DRAFT for Consultation

Title Author Date: Version PDAs in Education Ted Smith 08/01/2003 9

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in Education

1. Introduction....................................................................................................2 2. The Technology.............................................................................................2 3. The Market ....................................................................................................3 4. Use in education............................................................................................3 5. Other related systems....................................................................................4 5.1. Tablet PCs ..............................................................................................4 5.2. Smart phones..........................................................................................5 6. Implications for Institutions............................................................................6 7. References.....................................................................................................7 8. Useful Links and references..........................................................................7 PDAs...........................................................................................................7 Smart Phones.............................................................................................7 TabletPCs...................................................................................................7 PDAs in Education......................................................................................7 9. Appendix........................................................................................................9 9.1. The US Experience.................................................................................9 Des Moines Area Community College: Engineering.................................9 University of Rochester and Wake Forest University: Medicine................9 Wake Forest University: Range of disciplines...........................................9 Lessons learned in teaching French........................................................10 University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), College of Science and Engineering...............................................................................................11 University of South Dakota: all disciplines................................................13 9.2. UK Experiences.....................................................................................16 University of Birmingham, School of Engineering...................................16 University of Wolverhampton....................................................................16 University of Glasgow...............................................................................17 Reid Kerr College, Paisley. ......................................................................17 This project is funded by TechLearn........................................................18 Perth College. ........................................................................................18 Langside College, Glasgow. .................................18 ..................................................................................................................19 Stockton & Billingham College, Teesside.................................................19 Hartbury College, Gloucester. ..................................19 University of Bristol...................................................................................19

1. Introduction
This report discusses the technology and educational applications of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Since mobile phones and Tablet PCs are coming on to the market that offer some of the functionality of PDAs, they are briefly discussed at the end of the report.

2. The Technology
PDAs are small, handheld computers that are designed essentially to be personal information managers (PIMs). Most feature pen input, and handwriting recognition, and are powerful enough to run cut-down versions of the popular office applications including web browsing. Some have small inbuilt keyboards, and those that dont can usually be attached to a keyboard (either through a physical connection or via an infra-red link) that will collapse to a form factor similar to the PDA itself. This makes them ideal for note taking provided you can live with the small screen. Most PDAs have some kind of extension facility via a SecureDigital (SD) or CompactFlash (CF) slot. Third party suppliers provide a host of add-on cards for these expansion slots, such as: wireless cards (WiFi) that permit connection to the campus network, Bluetooth cards (useful for connection to a mobile phone or laptop), GPS cards that turn the device into a location sensing system. Information on the PDA can usually be synchronized with a main computer or laptop via a docking cradle or wireless connection. The handwriting recognition systems available are reasonably accurate. Those based upon Palms PalmOS operating system use a special set of pen strokes that the user must learn, whereas Microsoft PocketPC systems will recognise cursive handwriting quite well once trained. Both are reasonably accurate and good for taking short notes, but are not suitable for the recording of major pieces of text because of the space available on the screen, interpretation speed and accuracy. Simple diagrams can be drawn using the stylus. The market is offering a wide range of products, from luxury to economy. Most devices measure 7 x 10 cm x 1.5 cm, have a 8 cm (diagonal) screen, and weigh 100 to 150 gm. In the luxury segment, a screen resolution of 320 x 240 pixels is offered, with 64MB of memory. Facilities such as Bluetooth or WiFi are built in, along with MP3 playback. Compact Flash and SD / MMC expansion slots are provided (sometimes both). Toshiba and Hewlett Packard (formerly Compaq) are the two leaders in this segment. Prices are not cheap at around 500 or more.

At the economy end of the market, devices are now available for around 75, that offer monochrome screens, limited memory, no expandability, infra-red connectivity and the usual set of software applications. Finally, so-called phone-enabled PDAs are now being offered with in-built triband wireless communications thus allowing usage across the world and also access to data communications (albeit at fairly low speeds). Microsoft has brought out a version of its PDA-based operating system that allows manufacturers to build mobile phone functionality into their PDAs and to tightly integrate these with existing PIM functions. It calls this system PocketPC Phone Edition. A competing system is offered on PALM-based devices.

