature for the 2002-03 school year. The first phase, started in 80 schools, showed increases in test scores and student involvement, so the initiative was extended to 2003-04. Tight budgets have prevailed recently, so grant funding to extend the program has run out.

Despite its short duration, the program's impact has been felt. For the pilot, schools in selected districts chose between handheld computers or laptops. About 70 percent of the schools elected to use palmOne handheld computers, because they could outfit a classroom of 30 students with handhelds for the cost of about four laptops.

The three demonstration sites were geographically spread apart: Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD, Traverse Bay Area ISD and Berrien County ISD. Each of these districts submitted proposals convincing the state they could serve as "best models" for using computing technologies to improve education.

Eastern Upper Peninsula was awarded 1,135 palmOne handhelds for 15 rural schools in the middle grades. Traverse Bay received 1,000 palmOne handhelds for 42 classrooms throughout five schools in grades 3-12. Berrien County spread 3,300 palmOne handhelds throughout 150 classrooms in 20 schools, focusing efforts on seventh graders.

Schools throughout these three areas began their projects in spring of 2003 and continued them this school year. Teachers and students are already sharing a wide range of experiences with handhelds.

Ready, Set, Go

Professional development played a key role in all of the districts' success. Some offered several days of intense training from GoKnow, developers of educational solutions for handhelds. At other spots, staff provided weekly training. Some schools set up successful train-the-trainer models by selecting a lead teacher and training him or her.

All of the ISDs' technology directors attended the palmOne Education Technology Coordinator program and became certified as a PETC so they would be able to provide up-to-date, consistent training for the handhelds.

When the palmOne handhelds landed in the classrooms, teachers considered ways to introduce the technology to students. Most started by meeting with parents, so everyone knew what was expected in caring for the units. Students kept the handhelds seven days a week. Then they taught students the basics, including Graffiti, so that they could get started right away. Keyboards, for bigger writing tasks, were also included.

Students learned quickly, says Jim Bembenek, director of instructional technology for Berrien County ISD. "While introducing some students to the handhelds, I was going over the care and feeding of these new tools, showing them the basics. After just a few minutes, a young boy raised his hand and asked me, 'Mr. B., could you stop talking and let us learn?' Within just 20 minutes the kids were using Giraffe [a game] to practice Graffiti and were doing great. You have to stay out of the way. The kids can handle it."

Initially some teachers and parents thought the handhelds would prove to be a distraction as students beamed notes to each other in class. Yet they found the children were more engaged in learning than before.

Teachers Get Organized

Many teachers have found handhelds helpful for managing assignments and assessments. Using GoKnow's Palm Archive and Application Manager, teachers create a Web-based portfolio to assign, track and record all the work done by students on their handhelds. Teacher can also send quick feedback on projects or reminders to students. Data flows back and forth when the handhelds are synchronized via a HotSync operation.

"I can create assignments that download to their handhelds, leave messages, and grade work. PAAM makes assessment on the handhelds much easier," says Burt, who uses the program extensively. "Students don't have to beam me all of their work. When they synchronize their handhelds with the classroom desktop, everything is uploaded and then goes to the PAAM Web site. I have access to all of their work and also parents can log on at home and see how their child is doing."

What's Up: Language Arts 

Handheld computers plus keyboards form a powerful duo to facilitate all kinds of writing activities. In classrooms across all three districts, the handhelds are helping students become better writers and stronger readers. Some students use GoKnow's FreeWrite for writing tasks (part of their Handheld Learning Environment, www.goknow.com), while others go with Memo Pad or DataViz' Microsoft Word-compatible Documents To Go (www.dataviz.com). Students usually learn Graffiti and how to use the keyboard, and then decide what works best for them.

In one fourth-grade class, children regularly use Palm Reader for reading books (eBooks), and have even created their own eBooks using Palm eBook eStudio (www.palmdigitalmedia.com). They produced an "ABC" book, for example, in which each child wrote an entry for a particular letter.

