Palmtop computers in school

Looking at a revolution taking place in schools using palmtop computers. Even today, as the kit has improved there's a lot of mileage in this technology. (TES 1997)

There’s another revolution, quieter than the Windows one. It’s about that ‘vision’ where each child has and uses a computer. They write, calculate, draw graphs, even take them home to work on.

No, it’s not a big tease, more a tiny tease about tiny ‘palmtop’ computers. But at Our Lady's Grammar School in Newry, Northern Ireland the staff and a whole year group use Pocket Book computers from Acorn. And they have just bought another batch for their new intake, making 280 computers in all.

They might not have if a Pocket Book hadn’t cost just over £200. Yet it has a well featured word processor, a spreadsheet and does graphs. It’s smaller than a paper-back, causing only a slight bump in a pocket, and runs for months on its batteries. It has all the features of a diary with address book, world map and lighting-up times, except there’s no tube map.

Acorn have already sold 17,000 of this, their version of the Psion Series 3a. Psion, who market the Series 3a everywhere but education, will probably sell their millionth by Xmas. Acorn has tweaked their machine for education: for example, they re-worked the manual, removed the password and added a graphics calculator program to plot equations.

Some liken using a desktop computer to having a full meal, and using a notebook to having a TV supper. The palmtop, they say, lets you snack where ever you are. Ann Gillespie, IT co-ordinator at Our Lady's, feels that their size is a key feature, "It’s their portability and the battery life that we really like. You ask a question in class and before you know it, the children have their Pocket Books ready and working. It’s ideal for the little ones who can put it in a bag or pocket - whereas I’m sure we’d get complaints from parents about the weight of a notebook computer."

Reports from the National Council for Educational Technology tell how palmtops afford children privacy when they write - like not being seen writing something an onlooker might disparage. So palmtops might encourage creative work rather than ‘safe’ work. And while you’d expect that small screens would hinder children collaborating, NCET reported that children discussed their work more.

Ann Gillespie says that at first, the children would take them home but couldn’t get their hands on them because mummies and daddies wanted to try them. But now IT skills are developing, "The children have become totally responsible for them, they exchange ideas on how to do things like use the spreadsheet, save files and use the printer".

Owning a computer has something to do with that. And if ownership of a £200 computer is realistic, Lord Grey School in Milton Keynes, are testing that by asking the year 7 parents if they want to buy one for their child.

They’re aware this is a sensitive issue - and they say they might run a loan system if parents cannot afford or choose not to buy a computer. They’ve already run a questionnaire to gauge first reactions and the response has been extremely positive.

As one of the schools in the PB trials, Lord Grey have run ‘one-each’ projects with the staff as well as pupils. In one example, pupils were asked to prepare a record of achievement on the palmtops and they could take their efforts home and involve their parents. They’ve collected enough experience to feel that this is not a toy, a gimmick or passing phase.

Links between home and school are one thing - but there are technical issues, like how the palmtops link with other IT in the school, how easy it is to print work or use it for desktop-publishing on bigger machines.

New software from Psion makes the Pocket Book really easy to copy work to, and print with, a Windows computer. It’s at last really, as the link between the Pocket Book and the PC has been the weakest of the three main platforms.

The software comes with a cable which connects the two computers. You run a program similar to Windows File Manager, and you can see the file names on your Pocket Book. But if you click twice on say, a document, it launches your Windows word processor with your work onto the screen - amazingly complete with headings, fonts and formatting.

The same smart trick works with files from the spreadsheet, diary, and even the built-in voice recorder. You just tell the Psion program that you use Works, Excel, Lotus Organizer or whatever and in future your files are converted, as they say, ‘on the fly’.

After that, everything seems passé - if you want to make ‘back-up’ copies you can do that in a click. And if you want to print from the palmtop, you can do that through your desktop computer to any printer: laser, colour or plain vanilla - it is that easy.

Acorn have announced Class packs and Year Packs as catalogue items. You can order them, with free bundled extras, in tens or in hundreds. There’s a thousand in the School Pack - so today’s the day they sell computers by the kilo.

Bulk buyers can briefly entertain the idea of a custom made palmtop just as Jaguar, the car firm did. Their exclusive model has a wood finish to match the car’s dashboard. Yours might wear the school uniform! If that’s not executive enough, you can add a fax-modem, which lets you send electronic mail and faxes. Soon you’ll be able to connect to the mobile phone network.

Here now, is a technology which has its enthusiasts and evangelists. Acorn have a no-obligation two-month trial where they will let you keep the machine if you buy a Class Pack. It’s an approach that could work - there are those that find desktops too intimidating or find notebooks too heavy, too expensive, and the battery life they say is bluntly dishonest. But many will be impressed that even the basic 256K Pocket Book can store a diary, 40 pages of writing and a substantial address book.

When sane people commit their lives to a few grams of manganese battery you have to ask why. Some reply that they’d really prefer a notebook computer. Others say that the palmtop is just right. And more so now. Memory-hungry Windows has put Sterling pounds on the price of a notebook computer. It is pushing notebooks a little further out of reach, encouraging even more people to flip their lids.

©