Will Handheld Computers Work in the Classroom?

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Will Handheld Computers Work in the Classroom?

11/6/2001

Will handheld computing devices—personal digital assistants or PDAs—ever take off as the hardware of choice on college campuses? Do their portability and low cost outweigh the tradeoffs in power and functionality? What can these devices do for a student that a laptop or desktop computer cannot?

A group of researchers at Western Carolina University set out to answer these questions in controlled experiments last year. WCU lets students bring any equipment they choose to campus as long as it allows them to connect to the network, use e-mail, access the Internet, and run certain software packages. Most students at WCU rely on desktop PCs rather than notebook computers. While the desktops offer students compelling advantages, such as lower costs, more durability, and a guarantee against theft, the obvious disadvantage remains—students can’t bring the desktops to class.

Valorie Nybo, assistant professor of health education, and Robert Orr, campus computer consultant and current Web manager, were members of a faculty group who wanted to find out whether the use of wireless PDAs could promote active classroom learning.

PDAs seemed to offer an attractive solution for ubiquitous classroom computing because of their smaller size, ease of transport, silence of use, and lower likelihood of breakage and theft than for laptops. WCU obtained funding to perform two pilot tests, then found nine freshmen volunteers willing to try Palm IIIx PDAs for a semester.

All nine students were registered for the same three courses—health, law, and English. The PDAs were loaded with several applications in addition to those that were built-in. These included Review Master, software for constructing quizzes; Documents to Go, software that converts Microsoft Word and Excel files for use on the Palm; and powerViewer, which converts PowerPoint files for use on the Palm. Also loaded was AvantGo, which converts and regularly updates Web sites for viewing on the Palm. Students were given the devices for use with class assignments and told to use them as much as possible in their coursework and personal organizing.

Despite the attractive technology provided, there were problems with student adoption of the devices. Though the students who participated in the experiment were volunteers, they showed little enthusiasm. Although individual training sessions were available to them, none of the students requested help for any aspect of the technology not directly related to classroom activities.

Second, there were technological hurdles. Students weren’t able to download powerViewer, and then it turned out that the size of files created by powerViewer was too much for the Palm IIIx devices. A typical 30-slide presentation could use up 2Mb, half of the PDA’s available memory. This limitation prevented the team from using AvantGo, since using it alongside powerViewer would consume all of the Palm’s memory.

Students also showed little interest in using any of the course-specific software functions. Instead, when they did occasionally use the PDAs, they tended to use the personal applications, such as the calendar, calculator, to-do list, and games on a limited basis. Only one of the nine students used the PDA daily.