The first day

Today, being the first day, there was a lot of information that was thrown out at us. However, I feel like the main objective of the day was to introduce the world of handhelds to an audience of educators that were interested in the subject, some that were more familiar with it than others. I guess I was kind of blown away by the statistics of the use of handhelds in the classroom. I have heard of handhelds being used in the classroom before. Actually, the first time that I heard of the use of handhelds in the classroom was when I went to an educators career fair held in Lincoln last fall. A school district from Kansas City, Olathe, was selling their new 21st century schools. They told us that each student at the high school level were given a hand held. I really kind of thought that that was kind of a wierd concept at first. I thought that if the school was so advanced in technology, why not give each student a computer instead? This is what the Westside district here was doing. Why were hand helds so much more convenient? Couldn't all you do was plan your day? I guess I wasn't aware of all of the programs and software that handhelds have and the possiblities that they were capable of. This first day of class taught me that the number one use for hand helds was word processing. It also taught me so many statistics of the positives that have come out of using hand helds in the classroom. After studies have been done, it has found that the majority of students would rather learn with the handheld, the parents were positive, as well as the teachers. If the students are in the right mindset to want to learn, than I believe more learning will be done. Learning is accomplished by the right environment and the desire and optimism to want to learn. I am excited to learn more about hand helds in the classroom. I think that it is funny that once you talk about something, you notice it everywhere. I was actually in an interview last week in Olathe, Kansas, and the principal was using her hand held. Now, I think that I will see them everywhere!