110 Computer

W ireless networks now sup-port Web browsing, e-mail, real-time chat, andaccess to remote comput-ing resources. With the

increasing use of small portable com-puters, this emerging communicationsinfrastructure will enable many newInternet applications. Two innovativeprojects at the University of North Car-olina at Wilmington (UNCW) are cur-rently exploring how educators can useportable handheld computers with wire-less Internet access to improve teachingand learning in both local and wide areanetwork environments.

LOCAL AREA WIRELESS ACCESSThe objective of Project Numina, a

cooperative effort among faculty atUNCW, Pearson Education (Prentice-Hall), and Hypercube (http://aa.uncwil.edu/numina), is to use one seamless for-mat to facilitate learning of abstract sci-entific and mathematical concepts byintegrating media, interactive exercises,and hypertext materials into the class-room.

Using handheld PCs (H/PCs) equippedwith the appropriate software and con-nected by a wireless network to theInternet exposes students to a rich vari-ety of Web resources that can help themlearn abstract chemistry, mathematics,and computer science concepts. Thisapproach also enhances the learningexperience by increasing student-instruc-tor and student-student interactions.

Student response padsOne of the project’s many educational

applications is a Web-based interactivestudent response pad developed for usein large classroom settings. Numina’sclassroom environment consists of fourCisco Aironet wireless access points and

100 Hewlett-Packard Jornada H/PCs.Students use the H/PCs to respond to theinstructor’s questions, and the systemstores their responses in a remote data-base and displays the collective responsesgraphically at the front of the classroom.

SWATT. The Student Web AnswerTechnology Template, a server-side Webapplication implemented as a Javaservlet, drives the system. SWATT iscompletely Web-based and does notrequire any special software on the clientside other than a Web browser.

The instructor poses a question in amultiple-choice, true-false, or yes-no for-mat and directs students to a Web sitethat generates a Web form on their com-puter screens through which they submittheir responses. Multiple question-and-answer scenarios are possible. A back-

end database stores only responses toquestions, not information about the stu-dent, so responses are anonymous.

Real-time learning. The instructorcontrols the question number andwhether to display the results—whichappear as a dynamically updated barchart generated from student responsesas they are submitted to the database—on an overhead projector that all the stu-dents can view. Another interfaceprovides a quiz-like format for questionsand tracks responses by student identifi-cation number.

In contrast to the typical 2 to 3 per-cent response rate in a more traditionalclassroom setting, all of the students par-ticipating in our project respond to theinstructor’s questions. This suggests thatstudents are more comfortable respond-ing to a question when they see othersdoing the same. Another advantage ofSWATT is that instructors can see imme-diately how well students comprehend aspecific topic they have presented.

The future. Project Numina continuesto develop SWATT software. We areadding additional student interfaces andwill improve the options available for theinstructor to control the response padand its representation on student screens.Many controlled experiments are nowunder way to study the technology’seffect on student learning and compre-hension.

Other applicationsProject Numina is testing several other

applications of Internet technology in theclassroom. For example, we are studyinghow instructors and students use an elec-tronic version of a widely adopted chem-istry textbook that is on the Web—complete with graphics, equations, andillustrations—along with online references

Teaching andLearning in theWireless ClassroomPaul G. Shotsberger and Ron VetterUniversity of North Carolina at Wilmington

I N T E R N E T W A T C H

Combining handheld PCs withwireless Internet access offersnew possibilities for botheducators and students.

and other utilities that take advantage ofthe HTML format (see http://cw.pren-hall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/brown).

We are also evaluating a pocket PCversion of HyperChem, a software appli-cation from Hypercube that provides allthe standard functions a student needsfor general and organic chemistry on anH/PC. Finally, we are testing legacy DOSapplications in the classroom using theJornada H/PC, which supports MS-DOSemulation.

WIDE AREA WIRELESS ACCESSAnother project, funded by a UNCW

Information Technology Systems Divisiongrant, experiments with a wide-area field-based implementation of wireless H/PC technology (http://www.uncwil.edu/people/shotsbergerp/jornada.htm). Theproject’s primary goal is to extend thereach of technology into high schoolmathematics classrooms where comput-ing resources are either nonexistent or noteasily accessible.

