No matter how long it has been since you attended high school, the memory of the principal walking down the hall keeping an eye out for students skipping class probably still makes you nervous. But if you think you had it rough, be glad you're not in principal Steve McLean's hallway.
He's armed — with a handheld computer.
Mr. McLean is carrying a WiFi-enabled Tungsten C from PalmOne. It gives him access to information on everyone attending North Grenville District High School in Kemptville, Ont.
Although the ability to call up every student's record instantly from anywhere in the school may bad news for truants, it's good news for the student having an allergic seizure in the hallway, for example. The system means Mr. McLean will know instantly that that student carries an epipen in her backpack, and he'll be able to administer the life-saving shot immediately.
In fact, by leveraging the school's existing database and photo records provided by companies such as Jostens, principals like McLean can call up any student's name and verify their identity from a digitized photograph. They'll also know instantly whether the student has a class at that time of day, what mark the student is scoring in that class, and can even add comments about the encounter - whether it be to note that the student was late because she was smoking in the bathroom, or because she was legitimately helping a fellow student in need.
While North Grenville District High School's staff has been using handheld technology for about a year-and-a-half to help with scheduling and marks, come this fall all 35 teachers will get even more high tech. They'll be upgrading their Palm m125s and m130s to more powerful WiFi-enabled Tungsten C handhelds like Mr. McLean's, to tie into the new wireless network established in their school.
"Once you have the WiFi infrastructure in place, it's limitless what you can do," says PalmOne's Enterprise Sales Manager Jordan Silverberg, "since you have a handheld wireless, browser-based device in your hand and you can use that network in many ways."
Besides receiving new handhelds from PalmOne, the school's 802.11b compliant WiFi installation will be done by a local company called Storm Internet. Ottawa-based Media-X has already provided the teachers with software called e-teacher to help them co-ordinate schedules, collect data, and even record marks on-line.
Mr. McLean himself uses another program called e-principal.
"I use it extensively," he says. "I've stopped missing meetings or arriving in towns and not knowing where I was going to find my meeting. Staff are using it for their own organization. They can actually do rubric development, assessment, and evaluation right on their palm."
Besides having his staff experiment with the software, some formal training has also been provided through Media-X. In addition, the school has held a breakfast club meeting known among the staff as "Palm with Ron" in which teachers actively practice working with and learning new things on their handhelds.
Mr. McLean admits that like any staff, his has its boosters and its less enthusiastic users of the new system. Yet he says that adoption of the technology has been a good experience overall. "I would be prepared to put the technical literacy of my staff against any in the province."
Perhaps the most appealing new benefit of the school's new wireless network for teachers is the fact that they can now take attendance wirelessly and in real time. North Grenville District High School is using a Web-based program called eSIS Student Information Systems created by software developer Administrative Assistants. Not only does this make much better use of the secretary's time and skills (otherwise it would be their job to manually enter the attendance into the computer from paper sheets after every class), but it also permits immediate follow-up on student absence.
Besides being more efficient, this tool is also crucial when absenteeism might be a clue to issues of greater concern. Patterns of absenteeism can be flagged immediately, for example.
Besides helping North Grenville District High School to go wireless, PalmOne has initiated projects in other schools. They include equipping students with handhelds for an entire course at Ancaster High School in Hamilton, Ontario, and for the entire grade 7 to 11 classes at La Rose Sauvage school in Calgary, Alberta.
PalmOne's Jordan Silverberg confirms that the trend to include Wi-Fi networks in schools is growing. "As new schools are built, they're putting Wi-Fi in, it's not a huge expense as far as infrastructure goes. And there's so much more in the future that you'll be able to use it for."
As the technology becomes even more familiar to teachers at North Grenville, already new uses are arising. For instance the school's basketball coach has started using the device to record team stats.
Mr. McLean encourages his teachers to experiment with their handhelds, to discover new applications and become lifelong learners themselves, he says. "If you give those teachers that tool, they will find educational applications—its really my staff that are pushing this next stretch."
