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  From the issue dated October 11, 2002



  Are Personal Digital Assistants the Next Must-Have Tool?

  By SCOTT CARLSON

   Last year, the University of South Dakota started requiring
  its freshmen to bring Palm hand-held computers to class, along
  with their notebooks and texts. Josh Carr was part of that
  first Palm-equipped group, though he says he didn't use the
  device much in class. He loaded his class schedule onto the
  machine and noted his exam times. And, new to the university,
  he used a campus map that the Palm came with, which showed the
  locations and phone numbers of his professors. It also came
  with the names and numbers of hangouts in Vermillion, he says.
  "For example, it has the number to Pizza Hut."

  But now Mr. Carr uses his Palm for studying all the time. He
  downloads his biology professor's lecture outlines onto the
  Palm, and his psychology professor has written a number of
  practice quizzes for use on the device. "You can take these
  quizzes anytime you want, and it helps you study for the
  test," Mr. Carr says.

  He could represent a new kind of student, one who taps
  essential class notes not into a laptop, but into a small
  hand-held device.

  Is the personal digital assistant, or PDA, poised to be the
  new technological darling on campuses? It is generating a buzz
  among some administrators, who are buying into using PDA's for
  selected classes or departments at their universities. But
  elsewhere, administrators and faculty members are skeptical
  about whether these devices can be effectively used as
  teaching tools, instead of just as digitized calendars and
  phone books.

  Although PDA's are making themselves genuinely useful in
  disciplines such as medicine, they have yet to catch on in
  most undergraduate programs. The small size of the hand-held
  devices has been an attractive feature for educators, who say
  that such machines are less disruptive to classes and easier
  on students' backs than are laptops. But with those small
  sizes come limited functions, which have been a frustration to
  some students, especially those who have been required to
  shell out money to buy PDA's but also want larger computers.

  More Capabilities

  Among professionals, PDA's are popular for storing phone
  numbers and addresses, keeping track of schedules and expense
  reports, checking e-mail, or playing quiet games of digital
  solitaire. But PDA's, which range in price from $100 to $500,
  have been expanding with various add-ons and extra software.

  For example, folding keyboards, available through PDA
  manufacturers, can turn a PDA into a miniature word processor.
  A Web site called Healthy PalmPilot offers software, like
  acupuncture charts and Spanish medical terms, for nurses and
  doctors. A company called Data Harvest Educational
  manufactures paraphernalia such as temperature gauges and
  heart-rate monitors that can be attached to a PDA.

  Many of the devices now come with wireless modems built in, so
  they can connect instantly to college networks. And almost all
  have infrared ports that let users beam data from one PDA to
  another.

  So far, however, good educational software for PDA's is in
  short supply, campus-computing experts say. But a handful of
  professors and college technology administrators are writing
  programs for the devices. At Wake Forest University, for
  example, programmers are working on software that would let
  professors use their PDA's to control PowerPoint
  presentations, turn on VCR's from across the room, and quiz
  students on course material.

  The devices are used in many medical schools because medical
  software made especially for PDA's is widely available.
  Students in Samford University's pharmacy school are using
  Palm hand-held computers to take notes in class and check
  medical references. Students at Florida State University's
  College of Medicine use Palms to compare interactions of
  prescription drugs in patients.

  Dozens of colleges have started to incorporate, and in some
  cases require, such tools in other disciplines, too. Drexel
  University has installed a wireless Web service that allows
  students to pick up class schedules, grades, and campus news
  on their PDA's. Stanford University law students are
  participating in a study, supported by West Publishing, that
  examines the effectiveness of putting legal-study materials on
  PDA's. Marketing students at Bentley College have used their
  PDA's as clipboards during market-research assignments.
  Dartmouth College, the University of Iowa's business college,
  and Duke and Brigham Young Universities all require students
  to have hand-held devices for some classes.

  Wide Usage

  The University of South Dakota, now in its second year of
  requiring freshmen to purchase Palms, has the most ambitious
  PDA usage. Professors have incorporated students' Palms into
  many disciplines. Music professors have used the devices for
  pitch-training. High-school students, with guidance from
  students in the university's education program, have added
  attachments to the Palms that measure acidity in rivers and
  streams. A media-studies professor has instructed students to
  store news clips on the PDA's to show them to, and trade them
  with, other students in class.

  Douglas A. Peterson, an assistant professor of psychology at
  the university, offered class topics, schedules, practice
  quizzes, and syllabuses in formats that were compatible with
  the students' PDA's. The schedules he built tripped alarms on
  the PDA's that reminded students of forthcoming exams. He
  found that the scores of his students who used the devices
  were higher than students who did not.

  Donald C. Dahlin, the acting president of the university,
  hopes to see more such personal-digital-assistant use in the
  classroom. He says South Dakota's program is an experiment
  that began modestly, with professors merely putting syllabuses
  and course materials on the PDA's.

  "We sat around confidently saying, Well, we don't know all of
  the PDA's uses, but because students are so technology-savvy,
  they'll be coming up with uses that we never dreamed of," Mr.
  Dahlin says, but that turned out not to be the case. "I think
  this is fairly new technology for the students, too."

  Progress in the program is important, he says, because it has
  cost both students and the university a fair amount of money.
  Last year and again this year, the university purchased more
  than 1,000 high-end Palms that sell for $200 to $400, and then
  sold them to students for $150 each. A university foundation
  also kicked in $75,000 for new servers and for "sync" stations
  -- places where Palm users can synchronize, download, or
  upload data.

