What impact will the increasingly interactive and diminished size of computers, communicators, and handhelds have on education in secondary schools?

I think that it will have an increasingly significant impact on education in secondary schools because of the already intense impact that desktops and laptops have had on secondary schools. Students use computers as word processors and researching tools as it is, and the tools that have become available on the laptops and desktops have become increasingly popular in secondary schools. For example, podcasts and iMovie allow students to present information to a global audience in a digital format.

If these tools are made available in an even more compact fashion, such as handhelds, then they will become even more widely used and accessible because of their small size and lower cost. Although the tools create new and innovative ways of doing things (i.e. video taping projects, taking notes in class on a handheld, taking photos, etc.), developing a dependence on them or using them to replace human interaction and public speaking are not innovations in secondary education, but rather, are detrimental to secondary education.

• The expectation that everyone, regardless of the seemingly nominal cost of these handhelds, could afford handhelds and have access to them is unfair and unrealistic.

• Students won't know how to use them properly and thus class time must be dedicated to teaching students how to use these new tools.

• Technology class cannot just teach students how to use the new tools, students also need to have ethical discipline and responsibility taught to them so that they understand the impact that technology has on themselves and the global community.