3. The Market
According to Gartner [1], in the second quarter of 2002, leading worldwide manufacturers of all types of PDAs are: Palm (30.3 % market share with the PalmOS operating system), Hewlett Packard (16%; with the Microsoft PocketPC operating system), Sony (10.2%; PalmOS), Handspring (7.8%; PalmOS), Toshiba (3.9%; PocketPC).

In Western Europe, just over 480,000 PDAs were shipped, with Palm OS devices capturing 41.3% of the market, and PocketPC-based systems close behind at 38.6%.

4. Use in education
There are many examples of PDA use in education in the US and a few in the UK. Some are in the pilot stage, some more advanced, but in all cases both tutors and students are still learning about the advantages and difficulties. A range of projects is presented in the Appendix, with some overall conclusions presented below based on experiences in the US. general usage the technology is now reasonably mature they are very useful for managing calendars and contacts when attached to a portable keyboard, they can be used for serious data input students find them more convenient to carry around than laptops PALM OS-based systems have better battery lives than PocketPC systems synchronisation with a laptop or desktop is straightforward wireless communications are easy to configure and use

pedagogy they assist with discussions when used in conjunction with exercises or lectures they provide a very useful means of accessing reference material they act as a study aid via interactive quizzes and exercises they can provide instant, in-class feedback to tutors on understanding they help to motivate students disadvantages are: battery run-down can cause loss of data and applications back-up systems are required to restore configurations when this occurs battery life decreases dramatically if add-on cards are used, or wireless communications are enabled. pen input is only suitable for short notes, simple diagrams and selecting options on the screen. users without a desktop or laptop have to be provided with synching stations so that the PDA can be updated with data and / or applications they are easily lost or stolen Overall, PDAs can be considered as serious pieces of equipment that can be used to enhance the learning and teaching environment. Students and staff enjoy using them and they seem to increase student motivation. When fitted with a keyboard, they are very useful for taking notes in lectures, although one needs to consider the noise pollution created by keyboard users! They should be viewed as replacements for laptops or desktops, rather as useful, lightweight portable adjuncts to these systems.

5. Other related systems

5.1. Tablet PCs These devices are just coming to market, at prices ranging from around 800 to 2000. They are fully-fledged PCs that are roughly A4 in size and come in two flavours: the pure-slate configuration (i.e no keyboard) and the hybrid arrangement (effectively a laptop with a fold-away keyboard). Both types feature input via a pen with handwriting recognition. The basic design was established by Microsoft, with over 20 manufacturers world-wide having committed to building them. At the time of writing, there are 6 UK suppliers: Research Machines (targeting the education market specifically), Toshiba, Compaq, Viewsonic, Fujitsu Siemens, and Acer. Because of the Microsoft connection, only one operating system is available - Windows XP Tablet Edition.

The systems all offer pen-based input via touch screens, handwriting recognition, quick start-up, built-in wireless communications (WiFi), and the usual office applications. In addition, manufacturers are offering: processors ranging from 800 MHz Mobile Pentiums to 1.33 GHz Pentium IIIs screens of varying resolutions ranging from 10.4 to 12.1 inches hard discs ranging from 20 GB to 40 GB

