San Juan College

Office of Technology Services

Handhelds as a Classroom/Learning Tool

• J Reid Anderson• Senior PC Technician

Re-Cap of Last Year’s Presentation

• Last Year, I talked about how we, the technicians, are able to utilize our handhelds as a Tech-Tool.

• At SJC our techs use their handhelds to help them keep up with their appointments and to prioritize their assignments.

• As Technicians, we can utilize our 802.11B wireless network with our handhelds to Check our Help Desk Tickets, E-Mail, and even do research on the fly with the Blazer Browser.

PDA Usage at the SJC Campus

• Obviously, there are many other individuals on the Campus who utilize handhelds.

• Faculty, Staff, and Students at SJC enjoy the freedom and versatility that PDAs can offer.

How Are the Handhelds Used as a Classroom/Learning Tool?

• As a pilot program, a physics class was given 30 PDAs to hand out to students for use in and out of the classroom.

• Instructors on our campus utilize the Documents to Go software to access Word and Excel Documents.

• Associated Student Officers were assigned PDAs for their student government work.

Physics Class

• Dr. Carl Bickford- Professor of Physics at San Juan College

Power One Graphing Calculator

• The Power One Graphing software allows students to effortlessly transform their PDA into a powerful graphing tool.

Presenter to Go

• Presenter-To-Go will allow one to plug a Palm powered PDA directly into the VGA port on a projector.

• By doing this, Dr. Bickford is able to run his PowerPoint presentations directly from his handheld.

• More important, however, is the fact that he can show the students how to use the Power One Graphing Calculator and they can easily follow along.

Handheld Operations in the Physics Class

• Organizers• Graphing Calculators• Presenter-to-Go• Additional “Physics-Related”, downloadable

software.

General Instructor Use

• Bill Hatch- Art Instructor at San Juan College.

Documents To Go

• Documents to Go is a software package that allows our faculty members to be able to transport their word, excel, and even PowerPoint presentations with them no matter where they go.

Eye Cam

• Another feature of the handheld that has proven useful to Mr. Hatch is the Eye Cam.

• The Eye Cam is a simple digital camera that plugs directly into the PDA.

Students and PDAs

• Christina Morton- Associated Students Officer

Student Uses for PDAs

• The built-in Date Book and the Task Manager help students to keep up with homework assignments.

• Students can keep up with the phone numbers of classmates with the Contacts program.

• Additional software is available for students to purchase that can aid them with heir classwork.

The Future of PDAs at SJC?

• With the price of Pocket PCs dropping drastically, we have begun to deploy PDAs to our Staff.

• Although these devices are new on our campus, it is already evident that they employ several advantages over PDAs with the Palm OS.

Any Questions?