i think we should get pdas to because kids need to be organized!!

A logical progression might be to issue paper planners to younger children, and teach them techniques to using them. As the students improve in their organizational skills, we 'upgrade' them to PDAs in later grades- organization plus hand-held computer capabilities.

By having a keyboard at each desk with the right connector, students could capture notes in real time, and with a little tweaking, classrooms could have a wireless connection (IR, Bluetooth, or WiFi) to allow communication between teachers and students.

It would be easy enough, I feel (being an avid PDA user) to send out reading assignments, worksheets, etc. and/or creating entire e-textbooks, that it should pay for itself rather rapidly.

Glitches would be: encoding the transmissions so other students don't intercept your beaming, preventing illicit beaming/cheating, lost or damaged PDAs, hacking, etc.

But- I am confident that with a little work, we could help students by replacing most paper, books, handouts, etc. with PDAs or notebook computers- just think of the savings to trees and people's backs!

Bluetooth makes assignment distribution a snap.

And it's not hard to keep people from cheating: Don't let them have their PDAs out while taking a test. Keeping PDAs unreachable during tests would be even easier than keeping traditional cheat sheets unreachable; PDAs are bulkier and harder to hide.

It might even be possible to use Bluetooth to distribute tests, but it would be hard to keep people from switching to the memo application. It might be possible to track such application switches and confront the student, or even take a screenshot and use Bluetooth to send it to the instructor.

this idea delves into the opportunities we can give students today and in the future. if you can disperse information at a click of a button, education could be limitless. althogh it makes me think how third world countries could possible afford PDAs for students. there are still schools where they don't have electricity and enough books for even half the class. how coud these students possibly afford PDAs. this idea is very applicable to first world countries and i am very much for it!

i think the use of PDA's would make it easier for students to cheat. Thats why im actually for this. its fun watching students get more and more creative. i would want to experience a class of student with PDA's during an exam. i think the exam would be a breeeze for them.

PDAs wouldn't make it any easier to cheat, really. Appropriate classroom rules could limit access to PDAs during quizes, tests and exams.

True, but as annoying as it is to hear it again, rules are made to be broken. they said they could control the use of the cellphone but they havent

I think that PDAs are great.

I think schools paying for them is unreasonable. They are far too fragile, and getting people to pay for what they break is like pulling teeth.

Amen to teaching kids to use a paper planner. Franklin-Covey planning systems changed my life.