THE PA PALM PROJECT

Twelve Days of Christmas

On the First Day of Christmas my Tungsten E2 gave to me  that Christmas morning feeling! I thought that since we are in the spirit of Christmas I would have my reflections be a part of the holiday season.

The excitement felt just like Christmas morning. The students had been anxiously waiting for these special gifts to arrive; constantly asking when the hand-held computers were coming. Now the day was here and watching the students struggle to open the hard, plastic boxes that protected their very own PDA and seeing their faces light up once they actually had the little device in their hands was PRICELESS! And just like Christmas morning, they played, pushing buttons and experimenting with their new “toy”. They learned quickly how to create contacts, practice graffiti and beam to each other.  ” This is too cool!” was definitely the phrase of the day!

As for myself, just like on Christmas morning, I concerned myself with the collection of torn, empty boxes and focused on labeling and cataloging each of these precious, new teaching tools.

By the end of Day One all of the labeled PDA’s lay nestled with their charge chords, resting peacefully from a hard days play;  as students dreamed not of sugar-plums but rather their new PDA! 

On the Second Day of Christmas my Tungsten E2 gave to me a classroom filled with peace and quiet.

I have a fairly “chatty” group of students, as I am sure most grade 8 classes are; however on this second day as I walked into my classroom, the students were silent. I thought I was in the wrong room! Each of them were focused on the Tungsten E2 in their palm…. QUIET… it was beautiful!  A sound that can  truly be appreciated by a teacher!

On the Third Day of Christmas my Tungsten E2 gave to me a parent and a solution to the question: ” Now that Christmas is over where do you store all of the gifts?”

The issue I  had been facing these last three days is finding a safe place to store these expensive teaching tools. A helpful parent walked into the classroom and asked if he could lend a hand,with my hands full of PDA’s, I quickly asked if he could create slots in the plastic container (that I had just “borrowed” from the caretaker) to store the PDA’s. He spent the weekend working on it and walked in today with the perfect container! What a creation!! Needless to say, I was more than grateful! Now I can relax knowing that the Tungsten E2’s all have a special spot in the labeled box and at night they will all be locked up in a cupboard. There is also a locked back-room where they can all be charged when necessary. Now that the storage and distribution has been simplified, the elves know just what to do when they arrive in the morning!