The PD1 Team

The mobile computing team that I am teaching is doing great. At this point, I am doing a fad and the leaders/ teachers have emerged and are reading the manual at night and teaching by day. The team has several levels and sub-groups that I have observed. There are 8 persons on team, compared ot the usual one or two. The two IT persons are always present between server/computer service tickets. The Two M&E persons are there who are pretty fluent in MS Access. There are two other persons from M&E who are really enthusiastic, but perform mostly administrative roles in their office, and then I have the Education sector manager and the an Education program manager who traveled in from the impact area. I continually remind them that he is a very important person, since he is the target of what they are doing. His supervisors will actually use the PDA's, and they must be usable!

The fun part about using PDA's are that they are mobile. They liberate you from your desk, or even the required placement of a laptop. The first training day, most team members brought their laptops, in part to stay connected to their co-workers via the wireless environ. There is a curious aspect ot PDA's. A PDA is a small hand-sized computer with a small screen, but able to a lot of which you can do on a computer. PDA's now can do what a laptop did 4 or 5 years ago. Still, you generally connect your PDA to a laptop or desktop in order ot synchronize information between the two and to utilize the applications. In order ot connect the two you usually place the PDA in a socking station or cradle which not only connects the PDA to the laptop by a USB cable, but also holds the PDA at a slightly inclined viewing angle os the screen can be seen while seated in front of the laptop. As we build PDA mobile survey forms on the laptop, we then transfer the forms ot the PDA so that we can view and test them by actually typing data into the forms using the virtual PDA keyboard that is on-screen.

Invariably, after the team member (anywhere on my trips) finishes loading the form onto the PDA they still leave it in the cradle to scrunch over at the waist and attempt ot type information on the the screen. I gently remind them that because these are mobile devices we can detach ourselves from our computer-tethered location and move about as we were meant to as human beings. Well, no one brought a laptop on the 2nd day of training except myself and a manager (he had work to do). By the time that I had arrived (I had encouraged all, as is my tradition, to take take the PDA home and sleep with it), the team members had configured the devices to the wireless network and we conducted most of the training standing in a group, leaning against the tables, or out in the hallway.

Also, i returned from a break to them team obviously haranguing a fellow team member in fun. I kept to the team margin and determined that one of the administrative team members (yes, a young lady who was trying very hard in the predominately male computer world) had called her PDA, a PD1. At that point in the discussion I had returned from giving them a moment to establish a server-client password between the PDA and my laptop. I walked up to the lady and asked her what the all the laughter was about. She, as I was aware, was reluctant to tell me, but another quickly told me about her calling her PDA a PD1. I then stepped back and suggest that they use PD1 as their password. I got some surprised faces, but a small smile from the afflicted lady. Later that day, the team unanimously voted to name their group, "The PD1 team". She is a hero.