UTSA researcher Leann Steinmetz

Tech-Connect offers free workshop to first ten applicants

(Oct. 17, 2003)--Tech-Connect, a UTSA project funded by a U.S. Department of Education grant, will host a Palm OS Developer training course taught by Jon Kilburn of Vivid Software in Dallas.

The workshop, free and open to the first ten people who apply via e-mail, will be conducted from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 20-23 at the Downtown Campus Frio Street Building Room 3.412.

Applicants should be familiar with Visual Basic programming, Windows-based PC operation and have hand-held computer operation experience. Some of the applications that will be developed in the workshop include surveys and student teacher observation forms, among others.

To apply for the course, e-mail techconnect@utsa.edu with your name, title, organization, phone number and e-mail address.

With hand-helds finding their place in modern classrooms, UTSA College of Education and Human Development Researcher Leann Steinmetz has spent the past year exploring the impact of hand-held devices on young children's understanding of skills in mapping. In conducting her research, she found that the dynamic nature of handheld computing has created a need for rapid development of custom-built applications.

"There are many programs available for collecting data from the hand-held computers, but what is lacking for research purposes is a way to shift the data into specific educational fields for study over time," said Steinmetz, who is conducting her research on handheld computers as co-principal investigator in the Tech-Connect project. "This is where the writing of custom-built applications serves its purpose."

Handheld computers are ideal tools for educators to promote effective teaching and learning, according to University of Michigan researchers. The small, inexpensive devices are used to help students understand subject matter and improve skills, their study showed. The eight features that make handhelds ideal for classroom use are accessibility, convergence, permenancy, malleability, pleasurability, collabration, immediacy and simplicity.

"These characteristics make handhelds more powerful, and when two or more features are combined, they engage students in even more potent ways," the study found. "When these inherent features are combined, handhelds are tools that can both implement traditional practice and use innovative strategies."

For more information, contact M. Katherine Scheidel, PT3/Tech-Connect project manager, at Downtown Campus Buena Vista Street Building Room 4.304 or 210-458-2085.