The death of handhelds in education? NOT.

Over the past week, I've had a couple of experiences that really gave me some perspective on what's happening with handheld devices, and what's happening in educational technology.

Last Wednesday, I attended Macworld and worshipped at the Apple's iPhone shrine. I saw the iPhone, perched on a rotating column and sealed in a plastic dome. I watched presentations. I talked with Apple employees and local educators.

It's pretty impressive. They took the idea of a smartphone and made it better and, certainly, more user-friendly. The took convergence to a new level.

Will iPhone make in-roads in education? Probably. Despite the hefty price and single-carrier configuration, it's a sensible tool for administrators - especially for email. What it does NOT do that a not-as-flashy Treo or Palm handheld does is run thousands of education-related software programs. While the iPhone is based on Mac OS X, it is NOT Mac OS X - that is, you can't just take your desktop programs and run them on your iPhone. That means access to your student information system, digital forms compatible with MS Office, attachable probeware, IEP managers, gradebooks, etc. - a staple on Palm OS devices - won't run on iPhone. Of course, Apple's not stupid. They'll likely spawn another "iPhone econonomy" where you'll eventually see some widgets or other programs useful for these tasks.

Advantage: PalmOS smartphones and handhelds.

Second, I delivered a webinar for ISTE entitled "Top 10 Tips and Techniques for Using Handhelds and Smartphones in Education" to a whole bunch of enthusiastic educators, technology coordinators, and other teaching and learning professionals. The questions confirmed the fact that district are just now adopting handheld technology in the classroom and are deploying email-ready smartphones in record numbers. The interest in HANDHELDS is huge and as educators find out they're much more than a "PDA", they'll understand how the devices can help with equity and enhance instruction in so many ways. Smartphones came up, but most realized that it's not the TELEPHONE that matters, it's all the other things the operationg system (Palm OS) can do.

Advantage: PalmOS smartphones and handhelds.

There are lots of smartphones - more on the way - but handhelds won't die. The idea of a low-cost, high function, easy to support device is really compelling especially in the education marketplace. Will handhelds go away, probably not

Some helpful links:
iPhone
ISTE Webinars