Gadgets small enough to carry around in cargo pants
New Media: A look at some of the latest interactive gadgets for teens
Peek inside any backpack and the latest must-have gadgets show that for the in-class crowd, the biggest questions are: How can I take it all with me? And, how can I combine more of my work with play?
Technology is providing the answer by combining in a single device all those "shun" words that conveniently rhyme with fun: education, organization, communication, and recreation.
High-powered, ever-smaller handheld devices such as cellphones, personal digital organizers (PDAs, such as Palm Pilot and Handspring), and the proliferating portable gaming devices such as GameBoy and Cybiko are driving this trend. Gadgets that used to do just one thing are beginning to offer full menus.
Now teens can check their e-mail or research Thomas Jefferson on their cellphone or PDA, translate Spanish homework with their Cybiko, and play games or listen to music while they do all the above.
Whether or not this is a good thing may be moot because the technology is making it, in a word, inevitable. And, say the experts who study the industry trend, this generation is being shaped by massive multitasking to such a degree that those who don't participate will be left behind.
"All this technology has produced kids who can do lots of things at the same time and do them well," says Don Wisniewski, president of Cybiko.
Most of his employees are in their 20s, and multitasking is essential for them. "In the workplace, kids are going to be asked to multitask more and more, so the way they're using technology today is getting them ready for the workplace of tomorrow."
Needless to say, administrators and parents have a concern or two. "I worry about monitoring where they go online," says Janet Wolf, a first-grade teacher and mother of Allison, a high school junior in Los Angeles. "The additional cost for Internet access is also an issue."
Monitoring is an issue schools are just beginning to handle as portable, multipurpose devices crop up in classrooms, says Craig Barrows, headmaster of the Berkeley Hall School, which educates children up to ninth grade.
"We've had to ask kids to take the games off their PDAs or leave them at home," he says, but he acknowledges that policy may not work for long. Sooner, rather than later, students will be toting single multipurpose organizers/calculators/cellphones. When that day comes, says Mr. Barrows, the policy will be simple: "As long as they learn to keep the distracting stuff [like games] under control, we'll be OK."
Teen Allison Wolf says the future will have arrived when she and her friends can go online anywhere.
"The Internet is what we all want to use," she says. "When that comes on all our other devices, that's when it will all explode."
Some of the top items that might be in tech-conscious people's backpacks this fall:
Cybiko Extreme: A streamlined organizer/game-playing unit. It has a full qwerty keyboard and boasts multiple educational as well as entertainment functions: a scientific calculator, a dictionary, and multiple language translation system, not to mention calendar and note-taking software. The Cybiko Extreme is not interactive with the Internet, although it has a 300-foot range to "talk" to other Cybiko handhelds. Players can, however, download games from the website to keep the gameplay current.