A fifth-grade class downloaded classic fairy tales from the Web to study. They read the tale on their handhelds with Palm Reader, picking out the major themes and morals presented. Then they wrote their own modern fairy tale, basing it on similar themes. This activity combines content pulled from the Web with reading, analyzing and writing tasks, all done on handhelds.

Cooperative writing is also popular in both the lower and upper grades. A student writes a paragraph, beams it to a classmate who then adds to it and beams it back. This activity, along with GoKnow's PicoMap for concept mapping, is common during joint projects when students are brainstorming.

At Central High in Traverse City, teacher Becky Romine uses handhelds to reach out to Hispanic and Ukrainian students and their parents. First she downloaded dictionaries in English, Spanish and Ukrainian for students in the ESL program. She prepares activities where students practice reading, writing and vocabulary skills. Going furthe5 she had students take their handhelds home to share their vocabulary and literacy development with their parents. Romine also wrote notes to the parents on the handheld, and they responded.

This exceptional connection to parents has made a difference. Since all parents come to an orientation with their teenagers when handhelds are distributed at a school, groups were coming together at the high school that would never have met before. Many non-English parents don't attend school events, but this time they did. Students really appreciated being trusted with the handhelds, and in being part of the special program. Just taking part has made them feel better about themselves.

"When it came time to share the results of the Freedom to Learn program with state legislators, we took some of the Ukrainian and Hispanic students," says Regis McCord of the Traverse Bay ISD. "They engaged with members of the legislature, showing them their improved language and communication skills."

What's Up: Math & Science

Handhelds are a natural fit for math and science activities. Many of the districts' teachers use science probes from Vernier (www.vernier com) and ImagiWorks (www.imagiworks.com) for data collection and analysis. Others use GoKnow's FlingIt to download Web sites so that students can take scientific reference information out into the field. Graphing and scientific calculator applications are popular tools, as are quizzing programs and a wide range of math applications.

Michelle Ribant is the math and science director for Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD, and loves using handhelds. "As a math and science person, I love the technology," she says. "It's a way for us to bring together all the things we love: GPS systems, Excel spreadsheets and digital cameras."

Last year in Berrien County, they focused on language arts. This year, it's math. The district purchased licenses for Valiant Technologies' MathAmigo (www.mathamigo.com), a Palm OS program that offers standards-based grades 1-8 math activities that are automatically scored and tracked by a management system.

Teacher KayDee Terakedis at River Valley Middle School in Three Oaks has begun integrating MathAmigo into her curriculum and found it adds a new dimension in her classroom: just-in-time practice. "Handhelds help students who need more practice in specific skills driven by content standards." With MathAmigo available on the handheld, she has noticed students working math problems more frequently and spending time with difficult concepts. "It's a great way for students to become comfortable with the material we're working on in class. Students who use the activities frequently are becoming more and more comfortable with their answers and are slowly increasing their verbal responses to questions in class."

At Watervliet Middle School, Keith Klann has also started using MathAmigo. "It lets my students practice specific math skills at their own level and does my record keeping for me. The kids like it and they're involved. I say if it gets them to do math, I'm all for it."

The handhelds can also teach in a graphic way. Klann's students watch animated slide shows, for example, that demonstrate how to solve equations of add fractions. These operations become real to them as they see things moving instead of just a start and finish.

Back on Mackinac Island, Burt and her students use GoKnow's Sketchy as an alternative way to assess knowledge in math and science. Some students do better creating an animation in Sketchy to show scientific processes, such as cellular respiration, than they would on a multiple-choice test.

For each science unit, Burt writes up study questions with Pocket Mobility's Quizzler (www.pocketmobility.com). She'll type in questions and beam them to the students, who study along separately or together. "Since using Quizzler, science has become fun to study for my students. No one has failed a science quiz yet." She also does pre- and post-tests, so students can see their individual progress.

