At first I thought this assignment would be difficult since Guam is not filled with teachers who use handhelds. I thought of using one of the teachers at St. John’s,but I realized I wanted to bring something new to the class. So I looked on the internet to find teachers who use handhelds in the classroom and came upon Mr. Jason Cring. Mr. Cring was very accomodating when I aksed if I could interview him. He responded to 11 questions I sent him via email. He was an interesting subject to interview and gave me several ideas on how to help students who need some organization skills and help with homework.
Jason Cring teaches Special Education to 11th & 12th grades at Hilton High School in Hilton, NY. He has a Masters Degree in Special Education from Oswego State University and is certified to teach K-12 Special Education and Social Studies. His average class size is eight students per teacher due to the needs of the students. He has been teaching at Hilton High since 1997.
His philosophy and goal at Hitlon has been to provide a computer to all his students and achieve 1:1 computing. He began researching the use of handhelds in 2003 and used Tony Vincent’s website to help him learn how to use the handhelds in the high school. Today, Cring has his own webpage that helps others to learn how to use handhelds in the classroom (http://schoolcenter.hilton.k12.ny.us/education/projects. You could also just type his name into Google and click on his site. He states that now, “His students could take the computer to work, instead of bringing their work to the computer.” This meant the students could use their handhelds anywhere, anytime, any place. For his special ed. students this was extremely important.
Organization, time management, and completing tasks on time were some of the problems Cring’s students had. The handheld gave them an electronic, fun way to solve their problems. He uses the handheld to keep track of schedules for his students, to track student goals, and save memos and distribute them using Documents to Go. He does not have a wireless system, so he has limited use for communication and collaboration. He uses the handhelds to teach the students the importance of planning their time wisely, therefore the built-in calendar is one of his biggest tools. The calendar is helpful to schedule appointments, tests, and assignment due dates that occur in the future. His students were in the habit of living on a day to day schedule and losing track of what was due, coming up without the work done on the due date. He also uses Inflation Master to illustrate how inflation effects the cost of items over time. He teaches a variety of subjects including Geometry, English, US History, Economics, and Government and he takes a multi-disciplinary approach to his teaching when using the handhelds. He has put the schools rules into Documents to Go, writes hall passess using Litenotes. In English class he uses Bookslog to record facts about books; in Math he uses Animate Me to help teach mathematical concepts. Students also track current events they find on TV, newspapers, and online sources keeping a daily log in memos. Cring lists his assignments on his web page and students download them to complete them at home using the handhelds and keyboards and print their assignments on an IR-ready printer.
Cring also uses handhelds because he feels a paper calendar or other items such as planners can be lost easier. “His students would lose paper items, but they can’t lose digitalized documents,” he states. Think about how many times we have all heard our students say, “I lost my homework. I lost my planner. I lost my bag!” Wouldn’t the handhelds help with this. Think of the cost of planners for the school…could we save some money if students had handhelds instead? At their expense or maybe a discount if purchased through the school?
I asked about his students’ reactions to the handhelds. His response was that they really think it is cool, but soon the novelty wears off and he must think of new, novel ways to make them interested again. I don’t think this is any different, though, than any other method we use as teachers. The same approach day after day, no matter what the method, can become dull and boring. As teachers, we need to mix our methods up to stay fresh for our students anyway.
I also asked about training and he stated that he had used a handheld for personal use before he began teaching with it. So he is self-taught. He uses a Treo 90 as it has a keyboard, which he felt was much faster for entering information than using graffiti. He felt these were especially helpful for students with special needs. For his students, he spends about 4 hours total at the beginning of the school year and gives them time in class to enter information they need.
An anecdote he shared with me was how to use the handhelds to help with a discipline problem–tardies. He put a timer in the student’s handheld and the timer would go off one minute before class started. When the alarm went off, they knew it was time to say goodbye to their friends in the hall and go to class. So the handheld can be used to help students with time management.
His recommendations for schools who are considering the implementation of handhelds was that you give the students time to play with the handheld, show them how to use the basic options and make them a meaningful tool to use. He has found that using handhelds for teaching and learning motivates the students and reduces discipline issues. “When my students are using handhelds, they are engaged in reading, writing, and enjoying what they’re doing. Typing is alot easier than writing by hand…and the quality of work turns out better.” (palmOne, Inc. 2005)
So from one teacher to another, handhelds have many uses; and for those students who have time management or organization problems, they could be a welcome solution to end their fears of “I lost my ____, again…now what do I do?”
