Science educators face the challenge of piquing students' interest in subjects whose concepts are often entirely foreign to them. The author wanted to give her students a hands-on, "real world" experience rooted in scientific concepts. What evolved was an engineering design competition. The point of the project was two-fold: to work on real-world…

This article presents findings from research in a school district using handhelds to support writing across the curriculum. The authors report that handheld devices can be useful to foster classroom note-taking activities, assist students who have handwriting difficulties, and provide inspiration to teachers who want to create collaborative and…