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Welcome to the website of the University of Texas at Austin Personal Digital Assistant Utilitzation group. We are a group of researchers in the College of Education working to determine practical roles for handheld / PDA computing in primary and secondary educational environments. Our work is primarily done with Palm Computing™ devices.

Since the start of 2001, the PDA Utilization group has worked to investigate a variety of PDAs and related equipment, including sample evaluations in actual public school classrooms, intensive teacher training workshops, and lab research with cutting edge technologies. Our work has led us to believe that there exists a great potential for widespread, horizontal implementions of PDA's as learning, teaching, and administrative facilitators.

One the major factors contributing to our enthusiasm for PDAs is their ease of use. Experts and beginners alike quickly learn the interfaces of these devices, and master entering, retrieving and organizing data within a few hours. Unlike many traditional computing technologies, which take hours to install and often require on-site technical expertise for relatively routine tasks, PDAs are considerably more robust and straightforward. Users find this design friendly and inviting, and are often more likely to explore the capabilities of these devices on their own.

Furthermore, PDA users seem to develop a strong sense of ownership and personal attachment to a PDA, even after only a few hours of use. This may be partially due to the personal nature of the information commonly entered into calendar, address, and other user-centric applications, but it also seems that users find the devices to have a personal signficance. This compounds substantially with the interconnection of PDA and personal computer. At this point the PDA suddenly becomes more than a novelty and can be seen as a practical everyday tool. When combined with the users own personal computer and access to their own personal data, this aspect becomes even more prevalant. We often have a hard time seperating users from their loaned PDA's at the end of our workshops and seminars!

We welcome your feedback and input on our research. Please send comments or questions to Robby Slaughter. Thank you.