The handheld projects in Dudley and Wolverhampton have thrown a spotlight on handheld computing. The good news is software that extends the usefulness of these handhelds is beginning to appear on the market.

The GoKnow software suite can be installed on Windows Mobile (Pocket PC) and Palm OS. Very useful is the ability to “fling” a web page from your PC to your handheld. 

FlingIt is a crucial program. You can imagine how positive this could be for all kinds of material. Pages once captured by the teacher can then be beamed to the devices of all the pupils. It is a great way of building up content. A minor snag is that complex pages will not work well.

iKWL is a brainstorming tool. Students brainstorm words about their subject; they then use these words to build a list of what they know. They then itemise questions they would like answers to. After researching answer these questions, they document the answers into the iKnow portion of their project. Not exactly mindmapping but effective nonetheless.

ViewPoint is a primitive PowerPoint for presentations. Children can create material that they can project on to a whiteboard or TV.

The most popular application will probably be Freewrite. This is not just a note taker (you have one of those already in the handheld). It is a good word processor with spell-checker (English dictionary) and simple formatting.

Animation is possible with Sketchy. You can create up to 999 frames in this. In science, children could draw the stages of an experiment, a useful way of embedding knowledge.

Locker, an organisational tool, seems to offer little that the tools that come with the handheld do not have already. Cells on the other hand is a simple spreadsheet program that does the basic functions which, after all, are what most people use.

It is easy to dismiss the apparent simplicity of some of these tools. The point is that children can use these all the time. Combine these with the tools that are already in the handheld, audio recording, still images and video, and you put real power into the hands of children.