Some
CSULB classes using PDAs
By
Jorge Aguilar
On-line Forty-Niner
The
Personal Digital Assistant, or PDA, is here
and it is probably here to stay.
The
Assistant made its debut at Cal State Long
Beach during the summer in Chemistry 101.
The course's professor, Nancy Gardner, said
the students were enthusiastic about it.
The class is now being offered with the
device as a requirement. It is used for
test taking, as a sort of replacement to
the Scantron.
According
to Gardner, the students are eager to learn
how to use the machine.
"In
order to cut costs in the department,"
Gardner said, "we are having to include
paperless technology."
The
news about the requirement of the handheld
must have moved fast, because the device
is also a requirement in all six sections
of Beginning French this semester.
According
to a student enrolled in one of the French
courses, and who requested not to be identified,
she's not happy about having to buy the
device, but said she's going to try to buy
it. She said she understands the present
dire conditions of the school and would
not expect the department to provide the
device for student use.
The
student said she checked out prices for
an average PDA, and prices range from $80
to $100. She said there's also a $35 required
software and a $100 textbook.
According
to Marcus Muller, a French professor, the
palm pilots were ranked favorably by over
80 percent of the students that used them
during a test run and that approximately
one-third of the students already own PDA's.
He also said that no students have complained
about needing to purchase them.
Muller
explained that the devices help with tests
in that they give detailed and instantaneous
feedback to the students and professor about
test results. Also, "you don't have
to carry around 40 exams and it saves three
hours."
Nancy
Gardner, the Chemistry 101 professor, said
that beside trying to reduce costs in the
Chemistry Department, the machines were
required for two more reasons: to teach
students how to use it and to help them
get more familiar with current technology.
In
a phone conversation, Armando Contreras,
executive assistant to the president, told
the On-line Forty-Niner he was not familiar
with any department requiring the students
to purchase a handheld device. He admitted
that "there can be some benefit"
by the use of such a device in a classroom,
but questioned whether it should be a requirement
rather than an option to students.
The
University Bookstore is selling one model
of the handheld by Palm, Inc. for $189,
which includes 8MB of memory and an accompanying
student software bundle. The necessary course
software, with the $35 tag price, can be
downloaded from the Internet.
According
to one sales representative at the University
Bookstore's Technology Department, the use
of a PDA in a classroom can be very efficient.
A teacher may walk into a classroom, he
says, beam (a form of laser broadcast) a
test into a student's handheld from his
or her laptop; the student then touch-answers
the test with the device's pointer stylus
and beams the completed test back to the
professor's computer. After a few mouse
clicks, the professor may display, through
the use of a projector, the general scores
for students to see.
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