Teacher training places a heavyemphasis on integrating technology withinstruction and learning, yet the realityof inadequate school facilities often dis-mays instructors. Mobile computingtechnology provides the functionality ofa desktop PC to teachers who are dis-placed from their room, cannot incorpo-rate technology into presentations, or donot have a computer at home.

In January 2001, we loaned 12 sec-ondary mathematics interns and theirpartnership teachers HP Jornada 720handheld computers, mobile digital tele-phones, and supporting software thatenables a wide range of functions:

• access to Web browsing, real-timechat, and e-mail functions;

• the ability to create and edit Wordand Excel documents;

• the ability to make PowerPoint pre-sentations from a handheld device;

• access to calendar, task, and contactfeatures; and

• the option of synchronizing theJornada to a desktop machine.

The interns and partnership teachers havecomplete freedom to use some or all of theJornada suite’s features for a semester.

Removing barriersWhile we use the term “just-in-time”

to describe computer-supported profes-sional development, in fact, time con-straints remain a significant barrier toteacher work. Obstacles range from lim-ited availability of network connectionsat schools to the problem of schedulingcollaborative meetings within the con-straints of a full teaching schedule.

For teachers in older school buildingsthat do not have wired network connec-tions or those who “float” from class toclass and do not have a permanent roomassignment, using a handheld devicefacilitates communication with col-leagues and parents. Using wirelessdevices eliminates the need for teachersto wait for access to a typically limitednumber of computers with an Internetconnection and allows them to researchWeb resources or send e-mail to parentsor absent students at their convenience.

Expanding optionsWireless devices enhance Web-based

professional development by giving teach-ers immediate access to other colleagues.For example, at small, rural schools, onlyone or two teachers from the same disci-pline may be available for collaborationat any given time. Participants from dif-ferent schools could use wireless devicesto notify colleagues of their availability tochat synchronously online; if the chat istext-based, the transcript could becomepart of an archive asynchronously acces-sible by all participants.

Surfing the Web while they conduct achat would help teachers jointly planlessons that incorporate Web resourceswhile they also benefit from havingaccess to the experiences and insights ofa large pool of practicing teachers. Thiswould be especially useful to teachers intraining, who often only have the oppor-

tunity to collaborate with their mentors. The education community has long

lamented that teachers generally do notproduce written or even oral records oftheir classroom strategies. Handheldwireless devices could give teachers ahighly portable way of documentingimplementation results, which they couldthen share with colleagues face to face, ina chat room, on a discussion board, or asa Web page. H/PC features such as hand-writing-recognition software and the abil-ity to record short voice messages willexpand a teacher’s options for recordkeeping both in and out of the classroom.

A s yet, little is known about thepotential impact of wireless tech-nology on teaching and learning.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that stu-dents enjoy the technology and becomemore active in their learning when H/PCsare used in the classroom. There is everyindication that in the near future wirelessdata devices will be as widespread aswireless voice devices are now. Ratherthan just migrating a few PC functionsto a mobile platform, we envision thesedevices as actually replacing the desktopPC’s full functionality.

Popular technologies such as palmtopsand Internet-ready cell phones lack a full-scale browser that can handle a wide vari-ety of Web content. In contrast, inaddition to playing audio and video files,H/PCs already have browsers that supportHTML, Java, and JavaScript. Given theincreasing importance of the Web to botheducators and developers of educationalmaterials, this difference has profoundimplications for teaching and learning. ✸

Project Numina participants includeCharles R. Ward, David P. White, James H.Reeves, Gabriel Lugo, and Russ Herman.

Paul G. Shotsberger is an associate pro-fessor in the Department of Mathematicsand Statistics at the University of NorthCarolina at Wilmington. Contact him atshotsbergerp@uncwil.edu.

Ron Vetter is a professor and chair of theDepartment of Computer Science at theUniversity of North Carolina at Wilming-ton. Contact him at vetterr@uncwil.edu.

March 2001 111

Wireless handheld PCs will expand the reach

of technology intoclassrooms with limited

or nonexistent computing resources.