I had kind of mixed feelings of being incredibly flighty within the past week. I know that it’s a trait of myself and I admit it openly. I like to explore and I’m often abandoning ship on one piece of technology whether it be hardware or software. I find it really euphoric to find something new that has the potential for changing the way that I do things. I’m always on the hunt for something new with the potential of making me more productive or to give me deeper insights to an existing practice.
A few years ago, I really clued in on the message from Dr. Elliot Soloway in terms of portable technology for students. I looked at many of the pieces of software that he was using and talking about and said – this is good. This is very good. I really like the concept of the portable technology and the Palm was the solution. I approached my science colleague and we put together a pretty decent package for our students. You can read about it here. http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/probes.htm. The package is still in place; we still lend them to schools; the probes and the data gathering pieces of software let students monitor their experiments and hopefully gain some deeper insights to exactly what principles are being taught. It still remains second to none for flexibility and portability.
So powerful were the collection of resources that we put together that my colleague bought his own Palm and, until this past weekend, it was his main portable device. You see, last week, he had the misfortune of having me drop in to his office for a chat. I caught him mid-sync as he was bringing his FirstClass calendar to his Palm. After he was done, as we were chatting, he was bemoaning the fact that his stylus wasn’t as functional and his Palm not as responsive as it once was. I pulled out my current choice for portable computing and pulled up the page above and noted that the machines in the project were about 7-8 years old and so his machine had to be at least a year older than that.
The machines have been incredibly durable. With the odd need to reinstall software, they remain as functional and true to the cause of science learning as they ever did. But, his needs have changed. Like so many of us, he needs to carry his calendar and contacts with him for quick and easy reference. Entries need to be made on the fly with immediate synchronization.
Now, he knew that I owned an iPod and had bought one for my kids last Christmas. In passing, I had shown him a couple of things that the device can do. In our media rich world, everyone has a sense of what the iPod/iPhone can do with the funky television ads but it takes a concerted effort to sit down and take a look at real applications in an internet connected environment to truly understand the power for productivity instead of the power to play games or find the nearest restaurant.
We spent some time looking at some of my favourite science apps that are on my Palm. Things like my RPN Calculator, my converter for temperature, measurement, distance, the FirstClass client, access to seismic data, health outbreaks, etc. (I didn’t realize that I had so many sciency apps installed)
He was interested and we checked out current pricing at Walmart and BestBuy.
As it turns out, he was more than interested. He was sold and stopped somewhere on the way home Friday night to get his own device. I knew first thing Saturday morning with the start of a number of email messages asking questions. But, I wasn’t his best resource; he has a teenage son! Monday morning, I get to see his nice shiny device. I looked down at my screen scratched, grease covered device thinking that it was time to upgrade – no wait, my lovely wife should probably have a say in this.
So, we spent some time looking at applications, getting him on the guest network so that he can attach at any school in the district, put my directory of schools app on his machine, navigated the App Store for a bit, and more before his battery wore out. The clock has just his 8am and so we both then clicked in to work mode and went our separate ways.
I dropped in for a quick chat after 4 as I was on my way to a workshop and got a chance to talk about how the device had changed his way of doing business during that one day. We exchanged a few more “app stories” and I was off to lead my workshop and he continued working on his projects. I’m sure that our conversation will continue shortly today when we land at work.
It’s a mixed moments experience. After all, I led him to productivity with one product and he embraced it as a professional and lifestyle piece of device. In one fell swoop, we did a complete portable makeover. He’s happier than ever and that’s a good thing. I do feel badly though to see an entire technological era pass for someone else. I do it all the time, but it was quite another experience to live it alongside a good friend who takes whatever advice I can offer as good advice. I sure hope that his excitement continues.
