Taylor, a fifth grader, describes a typical school day using a handheld computer for various learning activities. Throughout the day, Taylor uses applications on the handheld like MathCard, WordSmith, SpellIT, Quizzler, and Sketchy for subjects like math, reading, writing, science, and social studies. Handhelds help the class learn, practice, read, write, and think in an engaging way. At the end of the day, the class gets to take their handhelds home to study further.

1. PDAs in the Classroom PHOTO ESSAY

2. Learn about a day in the life of Taylor, a handheld-using fifth grader.

3. I'm Taylor and I'm a fifth grader. This photo essay will show you a typical day for my classmates and me. First, I arrive at school, ready to learn. I didn't get to take my handheld home last night, so I'm excited to be reunited with my palm-sized friend!

4. The morning message says to have my teacher beam us a recent Roving Reporter article. Everyone gets a chance to be the day's Roving Reporter. The reporter takes photos and notes throughout the whole school day. Then the reporter takes home his or her handheld and composes an article about our day in class. The next school day the reporter synchronizes his or her handheld with one of our desktop computers. The article is copied to the desktop computer to turn into a web page. I eagerly read the article to see if there are any photos of me and to see what words the reporter used to describe the day.

5. Next, the fifth graders find out what's on the agenda for today. I'm very excited because it sounds like we'll get to use our handheld computers a lot today. Of course, not everything we do is on a handheld. We still use plenty of sheets of paper and pencil lead.

6. First thing in math is our weekly times test. We get two minutes to do as many multiplication problems as possible in MathCard. MathCard keeps score so at the end of the two minutes, our teacher simply looks at our screens and records our scores. Everyone tries to get better scores by practicing with MathCard.

7. In math, our teacher has the class doing different things. I'm working with Aaron to learn about Roman numerals. The teacher beamed us a Palm application called Numerus. It's a Roman numeral calculator. He also gave us a handout that helps guide us in figuring out how Roman numerals work. At first it was confusing, but after some experimenting with Numerus, Aaron and I worked together to understand how to use Roman numerals. While some students, like Aaron and me, are working with Numerus, other students are working with the teacher. He is helping them add and subtract mixed numbers.

8. I'm reading the book The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. It's a murder mystery with lots of characters and clues. I'm keeping a list of all of the characters and clues in WordSmith, a word processor for my handheld. This way I won't lose my notes and it's easy to add information as I read. I wonder who killed Sam Westing...?

9. For writing, we've been writing Gone Mad! stories. They're our version of Mad Libs. Today the class is beaming crazy stories to one another. After Samantha beams me her story, I quickly launch the application Gone Mad! I select Sam's story and then enter information. It asks me for nouns, body parts, adverbs, and more. After I put in the silliest words I can think of, I tap "Go!" Then I can read Sam's story about her pet tuna fish that couldn't find the recipe because it was daintily tucked under its earlobe! Silly, huh? I've written some of my own crazy stories as well. I wrote it in Memo Pad following a special format. I leave out some important words and replace them with brackets and the kinds of word that need to be put there. For example, I've written, "I looked all over for my heavy [noun]."

10. It's been a busy morning in our classroom. Now it's time to leave the classroom for lunch. I'm sad to leave my handheld, but I know I'll see it after a tasty lunch and playful recess.

11. Recess was fun, but I happily get started with the spelling assignment. Yesterday I entered my spelling words into SpellIT. I also entered a clue for each word. Today I'm practcing my spelling words using SpellIT. It will show me a clue and I must enter the word. If the word is not spelled correctly, SpellIT shows me the correct spelling. I know I'm ready for this week's spelling test after I get 100% two times in a row.

12. I take the time to synchronize my handheld with a desktop computer. Students synch when we have something to print out or want to access from the desktop computer. I don't have anything to print out, but I want to back up all of the applications, settings, and documents I have on my trusty handheld. As I synch, Andrea, today's Roving Reporter, takes a photo. Andrea's taking a lot of photos, so she'll have to delete some of them. Who knows, maybe my picture will be appear on The Daily Planet for today?

13. For science, our teacher assigned each of us to be "Big Fish" or "Little Fish" and beamed us an application called Big Fish-Little Fish. Big Fish must eat the Little Fish in order to survive. Look out though: if all of the Little Fish are eaten at one time, there will be no more food left for the Big Fish! So far, I'm a Big Fish who has just eaten some Little Fish, and I'm getting hungry again...

14. After a great discussion about over fishing and biodiversity in science, it's time for social studies. We've been studying the American Revolutionary War and there is a test coming up. To help us study, our teacher made a quiz for Quizzler. It was 50 multiple choice questions about things we've studied. My partner and I play a game of "Quizzler Tic Tac Toe." I launch Quizzler on my handheld and she launches a game of Tic Tac Toe on hers. We go back and forth answering questions from the Revolutionary War quiz. Each time someone answers correctly, he or she puts an "X" or an "O" on the board. The first one to get three in a row wins. As you can see, I just won this round!

15. To wrap up the day, our teacher reads to us. He always tries out different voices. Sometimes they're even good ones. Anyhow, during read aloud time today, I animate the action in the story using Sketchy. Making moving pictures of what is being read helps me focus on the story. Plus, it's a lot of fun to watch the animations!

16. As you can see, our class loves our handheld computers. They help us learn, practice, read, write, and think. It's hard to imagine fifth grade without handheld computers!

17. Usually we leave our handhelds at school. It's always sad to leave them at the end of the day. Good news! The class gets to take their handhelds home today! We are going to use Quizzler to study for our test over the Revolutionary War. I'm happy I don't have to leave my handheld behind. I can't wait to beat my parents in Quizzler Tic Tac Toe!

18. Credits http://learninginhand.com/storage/pda/articles/photoessays/index.html