She creates homework and testing assignments right on the Web with Handysheets (www. handysheets.com), GoKnow's free service to educators. It develops and delivers custom worksheets online in multiple-choice, short or long-answer, and other formats. For example, Burt assigns a math problem of the week for students to work on while she's busy with a lesson for a different grade level. They need to solve the problem and also reasonably describe how they solved it. Both skills are tested by Michigan's state assessment so communicating well is as important as solving the problems.

What's Up: Social Studies

For social studies, skills in reading, writing and research are key, and handhelds are involved in all of these activities at all grade levels. In addition to word processing applications and Palm Reader, many of the districts' students use AvantGo (www.avantgo.com) to download news Web sites to keep up with current events.

Burt's class' already has a convert to reading Web-updated news on a handheld. Every Monday, one of her students who would have never picked up a newspaper to read, begs to be the one who downloads the Detroit Free Press to the class desktop computer so he can HotSync with his handheld for the latest news. "Yes, perhaps what he really wants is to check up on his favorite sports team, but at least he now enjoys reading the rest of the 'paper' on his own handheld," says Burt.

At Traverse City East Junior High, teacher Ivana Kirt uses handhelds in a unit on the Holocaust. Students read texts about it and write their reflections, all on their palmOne handhelds. They then take these reflective writings home and share them with their parents. After discussing them with their ninth graders, parents write back with their own reflection of their child's interaction with the material. Kirt says many parents are surprised by the sensitivity of their children, and also glad to talk with them in a substantive way about what they're learning in school.

Focusing students' energies has widespread rewards. In an alternative classroom at East Junior High, a teacher has described her students' behavioral problems as "dying out" since the class started using handhelds. Students are better organized and getting more work done, she added. Some of her students have even attended educational conferences to present to adults, showing them geography projects and GPS systems.

Results and Benefits

Anecdotal evidence, along with official evaluations done so far, show that palmOne handhelds in the districts' classrooms are having a strong, positive impact. Students in all grade levels are more engaged and enthusiastic about learning. They're completing more work, and having more fun at the same time.

"Kids who wouldn't pick up a pencil before are writing and expressing their ideas," says McCord. "The handhelds are a great tool for writing and improving literacy. And students are excited to share their work with parents, so handhelds are also proving to be a great link to home."

Bembenek has found that students are more responsible for their own learning when using handhelds. "These tools encourage students to be independent thinkers," he says. He also has seen that students like being trusted with something so worthwhile. There was a concern that seventh graders would damage the handhelds, but the damage rate is less than 3 percent. "Only one time did we get 'the dog are my handheld,'" says Bembenek. "And it actually was true. You could see the teeth marks."

Mike Porter of Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD, says, "When kids are using handhelds, the handheld is secondary to the activity. It's just another tool." Even so, teachers and students in his district find the technology is a powerful aid, and yet they've only gotten a glimmer of what handhelds can do.

"We're preparing kids for careers that don't exist yet," comments Burt. "We owe it to our kids to help them keep on top. Handhelds open the door for them and bring learning to life."

Handheld Hints

Deal with games

Kids (and adults!) love games. Give out new games on Friday so students can play them over the weekend and get them out of their systems.

Teach Graffiti

For older kids, introduce them to Graffiti and let them practice on their own using Giraffe. For younger students, try introducing Graffiti before they even get the handhelds. Pretend you're teaching a code and provide practice with worksheets with ceded messages they need to figure out. Then once they learn on the handheld, make them reach a particular score on Giraffe before they use keyboards.

Teach responsible ownership

Have parents in for a meeting before distributing the handhelds. Emphasize that students must take good care of them and that parents are responsible for last equipment. Some parents might want to create their own contracts with their children that state if they lose of damage the handheld, they would need to pay back their parents.

Source: Elizabeth Staats Burt, math & science teacher at Mackinac Island Pacific Public School.

Gina Adams Palmer is a freelance writer focusing on education. She is based in Los Gatos, California.