Research Machines even offers fingerprint recognition so that tutors and teachers can password sensitive information. Unlike the handwriting recognition provided in PDAs based on Microsofts PocketPC operating system, the recognition software in Tablet PCs cannot be trained. Microsoft claim they have sampled huge numbers of different handwriting styles and believe that the system provided will suit all users. Tests reported in the trade press seem to support this view. With a current battery life of around 3 hours, users will need to connect to an electricity supply during their working day. This can be doubled in some systems by using an additional battery, and one manufacturer is promising better battery technology to double usage time. Gartner and IDC believe that world-wide shipments of Tablet PCs will be small in 2003. Gartner Dataquest [2] predicts that the machines will account for just 1 percent of worldwide notebook shipments in 2003 - a total of about 425,000 tablet PCs. They believe that they will only be widely adopted in niche markets by the end of 2003. IDC [2] predicts that Tablet PCs will get off to a relatively slow start, selling about 575,000 units in the United States in 2003 and about 1 million units in 2004. The robustness of the devices has yet to be tested (a greater problem for shared use systems than personal devices), but some of the manufacturers have a good reputation for sturdy systems in the notebook market. There have been some initial experiments with Tablet PCs in schools, and they have been received well by both students and staff. Further details are available at www.microsoft.com/uk/education. 5.2. Smart phones These are essentially mobile phones that offer varying degrees of the PIM functionalities of PDAs. Currently, the most heavily marketed devices offer a 2 cm colour screen that can display reasonable quality pictures, provide SMS messaging, transmit pictures from an in-built camera, and provide basic calendar functions that can be synchronised with a desktop / laptop PC. The first devices of this type on the market are priced at around 125, with two competing operating systems from Microsoft (SmartPhone) and Symbian, both offering similar functionality at present. Microsofts offering is based 5

upon their PocketPC software and so it seems likely that it may be further developed to provide some support for their office applications suite (it currently provides the facility to view, but not edit, Powerpoint slides). It seems likely that Symbian will provide similar extensions if the market requires it.

6. Implications for Institutions

With such a complex marketplace, and overlapping functionalities across devices, it is very difficult to predict the future usage pattern amongst the student population. In order to help institutions with their planning, TechLearn presents the following analysis for the next three years. It is virtually certain that students will continue to want mobile phone connectivity. The heavy discounting of Smart Phones, and the possible attraction of picture messaging, will mean that if students do upgrade their systems, they will migrate to these devices rather than the much more expensive (and battery hungry) phone-enabled PDAs. It seems unlikely that students would purchase both a PDA (phone-enabled or not) and a smart phone. Since most students will have access to a PC / laptop at home, the requirement for a TabletPC seems unproven. It is possible that as prices fall they may be purchased as an alternative to a laptop, but this seems unlikely over the next three years since worldwide sales of TabletPCs are not predicted to be sufficiently high to drive down prices. Hence the following purchasing behaviour for younger students over the next 3 years is predicted: Mobile phone usage will migrate to Smart Phones PDAs or phone-enabled PDAs will not be popular Tablet PCs will remain a niche market

The implications for institutions are as follows. By the end of 2005, all students will own a mobile phone and will be able to receive SMS messages and simple graphics, hence SMS communications with all students will be possible all students will have the potential, via their mobile phones, to have an electronic calendar and task list that can be synchronised with a central server or desktop / laptop, hence timetable and course information will be transmittable to students mobile phones whilst PDAs are proving to be popular and useful in the education environment with students and staff, many students will not own one. Hence universal usage on a course or module will only be achieved if the institution provides, or requires the purchase of, these devices

7. References
1. 2.

Kort, Todd, HP Edges Palm for Lead in 2Q02 Worldwide PDA End-User Revenue, Gartner Dataquest, Aug 2002 Kane, Margaret and Spooner, John G., IDC adds to tablet PC scepticism, CNET News.com, November 2002 (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2125513,00.html)

8. Useful Links and references

PDAs 1. Keegan, Victor, PDA phones are a trial ,The Guardian, Thursday October
10, 2002

2. Troni, Federica, Smart Phones: A Perspective, Gartner, December 2002 3. Kaplan, Jeremy A. Brown, Bruce and Brown, Marge, Pocket to Palm what makes the perfect PDA, ZDNet, December 2001 ( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,4137,00.asp) 4. 5. Smart Phones TabletPCs PDAs in Education

