PDA ~ Personal Digital Assistants

Students and professors are learning to communicate in new and interesting ways at Wake Forest University using their IPAQ Pocket PCs. Software programmers at the school are creating programs so that students can interact during class with the professor. To begin with, the professor’s PDA functions as a web server. When students enter class, a series of questions pop up on each of their Pocket PCs. The answers to these questions are accumulated in a database and sent to the professor in a graph format. The professor can then decide on what topics the class needs to focus that day by what answers the students gave on the quiz. Students can instant message with the professor about questions or comments on the class. Professors are also using another program entitled Pocket Classroom to control PowerPoint presentations given from a laptop or pc through their PocketPCs. This allows the professor the freedom to move around the classroom instead of staying tied to their laptop or pc. The software is available for free to download for educational purposes. More info can be found by following these links:
http://www.wfu.edu/wfunews/2002/071702.html
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54183,00.html

 
 
 

 

 

 

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