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Amy Murray, a year five teacher at Hebron Valley Elementary school wanted to “increase the quality of her students research skills and writing performance, whilst also trying to get students to produce more productive work.�? (www.goknow.com)
The answer to Miss Murray’s challenge was to begin to implement handheld computer devices and keyboards[1], with the combination of GoKnow’s PAAM (Palm OS Archive and Application Manager). Only one of the four sections of students within her class took part in using the handhelds due to availability of the technology.
Over time, confident understanding and usage of the handhelds started to produce positive outcomes amongst students who had them. Therefore, Murray and the researchers as the Centre for Highly Interactive Computing at the University of Michigan[2], came to the conclusion that they would provide each student with a personal handheld device to take home at night. The reason for this was because the idea of having to devise handheld lesson plans and normal lesson plans seemed impossible.
One of the problems that arose from this decision was that Murray found it difficuilt to see and assess what students had done on their handhelds as it had to be beamed or synced. However, the GoKnow software was the answer to this. By using the basic word processor, Freewrite software, along with FlingIt the web based provider, Murray was able to forget about textbooks and magazines as PiCo Map and Sketchy were helpful to show concept maps and animation concepts.
In the end students using the handhelds became more motivated and eager to learn and stay on task. With the implementation of PAAM “students handhelds could be synchronised to any computer and all the students work would end up in one place on a secure PAAM website.�? (www.goknow.com)
Many benefits were discovered due to this change in teacher format. Firstly, Murray no longer had to carry endless papers as she could log onto PAAM and all the students work would be there. Another benefit was that PAAM created a means of communicating with parents via their students account. It became obvious that students' with handhelds started to produce more beneficial work as they could refer back to old work easily when needing to review or edit their saved work. However, the biggest difference was that the curriculum was fulfilled at a faster rate and more efficiently due to students having a better understanding of the software as time progressed. This enabled students to reach their potential by expressing themselves through concept maps and creating animations.
Anna Massie 09:28, 28 Oct 2005 (EST)
