School teachers in Australia are taking part in a Queensland Government pilot program to test new technologies within the state's government-run schools. Since 2002, 800 teachers have been exploring Pocket PCs, and helping to develop software for them, in order to improve the administration of their students and of their classrooms. Called the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Explorers Project, the pilot has attracted teachers from all corners of Australia's most decentralized state.

Through a professional learning strategy backed by Web communities, chat rooms, and email discussion lists set up by the state's education governing body—the Department of Education and the Arts—the teachers are bridging geographical distances to devise new ideas, techniques, approaches, and solutions. In essence, they are using Pocket PCs to move from traditional, paper-based classroom management to more sophisticated electronic methods.

Why Pocket PCs?

The Queensland education department selected Pocket PCs as the first information and communication technologies (ICT) device to offer to its teachers. There was rapid adoption of ICTs among the educational community: teachers and schools wanted to engage with the latest emerging technologies, including Pocket PCs.

The department encouraged teachers to explore how the devices could promote learning and improve the efficiency of teaching and administrative tasks. To date, more than 800 Pocket PCs have been purchased. Two models were chosen: the iPAQ 3970 and the HP iPAQ 5550 (http://www.hp.com.au).

A boon for personal organization

Teachers are using their devices to streamline their busy and complex schedules. Like many of his teaching colleagues, Chris Honan, of Upper Barron State School, uses a Pocket PC for a variety of administration activities. Hailing from a one-teacher school in a remote area of Queensland, Chris has turned his device into a diary, calendar, contacts database, notebook, street directory, dictaphone, remote control and network manager.

“With the Pocket PC, I am now able to plan things more appropriately, as well as stay on task a lot more,” he said. “The reminders help to notify what I should be doing, and when. They do this in the short, medium and long term. For example, I can set a reminder for five months away as the completion date for a project and then, working backwards, set reminders for each stage of the project. This ensures that my priorities are tight and I deal with things as required.”

Despite his initial reservations about using the device, Chris feels that his Pocket PC has become an invaluable management tool.

“It has the last two years of my life contained within it,” he said. “The move to an electronic device for managing my life was difficult. I had to let go of my paper diary. Changing my old mind-set was hard, but it happened as the potential of the device became apparent.”

Chris Honan and 800 Queensland school teachers use Pocket PCs as management tools.

Simone Coogan, of Kedron State School in Brisbane, is another ICT Explorer who affirms the Pocket PC as a great administrative tool. As a primary school teacher in a small metropolitan school with just nine teachers, Simone finds herself involved in a huge variety of activities. “The Pocket PC is saving a whole lot of time, particularly when it comes to things like taking meeting minutes and uploading them to the Internet,” she said. “Now, my notes are in the same place, not in a separate clunky ring binder or filed mysteriously in an in-tray somewhere. The Pocket PC really has become my one-stop location for events, notes, files and ongoing tasks.”