River Hill High is hardly alone. While most school districts ban the use of cellular phones, pagers and other portable devices that transmit electronic signals, scores of educators around the country are making exceptions this year to help design the wired school of the future. Teachers are handing out Microsoft Pocket PCs, Palm VII computers with pop-up antennas, and laptops with wireless modems, mostly in experimental programs funded by the devices' makers. While vendors are hoping to make their hand-held computers as central to the classroom of the future as paper and pencil, educators hope mobile computing will help them bypass the speed bumps they encountered in the 1990s as they brought desktop computers into classrooms and plugged them into the Internet. If he has a Palm, he can just beam the worksheets to the kids.
Many educators remain skeptical of wireless devices.
They worry about the privacy and security of personal information sent with radio signals, plus the risk that the devices will be stolen. Last month, the Baltimore-based Alliance for Childhood called for a moratorium on introducing additional computers in elementary schools, contending that youngsters need more personal contact with adults, not machines. But computer architects are finding plenty of educators willing to test their thesis that wireless devices could be the cheapest, most effective way to put a computer in the hands of every child. School pilot programs got underway this fall in dozens of states. A few school districts already have committed to buying the gear and incorporating it into their central data systems and lesson plans.