{"id":28,"date":"2004-02-11T01:17:35","date_gmt":"2004-02-11T08:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=28"},"modified":"2009-04-08T01:29:22","modified_gmt":"2009-04-08T09:29:22","slug":"more-on-pdas-versus-calculators-computers-in-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/archives\/2004\/02\/11\/more-on-pdas-versus-calculators-computers-in-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"More on PDAs versus calculators; computers in the classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baychi.org\/\" class=\"unemphasized\">BayCHI<\/a> meeting had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baychi.org\/calendar\/20040210\/#1\">a talk by Scott Weiss<\/a>, author of <i>Handheld Usability<\/i>.  He mentioned, among other things, a couple of additional points about <acronym title=\"Personal Digital Assistants\">PDAs<\/acronym> versus physical calculators:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"expanded\">\n<li><strong>Instant gratification.<\/strong>  Calculators turn on and are ready to do their thing immediately.  With a PDA, you usually need to tap some sequence of physical and virtual buttons just to start the calculator program.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Batteries not included.<\/strong>  Many four-function calculators and some scientific ones don&#8217;t need batteries at all, instead relying on solar cells.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the other hand, he noted that <strong>PDAs can be better for specialized programs for common tasks<\/strong>.  For example, a program can display the sales tax or 15% tip automatically for a given value.<\/p>\n<p>Coincidentally, the <a href=\"http:\/\/palmsource.confreg.com\/\" class=\"unemphasized\">2004 PalmSource Developer Conference<\/a> is going on this week.  During one of the presentations yesterday, a speaker from palmOne suggested that students use PDAs instead of physical calculators.  Ugh.  That brings me to my next point:<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t see a lot of benefit to having computers in the classroom, especially in schools full of upper-class children who probably have computers at home already.<\/p>\n<p>I think the one big win is <strong>if every student has a laptop or PDA with network access, students can provide real-time, anonymous feedback to the instructor<\/strong>.  Peer pressure discourages students from asking questions, even good ones.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure there must be a good low-tech alternative, but I can&#8217;t think of one.  A locked drop-box isn&#8217;t real-time, making it difficult for students to correct the instructor.  It also isn&#8217;t very anonymous; students submitting questions might be seen by others, and it&#8217;s not that difficult to distinguish students&#8217; handwritings.<\/p>\n<p>(I wish that I had thought of setting up an anonymous feedback form while I was a teaching assistant.  I don&#8217;t think I got my due share of &#8220;James is a stupid-head&#8221; remarks.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night&#8217;s BayCHI meeting had a talk by Scott Weiss, author of Handheld Usability. He mentioned, among other things, a couple of additional points about PDAs versus physical calculators: Instant gratification. Calculators turn on and are ready to do their thing immediately. With a PDA, you usually need to tap some sequence of physical and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-usability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slimjimmy.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}