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Back to School
August 23, 2001
Since it’s almost time for me to head back to school, I thought that I would write a short article about how I use my Palm handheld in an educational setting. With a couple of extra applications and a keyboard, my Palm easily takes the place of a laptop—the best way I know of to lighten my backpack.
Some of you might be thinking that the “geek factor” involved with using your Palm OS device in class to take notes is simply higher than you can bear, but you’d be surprised. I’ve never been all that popular in school, but now that I’m using my m505 and the Palm Portable keyboard in class, I’ve suddenly become the center of attention. Granted I’m in a grad school context and not in the cutthroat world of high school, but everyone thinks it’s a great idea. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t even need a backpack anymore—my Palm and my keyboard slip easily into my purse or into my pockets. I don’t have to lug around a heavy laptop, and I don’t have to worry about my battery running out in the middle of class and I don’t have to try and find a power outlet. I don’t have to wait forever for it to boot up, and I don’t have to be embarrassed by all the beeps and noises either. I just plug set up the keyboard, insert my handheld, and I’m ready to go in about six seconds. One word of warning though- if you are in high school you need to check out the rules and make sure that it’s OK to use your handheld to take notes in class. It’s generally fine in college and grad school, though it’s a good idea to check with your professor first- some don’t allow any sort of technology in the classroom, be it a Palm OS device or a laptop.
The best combination I’ve found for my own use is WordSmith for in-class note taking and 4.0Student for general organization. While it’s possible to take notes using the built-in Memo Pad feature, you’re limited to only 4K per memo, and you can’t add any special formatting. I don’t know about any of your high school or college professors, but mine certainly can give out more than 4K of notes in a lecture! Assuming you have access to a PC with either Micrsoft Word or another *.RTF compatible word processor, WordSmith is the way to go. You can take notes during class, adding headings and even footnotes if necessary, and you won’t have to re-edit your notes at all, saving a lot of time. You can print them out after you HotSync them to your PC. If you don’t happen to have access to a PC of your own, you still may be in luck— PrintBoy allows you to print WordSmith documents if you have access to an IR-enabled printer. Even if your school’s computer lab printers don’t have IR, Bachmann’s InfraReady print adapter may be just the ticket. Just plug it into the parallel port and you can print directly from your Palm. And don’t forget that if your classmates also have handhelds, you can beam your notes to each other—that makes it more likely that you won’t miss a single important point from the lectures.
Of course these solutions don’t take into account another very important facet of student life. Time management is exceedingly important if you want to get good grades and still maintain an active social life and participate in extracurricular activities. I’ve been using 4.0Student for the past yar, and I’ve noticed a remarkable increase in my organization and peace of mind. The idea is quite simple- just enter in all of the information from your syllabus as soon as you get it if you are in college or grad school; if you’re in high school you might not get a semester’s worth of assignments at the beginning of the term, so you’ll have to enter them as you go. Be sure to include exams and paper due dates as well. You can choose to add all of your assignments to either the built-in Datebook or To Do programs, or else you can keep track of everything from within 4.0Student. It offers views both by class or by the week.
What this does for you is make sure that you never forget an important assignment or have to turn in a paper late because the due date crept up on you and you weren’t ready. When your assignments are completed, you can input the grades you received and keep track of your anticipated final grade for the semester. Not only does this take the guesswork out of where you stand at any point in time during the term, it can also allow you to make better use of your time. Have an A+ average in Biology, but maybe you aren’t doing so well in History? 4.0Student can help you see that in time to do something about it. There is also an online subscription service available called 4.0Student.net. It enables you to enter all of your course information on a PC, instead of your handheld, and also has some added features that I’m still investigating. You can expect a full review in the next couple of weeks.
If you want to take these ideas one step further, you can use a third party program such as ActionNamesDatebook to help you integrate your appointments, to dos, and contacts all in one place. I like being able to assign a particular custom icon to each of my classes; then I use the graphical monthly and weekly views to see the larger picture and anticipate my busiest times. I can also color code everything by setting custom colors. I typically export my 4.0Student assignments as To Do items, and I make them yellow in ActionNamesDatebook so that I can see them easily. I also set up recurring weekly appointments for each of my classes, so that I can see my schedule at a glance and always be able to tell exactly where I am supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing at any given point in time.
I was a student for many years before I got my first Palm OS handheld, a Palm IIIx. I blundered through pretty well with pen and paper all that time, and I made pretty good grades. But now, with the help of WordSmith and 4.0Student, things are better than ever. I’m much more organized and I don’t have to waste loads of valuable time retyping my notes. That helps me manage my time better and focus on what’s most important—getting everything I can out of my education and preparing for life after school.
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