Educators Will Study How Handhelds Affect Teaching and Learning

CHICAGO, June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- In its second round of grants from the Palm Education Pioneer (PEP) program, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today announces it is awarding $2.3 million in Palm(TM) handheld units to elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities to enable innovative teaching and learning, and to gain insight into how handheld computers affect teaching and learning. This research will help determine best practices for integrating handhelds into curriculum and teacher training. Palm named the grant recipients on the opening day of the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) here at McCormick Place.

Palm, a pioneer in the field of mobile and wireless Internet solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers, awarded grants to 87 individual K-12 classrooms and nine "research hubs" for a total of more than 175 classrooms. The first PEP grants were awarded to 15 K-12 schools in January. SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning (CTL) in Menlo Park, Calif., administers the program, and develops and conducts evaluations to study the learning uses, experiences and effectiveness of Palm handhelds for teaching and learning.

"We believe that partnering with educators in doing research on the best practices and impact of handheld computers in education is one of the most important projects we can undertake," said Mike Lorion, vice president of education markets at Palm, Inc. "Research from PEP grants gives educators valuable insight into how handheld technology can be used in teaching and learning. This information helps us to create tools that evolve with the needs of education. We added new research hubs to broaden our research and also extend some studies into the college pre-service and in-service environment."

The new PEP research hubs are school districts, universities and research institutes with the infrastructure and planning in place to help teachers use Palm handhelds effectively. PEP research hubs receive multiple classroom sets of Palm handhelds, and will train and provide ongoing support to teachers. In addition, they will work closely with the SRI International evaluation team. Research hubs are the University of Michigan, College of Engineering and School of Education's Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education (Hi-CE) Program, Ann Arbor, Mich.; the Concord Consortium, Concord, Mass.; the University of California at Berkeley School of Education's WISE (Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment), Berkeley, Calif.; Kent State Research Center for Educational Technology (RCET), Kent, Ohio; the Archdiocese of Dubuque School System, Dubuque, Iowa; Beaufort County School District, Beaufort, S.C.; University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Education, Office of Internet Studies (OIS), Omaha, Neb.; Fremont Union High School District, Sunnyvale, Calif.; and the Gulf of Maine Aquarium, Portland, Maine.

"SRI is committed to researching, understanding and integrating new technologies in the teaching and learning process," said Roy Pea, director of the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. "The PEP grants deeply involve the participation of teachers and students in locally innovating the uses of handheld computers for K-12 education. The new PEP grants expand our co-investigation with teachers into the impact that handheld technologies can have on teaching and learning. We expect the PEP program to make a significant contribution to the development of handheld learning for education."

The PEP classroom grants are split between urban, rural and suburban K-12 schools, both public and private. Individual school projects will cover a wide span of academic area in primary grades, middle schools and high schools. Examples include the following:

Students at Buford Elementary School in Lennox, Calif., will study social studies and language using Palm handhelds to investigate the lives of U.S. presidents in a Sherlock Holmes fashion. Using eBooks downloaded to their Palm handhelds, students will write down relevant questions, clues, notes and discoveries and beam their findings to each other.

At Goodrich Middle School in Lincoln, Neb., students will use Palm handhelds to create fitness portfolios. Working work with the University of Nebraska's Department of Health and Human Performance, students will use the portfolio to store their fitness goals, daily progress, caloric intake and out-of-school fitness activities.

Sherrard Elementary School in Moundsville, W.Va., will use Palm handhelds to investigate changes to the territory 200 years after the Lewis and Clark expedition mapped it out. The students will work with the University of Idaho and with GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) team members from Wheeling Jesuit University to conduct scientific experiments using certified GLOBE trainers and GLOBE scientific equipment.

Environmental science students at Cranford High School of Cranford, N.J., will use Palm handhelds in the field to determine the effects of development, human resource consumption and consumer purchasing decisions on New Jersey waterways, agricultural, growing conditions and air cleanliness.

Berkeley High School of Berkeley, Calif., will train lead writers and editors in the use of Palm handhelds for newsgathering, sharing resources and contacts, and fact checking as part of a project to create the Jacket News Service (JNS), a daily online newspaper.

A complete list of the new 87 PEP K-12 grants and nine research hub awards, listed geographically, is available at http://www.palm.com/education and http://palmgrants.sri.com .

About SRI International and SRI's Center for Technology in Learning

Silicon Valley-based SRI International (www.sri.com) is one of the world's leading independent research and technology development organizations. Founded in 1946 as Stanford Research Institute, SRI has been meeting the strategic needs of global markets for 55 years. As part of its strategy to bring its innovative technologies to the marketplace, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships and creates spin-off companies.

SRI's Center for Technology in Learning (CTL) is world-renowned for its design, evaluation, and implementation of educational technologies. The staff, including psychologists, computer scientists, content specialists, anthropologists and educators, conducts innovative research and development for clients such as the National Science Foundation, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Education, LEGO, Sun Microsystems, and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc. is a pioneer in the field of mobile and wireless Internet solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers, according to IDC (December 2000). Based on the Palm OS(R) platform, Palm's handheld solutions allow people to carry and access their most critical information with them wherever they go. Palm(TM) handhelds address the needs of individuals, enterprises and educational institutions through thousands of application solutions.

The Palm OS platform is also the foundation for products from Palm's licensees and strategic partners, such as Franklin Covey, HandEra (formerly TRG), Handspring, IBM, Kyocera, Sony and Symbol Technologies. Platform licensees also include Acer, Garmin, Nokia and Samsung. The Palm Economy is a growing global community of industry-leading licensees, world-class OEM customers, and approximately 160,000 innovative developers and solution providers that have registered to develop solutions based on the Palm OS platform. Palm went public on March 2, 2000. Its stock is traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol PALM. More information is available at www.palm.com.

NOTE: Palm OS is a registered trademark and Palm is a trademark of Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries.

SOURCE Palm, Inc.
Web site: http: //www.palm.com
CONTACT: Kathleen Dixon of Dixon Communications, 408-871-7765, or kathleen@kdixon.com, for Palm, Inc.; or Marty Mallonee of SRI International, 650-859-2198, or marty.mallonee@sri.com