  A 'Bothersome' Requirement

  Although the PDA has been good to Mr. Carr, not everyone has
  been pleased. "When I heard USD students used Palms, I assumed
  they would be free," says Megan Zimmerman, a freshman.
  "Students already have to buy books, tuition, and room and
  board, and for those of us not getting help from our parents,
  paying an extra $150 for something I would not otherwise buy
  is somewhat bothersome." She says that only one of her
  professors makes use of the machine, and that the rest of the
  time she could get by with a $3 day planner.

  Lance W. Andrews, a senior who is a psychology major at South
  Dakota, got a Palm from the university because he worked as an
  orientation leader on campus. As an upperclassman with a
  hectic schedule, he has made extensive use of his PDA's
  calendar features and has used the infrared ports on the
  hand-held device to transfer files to and from his professors.
  But freshmen and sophomores make little use of the machines,
  he says. "When the students received them, it was like
  Christmas. They were very excited, but I think they were more
  excited to start beaming games to each other, rather than take
  a practice quiz."

  The university is convening a committee that will evaluate the
  costs and benefits of using PDA's. So far, the institution has
  been sufficiently happy with the devices to require next
  year's freshmen to buy them, although the university will not
  subsidize the purchases this time. "The early indications are
  that this is making a difference and that it does have
  potential," Mr. Dahlin says, "but I don't think we're anywhere
  near the potential yet."

  There has also been cautious enthusiasm about PDA's at the
  University of Minnesota at Duluth. The college is in its
  second year of requiring all engineering students to own
  Compaq iPAQ's, which the engineering school settled on after
  the students opposed a proposal that would have required them
  to purchase laptops.

  Students pay a total of $800 over four semesters for the
  devices, which run a miniature version of Windows and have
  wireless connections to the university's network. Students
  have used the devices, which users say are more sophisticated
  than Palms, to download and move technical drawings, run
  spreadsheets, compute equations on a graphing-calculator
  program, and take pop quizzes in class. Over the past year,
  the university has put $70,000 into PDA training for
  professors.

  The iPAQ's have demonstrated some benefits. Compared with
  laptops, the PDA's are easier to tote around and less
  obtrusive in class. "There's a real barrier with those laptops
  open, with that black rectangle in front of everybody," says
  James P. Riehl, the dean of the college of science and
  engineering at the university.

  And the PDA's have saved work for the professors. James Alert,
  a computer-science professor, was initially dubious, but soon
  found them useful. In the past, when students had a problem
  with a concept in class, he would draw diagrams he had
  sketched a hundred times before. "Now, bang -- I drag out the
  Pocket PC and we can look at a simulation, we can feed it
  numbers, we can go over it," he says. "I view it as being able
  to rip off a piece of your computer and take it with you."

  Limited Power

  But the devices' small screens and limited power have been
  frustrating. This year, after some complaints from students,
  the department will allow 50 of the 250 students to buy
  laptops instead of PDA's. "We never intended these things to
  replace a computer," Mr. Riehl says. But students are already
  pressed for cash, and the university is reviewing the use of
  PDA's with that in mind. "I know that many institutions are
  rethinking their technology programs because of the high
  tuition that we have students pay. That's a consideration that
  we're concerned about."

  Major PDA manufacturers like Palm, Handspring, and Compaq have
  courted colleges with offers to set up educational programs,
  and with deals on bulk buys. Stories about the use of
  hand-held devices in the classroom are a major part of the
  manufacturers' marketing efforts on their Web sites. But
  Kenneth C. Green, the director of the Campus Computing
  Project, who tracks the use of technology in education, says
  that, in higher education, "it has not captured critical mass
  yet, and I think there are important reasons to understand
  why."

  "You need a bigger screen or fuller functionality in the
  campus environment. The PDA has not yet emerged as a
  competitive substitute" for the laptop.

  And the price has been a deterrent. "While it is true that
  there are some cheap PDA's, the midrange and more expensive
  ones run in the high $300s to $500s," Mr. Green says. "When
  you compare it to a notebook computer that starts at $1,000,
  it is not a winning comparison on the PDA side." This fall,
  Mr. Green says, computer companies plan to release tablet
  computers that will reportedly have some of the features of
  the PDA, like the ability to recognize handwriting, but with a
  larger screen.

  But others see potential in the current range of devices.
  Jeremy Roschelle is a senior cognitive scientist who studies
  technology and learning at SRI International, a nonprofit
  technology-research firm. He says new PDA applications for the
  classroom may make all the difference.

  "There is a danger in evaluating it based on inappropriate
  software -- that we may see it as a fad and miss it as
  something that doesn't work. There could be impacts if we use
  the right software." He mentions, as an example,
  instant-polling programs that are being loaded into PDA's at
  various colleges. With the program, the instructor can toss
  out a pop-quiz question and tell students to answer it on the
  PDA. Through the classroom's wireless network, the instructor
  instantly gets a sense of how many, and which, of his students
  understand the material. The instructor can redirect the
  lecture based on that information.

  Rajit Gadh, a professor of mechanical and aerospace
  engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles,
  believes the PDA can make a difference not only in courses but
  in students' broader college experience.

  "Outside of class, the student is part of a community, and
  this is a personal-communication tool," says Mr. Gadh. He has
  ordered PDA's manufactured by Hewlett-Packard for his students
  to play with, in class and elsewhere.

  He says he hopes that the students will come up with
  interesting new software, such as a program that can orient a
  person on a campus map. "In the end, I think the in-class
  applications are going to be a small subset of what students
  will do outside of class."



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Copyright 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education