9. Appendix
Some typical examples are discussed with key lessons learned where these are available. 9.1. The US Experience Des Moines Area Community College: Engineering From autumn 2001, approximately 40 telecommunications students were issued with IPAQs. Their whole course has been conducted through these devices. This has involved the provision of purpose-written e-texts, syllabuses, and handouts, along with web and e-mail access through wireless connections, and assessment and evaluation exercises. From 2002, usage of IPAQs will be expanded throughout the campus. At present, no evaluations are available. University of Rochester and Wake Forest University: Medicine In the US, increasing numbers of medical practitioners are using PDAs in their work. East Carolina University expects 80% of physicians to be using them by 2003. Medical Schools, therefore, are starting to encourage their students to use PDAs for storing notes, accessing medical information and text books, and organising their workload. The University of Rochester uses the PALM, and suggests a host of uses for these devices for students such as: A Medical Rules Databases that maintains a list of diagnoses and provides guidelines for reaching the correct diagnosis; Pharmaceutical Databases that provide access to detailed drug information; General Database Programs to track surgical procedures, track patients, distribute office-wide schedules; Prescription Writing packages that allow the practitioner to write multiple prescriptions using the PDA, keep track of dosages, amounts, refills, etc for each patient; Medical Textbooks that provide shortened versions of popular medical textbooks; Patient Tracking software; and a Laboratory Values Database. No evaluations are yet available. Wake Forest University: Range of disciplines Wake Forest University is using Pocket PC systems in the classroom in Physics, French, Chemistry, Health & Exercise, and Sociology. In particular, tutors are using an in-house software system (ClassInHand) which turns the tutors handheld into a web server (see http://classinhand.wfu.edu/). By this means, the tutor can, through wireless communications, make information available to students as a class progresses, and use the web site to poll for instantaneous student feedback. The university also runs a compulsory 9

laptop programme for all students (the ThinkPad programme), and their findings from the PDA experiments, therefore, will probably be very different from other universities that do not have such a programme. Based on information from their web site and other communications, the following lessons have been learned: Lessons learned in teaching French Most students found that bringing just the iPAQ to lab (no books, notes, or other materials) was sufficient for full participation in the exercises. Students using the iPAQs to work together on French conversational exercises were much more engaged in the activity and less likely to be doing other things (Instant Messaging, e-mail) than those in the ThinkPad class. The ThinkPad created a visual barrier between students working in pairs, while the iPAQ was held naturally in students hands. Students faced each other to converse in the iPAQ class; in the ThinkPad class they were much more likely to face their laptops than each other. Students are more willing to carry a small handheld computer to class than a laptop. Some students lost their wireless driver over Spring Break when they failed to leave the iPAQ in the charger while they were away, and as a result, connecting to the campus network was a problem in the first lab after spring break. The staff continued to have some questions about DHCP, as the loss of the driver did not account for all connection difficulties. Because class time is limited and thus valuable, instructors have little tolerance for technology that doesnt work immediately and quickly abandon it for traditional methods if any problem arises.

Overall lessons learned across all subjects: Students are much more willing to carry a PDA to class regularly than a laptop Faculty members love the "instant on" nature of PDAs. A few minutes spent booting up laptops is a few minutes of precious class time wasted. The faculty who've used the ClassInHand software to collect instant feedback from students find it extremely valuable in determining immediately whether students have understood material presented in class. Faculty are much more likely to collect feedback when they can do it via PDAs. PDAs cannot replace laptops, but are a worthwhile supplement in many cases. The university is not yet convinced that every student at Wake Forest needs his/her own PDA and the expense cannot yet be justified. As

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the volume of available academic content (formatted for the 240x320 screen) and the number of affordable tools grow, this may change The university is watching the evolution of PocketPC communication capabilities such as in the PocketPC Phone Edition. The true cellphone / PocketPC combination, without reduced functionality in either, may tip the cost/benefits scale.

