my PDA eWorld

The Media IT kids at Broadmeadows were encouraged to turn to their more sensitive side and write about their feelings. George and I went outside with the students and asked them to write an Ode on their PDAs choosing a natural object. The results were amazing. I don't know what it is that makes them feel more confident to write than using a pen and paper, but if we keep seeing this standard of writing I'll be using them more often!

Click here to view the subsequent eByte built from this activity

Today, the Preppies at Broadmeadows PS were introduced to the PDA voice recorder in science. As we are learning about the 5 senses, focussing on hearing today, I thought it would be great to play a "Who is that?" game. We found a quiet spot to sit and the children recorded a song into the PDA. They then had to guess whose voice they could hear! It was a great success!
Listen to some sample files:

1. The Flea by Tyler
2. Twinkle twinkle by Angellus

How do you hyperlink from a Blog to multimedia content? Click here to go to George's eLearning blog post

Yet another creative approach to integrating PDA's into everyday learning. Emma at Broadmeadows PS reveals the clues. Click here for more details.

In our 4/5grade at Streeton it's been great watching the kids experiment with the PDA's. Although we are still only learning the functions, it's exciting watching the kids reactions and eagernes to discover something new. They (and I) are very excited when one of us discover something new...even changing font was exciting!!
Today we used them to type up the procedural process of chocolate making, the kids were so quite I could not believe it. With most things some students had difficulties and others picked up the functions with no problems! The difference at the end was they all had a comment to make and something to say that was positive.

Blogs are accessible to anyone connected to the Internet.

Instead of 'killing trees' via photocopying, it is far more exciting to blog. Use of hyperlinks to great online multi media websites providing support data for a learning focus is a fun activity for learners of all ages. It could be a great way for parents and carers to be engaged with their children. At Balwyn North PS, Carol O'Neill's R415 Homework blog is a good example.

Click here, to check it out.

The children had their first day with the PDA's and adapted immediately to this environment.It was fascinating to watch as one function was discovered, the eagerness of each student to acquire this skill or teach this skill to another student. Students were absorbed by a variety of functions and used instruction manuals to discover finer points after exhausting any students they felt could have asssited. The dynamics in the interchange of ideas was thrilling! This tool certainly has potential to add "WOW" factor to classroom.

Receiving new technology to play with is always exciting.
Yet, we need to remember that PDA's will need to be resold. Keeping this in mind it is critical to keep boxes and used components like the power adapters along with manuals in safe keeping.
Once un boxed and serials are recorded, a smart tip is to label each PDA with its own identity. At BPS we chose cartoon characters. So, students are assigned a PDA character and have a sense of personalised ownership in caring for the PDA. Each different class that uses the PDA's is processed similarly, so at the end of the process we know that Donald Duck PDA is only ever used by Jim, Ahmed, Kylie and James.
After issuing identities, setting the PDA settings with owner info, date time and menus is a valuable intro into using the stylus and text pad.
On completion of the above students are encouraged to explore and investigate what the PDA can do. Generally, the voice recording feature and Bubble game are the big hits.
Simple activities like:

• Open Word Mobile > touchpad keyboard typing > transcriber typing
• OK, to demonstrate ROM saving
• Rename and delete files technique
• Open Excel Mobile >enter data > make a graph
• Open Power point viewer
• Navigating with File Explorer
• Voice recording
• Using notes > voice recording in Notes > handwrite in Notes > draw in notes
• Media Player > full screen
• Picture and Video viewer

Keeping the screen clean is always a challenge. The simplest method is to breathe (hot breath) on the screen and gently wipe it with a soft cloth (inside if jumper or clean handkerchief.)

Be brave >>> explore and share

To finish off we played Bubble Breaker Bump, and the current champion at BNPS is Adrian with a score of 642. Well done.

At Streeton Primary we have had PDAs in our 4/5 classroom for a whole week now! We are enjoying "playing" to find out what we can do with them, and we're looking forward to having all the functions (like wireless, etc) fully available to us.
All the same, while observing, I found it amazing to see the enthusiasm of the students and teachers in exploring applications for the PDAs in the classroom.
While I've been working with kids with additional needs, I've found it really valuable to use with a very reluctant reader who has no idea of reading with expression, or applying punctuation. He recorded himself reading over and over again, until he was satisfied that it was fluent and sounded interesting - and he was very proud of the result! All done willingly and enthusiastically and I was able to attend to other things while he practiced with enthusiasm!

Mrs Fuller from BPS creatively used PDA's to engage students in learning about adaption.
Click here to view her blog.

It is exciting to share the 'energy' of excited learners.
This week saw the introduction of Dell Axim X51 PDA / PocketPC's into Broadmeadows (BPS), Balwyn North (BNPS) and Streeton (SPS) Primary Schools.

At Broadmeadows PS we let the Media IT students explore and consider the possiblilities of the new technology. The most immediateley engaging feature was voice recording. How to maximise this eTool for enhanced learning is the first of many challenges. At Streeton, Principal, Marcia Lane discovered that a student focused on perfecting his reading ability by voice recording over and over till he was satisfied he had read a passage of text to the best of his ability.

At BPS we invented a game using the Bubble game. It is called the Broady Bubble Bump. Students race to get the max score in a given time frame. Round 1 = 1 min., R2 = 2, and final round is 3 min. At the end of each round the 5 lowest scorers are eliminated, but they participate in round 2. If they get a score higher than the valid players they can "bump" them out. Round 3 is a race to get the highest score.
At the start of each round PDA's must be docked displaying a new game. At "times up" call, each player must dock the PDA and place hands on heads. Then the scores are recorded.

This is an open Blog. We welcome your PDA experiences and comments. If you are an invited member of the Blog we hope you will add your experiences to share with others in this exciting project