Winning big: how one tech person and his principal have led the handheld revolution in the country's sixth-largest school district.

Even in a large school district, it can be individual staff members who move ideas and innovations forward. Charles Sinicki, the educational computing strategist at Bob Miller Middle School in Clark County, Nev., saw Palm handhelds demonstrated at Comdex 2001 and wanted one. When he approached his principal, Kaweeda Adams, she sent him back out with a mission: "If you can find a useful education application, we'll talk." Sinicki took it upon himself to make Palm usage a reality at his school.

Clark County School District, which includes the city of Las Vegas, is the sixth largest district in the country. It is the second-largest employer in the state of Nevada, behind only the casinos. With 30,000 employees and nearly 285,000 students, the district has special challenges both with integrating technology and with implementing innovation. Sinicki, with the willingness to start small, began his hunt for the "killer app" that would get things rolling.

First, he brought Scantron's Classroom Wizard to Adams' attention. Yet, while she felt the test administration system was interesting, she didn't feel the middle school's teachers would buy into handheld technology just for test-taking. Even so, one classroom set of Palm m130s was funded through private donations and fundraising. But Sinicki wanted more. His goal was to find a way to use handhelds for every classroom application possible, from reading to writing, to arithmetic and science, to social studies and beyond.

Then She Told a Friend, ...

Then Sinicki saw a teacher reading aloud to her students from Treasure Island. When asked why students didn't have their own copies of the book, the answer he received was pretty standard for most districts across the country: not enough money. So Sinicki downloaded the public-domain text of Treasure Island, loaded it onto the classroom set of Palm handhelds, and had the teacher and her class read along together. Total cost? Not a dime.

It worked. Not only did this teacher gain a valuable classroom resource, she also gained study questions and review materials designed for use on Palm handhelds. Moreover, Sinicki had an ally, who then talked about her experience to the other teachers. This generated enthusiasm among the staff that translated into more interest in using the handhelds, and in finding more programs to suit more needs.

Teachers received training, got to play with their own Palm handheld over the summer, and then got more training in the fall. Usage snowballed at the school until there were more teachers wanting to check out the classroom set of handhelds than there were units. By January of 2003, there were three classroom sets of Palm computers at Miller Middle School and every teacher had one for his or her own use. Students were encouraged--but not required--to purchase their own.

Administrative Support Grows

Kaweeda Adams is nearly as enthusiastic about getting Palm handhelds into the classroom as Sinicki. "I love technology," she says. While she admits that educators don't have to use technology in the classroom, to be effective in the real world the ability to use technology is mandatory.

"As educators, we're preparing people for the future," she explains. In order to do that, one has to "explore every single avenue."

When Sinicki came to her with the idea of using Palm computers in their school, Adams needed to make sure his enthusiasm didn't override her concerns. First, the whole software-acquisition process for the handhelds had to be legal. Second, the handhelds had to enhance student achievement. And third, they had to enhance teacher performance. Starting with the example of Classroom Wizard for testing and instant feedback, plus the handheld's ability to act like a book, Sinicki met all her criteria--and then some. Adams was firmly on board. "She saw the importance of the technology," Sinicki recalls, and became a valuable ally in his quest for a Palm handheld at every desk.

When it came time to crunch the numbers for the Palm project, Adams became even happier. For the money she was spending on a single classroom computer complete with software (about $3,000), she could get 10 kids up and running on Palm computers. The math was instantly compelling. Finally, the ability to download public-domain texts and read them via Palm Reader sealed the deal. "[It was] more cost effective to buy the handhelds than to buy 200 books," Adams says.

Bob Miller's principal also saw tangible benefits. Kids were excited by the Palm-based lessons, says Adams. You could hear it in the halls. "When you hear students talking about learning, you know you're making a difference," she says. Handhelds didn't supplant the instructional process, they enhanced it.

Handheld Usage Deepens

Sinicki's enthusiastic support of Palm handhelds is now paying off in every class and every discipline. For instance, the Physical Education department uses them to track stats for the department's annual field day. In language class, teachers use Classroom Wizard to administer pre-tests before the finals to enable students to see instantly whether they're really ready for the final or need more study and review.

In science, eighth-grade chemistry has embraced Chemtable, an application for Palm handhelds that displays the Periodic Table. "I'm no science person," says Sinicki, but Chemtable is cool. Tap any element and "it pulls up more information than I ever knew existed" about the element's physical and chemical properties. As a fun way to review, students in class even play Chemtable Bingo.