University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), College of Science and Engineering http://www.d.umn.edu/cse/techreq.html In autumn 2001, the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota decided to issue PDAs (Compaq IPAQs) with wireless communications to all first year students in the departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Chemical Engineering. Their aims were to: provide a learning environment in which undergraduate students can develop the advanced computer skills necessary to be successful scientists or engineers in the beginning of this new century,

develop and integrate state-of-the-art educational technology throughout the curriculum as a means of providing our students with a world class education.

The scheme is now in its second year and staff recently presented a report on the project at EduCause 2002 (http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib /abstract.asp?ID=EDU0253). Currently, 126 faculty and 403 students have a PDA, with a further 52 students having wireless-enabled laptops. The students pay $200 per semester for 4 semesters, and own the devices themselves. They are responsible for loss and damage. The Computer Service configures the PDA with campus-specific settings and applications, trains the students on use, provides webbased and hardcopy documentation, and provides a repair / maintenance / contract-management service. The College is focusing on the providing course-specific instructional software on the PDAs. The Department of Computer Science has been very active in the programme. They found very little educational software available commercially for the PDA and so chose to develop some 80 small software applications, including: interactive reference documents, interactive exercises,

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explanatory documents, annotated exercises, and interactive quizzes

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Lessons learned: students most used applications were: o course-related software, Internet Explorer, Solitaire, Calendar, and IR file transfer software. Least used applications were: o Excel, Word, Reader, Transcriber, and Media Player. Students considered that 68% of usage was course related There were no direct complaints by students, indeed some students changed courses in order to use them in the curriculum. There was an assumption in the college amongst students without IPAQs that students on courses requiring them were gaining advantage. Students with visual or physical impairments found the PDAs difficult to use (more detail on accessibility issues can be found at http://www.techdis.ac.uk/PDA ) Lessons learned: staff the IPAQs assist with discussions when used in conjunction with exercise or lectures, they provide a very useful means of accessing reference material, and they act as a study aid via the interactive quizzes and exercises. faculty require much more training than was provided (even for IT literate staff). On the basis of these findings, the college has decided to delay its planned to roll out of the programme across the whole institution in 2003, and to work harder with the existing 4 Departments to get things right. University of South Dakota: all disciplines www.usd.edu/pda Streaming video: http://www.usd.edu/cidd/palm/ The University started its project institution-wide in 2001, by requiring all first year students (along with 1st year law and medical students these are postgraduate in the US) to have a PALM PDA. They felt that a laptop programme would be too costly. The project arose from top management vision and drive, because of a belief that PDA use would give graduates much needed employment and business skills, it would increase faculty familiarity with technology, and the university would gain publicity. In year 1, 1200 PALMS were distributed, with a further 1550 in year 2. The philosophy of year 1 was to keep it simple by confining use to the distribution of lecture material, notes, syllabi, course schedules via AvantGo, development of quizzes for formative assessments, and the deployment of a

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NearSpace map of campus and the local town developed specially for the university (providing a small GIS for students). In terms of technical support, the university provided 40 synching stations around campus that provided infra-red connections to the campus infrastructure. The Computer Service undertook all1st yr warranty work. Palm Computer trained 30 staff for 1.5 days, and the university trained an additional 90 staff. Lessons learned Issues arising in year 1 were that: training for staff was inadequate in that it was too rushed and too late (staff were given very short notice about the programme, and hence this may have caused many of their problems) not all students are freshman in freshman classes, hence the nonfreshmen had not been issued with a PDA some students didnt have a desktops computer to load software on to their PDA or backup the PDA connectivity and distribution of content was a problem because there was no central server solution (they used Avantgo) more technical support was needed an outside firm configured the PDAs with software and the delay between this process and issue of the PDAs to students resulted in 10% of the devices being returned by the students owing to a lost of software due to loss of battery charge problems occurred with the PALM cradles that had to be replaced a high level of technical support was required from the university to assist with the development of materials in terms of educational impact, the Psychology Department, for example, found that students who used formative quizzes downloaded on to the PALM performed better in summative assessments. it was felt that the greatest achievement was that the PDA helped students to organise their life outside the classroom. In year 2 of the project, they provided 32 mini-grants of a PALM and $200 to faculty so that they can develop systems and plans for the coming year they adopted server solutions to back up PDAs and provide content for those who didnt have a PC faculty roundtables were introduced to share experiences courses were designated as PALM recommended or PALM required some faculty are using wireless communications the PDAs are now configured in-house and return rates are down to 1% (from 10% previously) In addition, the following points were observed: the change came from the top-down and was seen as probably the best way to get things moving quickly 14

