|
Objectives
The main focuses of the trial are to investigate:
-
the potential of eBooks as an aid to improving literacy.
-
the use of diary and planning software to store homework
details and to alert students to deadline dates.
-
the use of mindmaps
-
personal access to PDAs by named students.
PDAs
A portable
ICT learning device must be ubiquitous. It should be available
anytime, anywhere and have a battery life which lasts for a whole
day – not just the school day.
PDAs have the following advantages
over other portable learning devices:
-
Small size and light weight – can be carried in a
pocket
-
Instant-on (no waiting for an operating system to
‘boot up’)
-
Very easy to back-up to a PC or network
-
Simple to “swap-in” new units when devices need
repair. All user data can be downloaded via synchronisation
-
Much longer battery life than laptops
-
Ease of synchronisation and sharing of data with
other PDA users by infrared ‘beaming’
-
A big price advantage over laptops
Conventional computers serve applications. The PDA should be
thought of as a “learning content rich” device and as complementary
to other types of computer.
The PDA Classroom
A PDA Classroom has been set up at St. Francis Catholic School
in Birmingham which consists of:
-
35 Toshiba PDAs running Windows Pocket PC 2002
with the MS eBook reader software installed.
-
A WiFi access point connected to the school’s
network.
-
A wireless data projector
-
A tablet PC for the teacher to display lesson
materials and manage the PDAs and their connectivity.
eBooks
The learning content is being distributed to the devices in MS
Reader format. The MS eBook reader shares a common file format
with both the MS eBook reader working on the Pocket PC and Windows
operating systems. The functionality of both PDA and desktop/laptop
readers is almost identical.
eBooks can be written in MS Word 2000 or 2002 and compiled into
MS eBook reader format using a free add-in the Word available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads
Details of eBook creation and how to compile them into eBook
format can be found at:
http://edit.bham.org.uk/home/eduakhes/CreatingeBooksusingWord.doc
|