As for Classroom Wizard, it has proved immensely popular. So much so that teachers must reserve one of the three classroom sets of handhelds early if they expect to have them available at exam time. "Students are actually excited to take their final exam" when it's delivered on the handheld, says Sinicki. And while he's sure that excitement will fade as the handhelds become more commonplace, he insists that on the Palm, everything is "more interesting," especially to students. "Writing on paper just doesn't have the flair."

And it isn't just the students getting a charge out of using Classroom Wizard and handhelds for tests. Teachers love the Wizard's speed and instant feedback, but there's more. They can pull up a number of different reports on their students' responses or review questions.

In addition, instead of wasting valuable class time while students copy notes from the blackboard, teachers are beaming notes and outlines to students' handhelds. This alone "increases student on-task time, gets you more bang for your 50 minutes," comments Sinicki.

Having the handhelds also frees up computer labs for tasks other than word processing. At Miller Middle School, there are four computers per classroom and two computer labs. Even in well-supplied schools with both computers in the classrooms and computer labs available, it's frustrating for a class trying to pursue a multimedia project to be displaced in the computer lab by another class doing word processing. Palm handhelds with add-on keyboards free up the lab computers for graphics-heavy multimedia projects.

Even administration jumped on the Palm bandwagon. Adams explains that she used Discovery Software Principalm application to connect her handheld to the school's student information system, giving her every student's contact information at her fingertips. On a later field trip to Disneyland, a student became ill and the emergency number needed to be called. While the teacher was still searching for the piece of paper with the information, Adams had already found it on her Palm and was dialing the phone number.

Going District-Wide

Both Adams and Sinicki have moved to the district level, but their Palm-powered enthusiasm hasn't wavered. Adams is now the director of human resources for secondary license personnel. Sinicki is the project facilitator for the entire district and a certified Palm Education Training Coordinator. He trains teachers across the district--either onsite or at his lab--in the uses of the various technologies at their disposal, working with Education Through Technology grants.

At Miller, free programs for the student's handhelds are available at a cafeteria workstation with a desktop HotSync cradle. E-books--both public-domain texts and books written by fellow students--are available for download. And Pilot Install, from envi.con KG, allows students to add information to their handhelds without writing it first to the computer and having to HotSync.

Sinicki purchased two sets of science probes and related probeware from ImagiWorks for the handhelds. These will allow science classes to measure and chart things like temperature and motion. You can't lug a desktop computer out to a field; even a laptop is usually too big and heavy. But a Palm handheld fits in your pocket. "If it doesn't fit in my pocket," says Sinicki, "I don't want to have to bring it."

Adams agrees. At Miller Middle School, they took handheld use to a new level, she says. Now, "the next school to adopt Palm handhelds will take it to the next level." Tee former principal envisions students using handhelds on a daily basis. Instead of a fat, cumbersome three-ring binder with 500 pages, students could carry a small, powerful, multifunctional Palm handheld computer. The intrinsic allure of handheld technology, she explains, gets kids to teach themselves in ways they won't do if they're uninterested.

RELATED ARTICLE: PUG keeps the ball rolling.

Sinicki knew that the end of the school year was not the best time to start something new, but he nonetheless had a decent turnout at his first Palm Users Group meeting this March. The 30 or so attendees--teachers, administrators and parents--are treated to a talk from a vendor, such as Scantron or Discovery Software, describing their product's abilities and applications.

He also asks his users to help evaluate new programs. "Somebody may be an expert on something I don't know," he says. "People are using new and different stuff. You need to share so the whole district can benefit:" Users then bring their results back to the group and the group can determine what would work best in a classroom setting.

In an effort to get his PUG attendance numbers up, Sinicki sends out reminders to a distribution list made up of Palm users who have signed up as interested. He also makes a district-wide announcement before every meeting. After the meeting, he posts the minutes on the district's intranet as "public awareness for the teachers" and as a communication point for users to share information.

He says that teachers come up to him after using a Palm handheld for the first time in their classes to confess, "I was really hesitant to try this; I thought it was a glorified organizer; I didn't know what these things could do;" With Sinicki's help, however, now they do.

Elizabeth Crane is a freelance education writer based in San Francisco.