there was surprisingly not much innovative use by students not as much software in the private sector was available as they thought they would be, and hence they realised they were at the bleeding edge the programme raised more question marks than successes, but they are motivated to continue PDAS help to engage the students in the class They are currently evaluating whether or not continue the programme into a 3rd year

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9.2. UK Experiences There are very limited examples of PDA usage in education in the further and higher education sectors. Projects have started at 5 FE Colleges and 3 universities. Whilst none of these projects have yet produced outcomes, they are listed here for completeness. University of Birmingham, School of Engineering m.sharples@bham.ac.uk Students starting in 2002 on a new MSc in Human Centred Systems used IPAQs, and it is hoped that the project can be rolled out across the School of Engineering. As yet no evaluation is available. University of Wolverhampton http://www.learninglab.org.uk/researchcentre The university is starting a project which aims to develop, deliver and evaluate blended learning that exploits the different potentials of SMS text, WAP and VLEs. The focus will be on support for basic skills and literacy for HND computing students and on the process of reversioning existing material for the different media involved. The proposed target groups for the project are HND students within the School of Computing and IT identified as being at risk due to poor literacy skills as shown by coursework. The proposed project seeks to improve and evaluate their access to literacy support using a blend of mobile and networked learning.. The key to the project will be interventions targeted at students identified as at-risk, meaning unlikely to progress on currently known exam and/or assessment marks. The interventions will take place in semester 2. These interventions will take place when the students submit coursework for those modules identified as failure hot-spots and immediately before exams. The SMS interventions will be short, personalised and focussed, directing students as appropriate into both WAP and VLE material, and in-house support. Timeliness and appropriateness will be key features of the interventions - catching learners at-risk before irreparable damage is done to their academic careers. Literacy and basic material is already available via the Universitys VLE. The proposed project will reversion some of this material for WAP and use this material to then direct students into VLE-based material and face-to-face help within the School. Evaluation will consist of several complementary strands: end of year focus groups WAP and VLE forms and asynchronous forum paper questionnaire SMS text questions using Likert scale Statistical analysis of retention figures

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The project is funded by the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN). University of Glasgow
The Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering and the Robert Clark Centre for Technological Education at the University of Glasgow are collaborating to allow portable, ubiquitous access to learning and assessment materials via PDAs. At the time of writing, the project has just started, with 25 Sony Clies (employing the

PALM OS) being issued to foundation level students. PDA-based quiz applications have been created initially text based and multiple choice in nature which may link to stored course texts to enhance practical student centred learning, and which journal the pattern of student usage. Quantitative analyses can thus be made of student learning styles both within the quiz, and in conjunction with other PDA tools. Software has been developed to import questions from IMS QTI (??) compliant applications permitting universal interoperability, and allowing use of pre-existing question banks. These learning and revision tools are aimed at students in technology classes and advanced level electronic engineering classes. The benefits of PDA use will be evaluated by summative assessment, interviews and analysis of PDA journaling for unique quantitative insight into student learning. The project is funded by the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN). Reid Kerr College, Paisley. acumberford@reidkerr.ac.uk The project will support 10 students, between the ages of 16 and 18, who have a range of learning difficulties and who require additional support for learning and mentoring in the workplace. They have low literacy skills and limited work experience. To achieve social inclusion, they need access to timely and appropriate information and attain basic IT, numeracy and literary skills. The project will provide them each with a Personal Digital assistant (PDA), with slimmed-down versions of popular word-processing, spreadsheet and email software. Two types of PDA will be tested: Clamshell (featuring an integral keyboard) and Stylus-operated (with folding keyboard). WiFi wireless connectivity will be provided. Using the PDAs and wireless technology, they will gain access to just-in-time support, e.g. email access to local job centres, to improve their job-seeking skills

