I feel sad about the lack of handheld “presence” at conferences lately. I think it is more driven by conference organizers (who want to feature the “lastest”) than by administrators and teachers. I say that because at every event I attend, there seems to be great continued interest in handhelds, even when there are few sessions.

Also, in the many, many schools that are using handhelds, teachers are seeing great results. One-to-one really transforms learning in a way that other technology use can’t. And I’m not sure laptops really count as “mobile devices” (future post coming on that).

Unfortunately, Palm’s apparent constant state of flux is also a concern to people. Palm is often driven by consumer concerns and things like stock price that have nothing to do with education. The education market continues to be a strong one for them, but they don’t always seem to treat the education market as well as they might. {sigh}

Having said all that, handhelds are not a fad! Thanks to you and others for the continued evangelism. Keep fighting the good fight.

I had the same thoughts as you about the conference. Something I couldn’t help but notice was a lack of sessions about handheld computing. I think my session, “I Like Handhelds Because…” and your Palm workshop were the only ones. I saw nothing about Palms or Pocket PCs in the exhibit hall. I was encouraged to see some handhelds behind used by teachers during sessions and in the hallways. (I also noticed lots of text messaging going on-on smartphones and dumb phones.)

I was asked several times by conference participants if I thought handhelds in classrooms was a fad. It seems that handhelds having a presence at ed tech conference may have been a fad, but having a small, portable, personal computer for each student is certainly not a fad at all–it’s the present in many classrooms and the future for all classrooms eventually.

Any musings on why sessions and vendors for Palm and Pocket PCs aren’t making much of a showing at educational conferences?