Middle schools pass out Palm Pilots

Marisa O’Neil

When someone asks Ensign and TeWinkle middle school students when the

next home baseball game, three-day weekend or math quiz is, they’ll

soon be able to say: “Let me check my Palm Pilot.”

Thanks to a $700,000 technology grant, each student in the sixth

grade at TeWinkle and seventh grade at Ensign will get his or her

very own state-of-the-art Palm Tungsten E and keyboard in January.

Teachers at the school, who already have the hand-held computers,

started their training on Friday at each of the schools.

“We wanted something that every kid could have access to all the

time,” Steven Glyer, director of educational technology for Newport

Mesa Unified School District, said. “For about $200, we could start

getting every kid in the target group his own individual unit to have

and use and take home.”

Teachers got a full day of training on the hand-held units, which

come loaded with calendars, schedulers, calculators and software for

producing Microsoft Office spreadsheets and Word documents that they

can load onto a desktop computer. They can also create lesson plans,

track grades or nearly anything else they would normally do on a

regular computer, Glyer said.

When the students receive their Palms, the teachers will show them

how to keep track of assignments, write papers and even take quizzes

with them. The units use wireless technology that will let students

beam answers to the teacher’s computer or to a large projection

screen, Glyer said.

They can also add a little fun to test-taking by using technology

similar to barroom trivia games. Teachers can use software to create

tests that will give students a question on a study topic that is

initially worth a certain number of points. The longer students

ponder their answers, the more point values drop, and extra hints pop

up on the screen until they send their responses.

Used the Palms with classroom computers, students can download

books, create PowerPoint presentations or film projects.

“We want kids to make something with real content,” Glyer said.

“They can start planning it on the Palm. When they’re ready for the

project, they can go to the computer to produce it and show the

class. Then they can load it to their hand-held [computer] and take

it home to show their parents.”

The grant comes from federal money dispensed by the state for

school technology, Glyer said. The amount paid over two years is

$700,000, which will go to 1,100 units, laptops, training and

support.

TeWinkle and Ensign were the only two district schools that

qualified for the grant, which Glyer said is strictly targeting

middle schools. The district decided that the hand-held computers

were the easiest and cheapest way to give the most people access to

technology.

“The possibilities are endless,” Ensign Principal Edward Wong

said. “The nice thing is that it kind of levels the playing field.

Every kid will have one -- the haves and have nots.”

If the program is successful, Glyer said that he would like to see

the technology expand into other grades and other schools.

Though some teenagers might tend to mislay personal belongings,

Karen Fasimpaur from K12 Handhelds, which is coordinating the

training, said she’s found that students in other districts she works

with take extra care with the Palms.

“The kids do a good job of keeping track of them,” Fasimpaur said.

“We do a lot to reinforce that it’s a big responsibility and they

really enjoy using them. They know if they lose them they won’t get

to use them.”