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explore the Internet to improve their information searching and acquisition skills use diary facilities to improve their organisational skills improve literacy and basic IT skills through daily use of the system hopefully gain in confidence and motivation

It is hoped that this disadvantaged group of students will, by proactive and sustained focused support, become more successful and progress into the mainstream of the College. This project is funded by TechLearn. Perth College.
jennifer.louden@perth.uhi.ac.uk

The Core-Skills area within the colleges open-plan Study Centre is where 10 dedicated laptops will be placed. Each laptop will be equipped with wireless communication facilities and the Study Centre will be provided with wireless antennas. Students will be encouraged to borrow a laptop within the Study Centre for up to 3 hours at a time, and they will be free to work anywhere within the facility. Using this approach, it is hoped that the working space can be used more flexibly, the tutor can accommodate large or small class groupings, and individuals will be encouraged to work together. The Study Centre runs courses that aim to allow non-traditional learners to progress to opportunities within the college, and it is hoped that this facility will make these courses more successful in encouraging further progression. This project is funded by TechLearn Langside College, Glasgow.
Fraser Organ, Assistant Principal

The college works in an area of South-east Glasgow which has considerable economic and social challenges it is in the poorest 20% in Scotland as measured by the official Deprivation Index. It is a natural area for the Scottish Executives Digital Inclusion initiatives, but as yet has received little funding. The college will develop an unlicensed broadband wireless network to connect a series of mini-learning centres back to its Glenwood campus, and thence back to its main campus. The centres will be equipped with wireless computers. A number of local Learning Champions will be recruited to support local people. By locating the learning centres in the community, it is planned to address the higher than average levels of adult illiteracy an innumeracy. This project is funded by TechLearn.

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Stockton & Billingham College, Teesside The college will pilot a new range of services to 10 dyslexic and 5 deaf/hard-of hearing (DHH) students via PDAs and laptops and wireless communications. The college already provides, to the whole of the Tees Valley, a highly regarded deaf and hard of hearing service for educational providers The students will be provided with wireless access via PDAs or laptops to:
Course notes and information Their own personalised timetables which will remind them of they need to be and when College maps Staff and tutor names Project information to help them manage their own learning

The project will also pilot the use of handwriting and voice recognition to assess impact on language development and student support. This project is funded by TechLearn Hartbury College, Gloucester.
Peter.Schmidt@hartpury.ac.uk

Hartbury College wishes to tackle the issue of attendance at classes through the use of electronic registers. This will allow them to obtain early indicators of students at risk, and enable appropriate action to be taken. In addition, residential under-18 students, for whom the college has a duty of care must be monitored closely. Pocket PCs with mobile telephony will be employed by staff to take registers offline, with the details then being phoned in for synchronisation with a central database. The project will
Develop an interface on the PocketPC for data entry Collect registration literally in the field (the college is a land-based institution!) Link the data with the colleges central database

This project is funded by TechLearn. University of Bristol

Andy.ramsden@bristol.ac.uk

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This project will develop and maintain an online course delivered via a Palm Pilot and mobile phone. The course is an Introduction to Microeconomics, currently offered via Blackboard, and 15 students will evaluate the use of this technology for distributing material. The project will:
distribute material through a specially designed web site adapted for use by Palm Pilots. This will include all the features offered by Blackboard. Provide access to ebooks such as handbooks, reading lists, staff information

The study will also evaluate students use of the PDA for taking notes during lectures and collaborative projects that require transfer of files via an ftp server. A series of how to guides will be developed that outline good practice in terms of the technology used, design of material, use of software, and the design and maintenance of the web site. This project is funded by TechLearn.

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