Once in my lab, I synchronize the Pocket PC with my laptop. As we are yet to receive a network connection in this part of the college, I print out a record of my meeting and send it off to the student's year head. A copy is also placed in the student's record. After that, it's the usual standard teacher fare of teach, mark, and record. Depending upon where I am, I'll either enter the records straight into the laptop or alternatively straight into the Pocket PC. Neither machine is brilliant at this sort of data entry. If it's exam time and there's a lot of data to enter, then it's time to use a proper full-size keyboard.

As you can see the wee beastie that is my Pocket PC can come in quite useful.

Ray Cheshire is a freelance writer and a high school science teacher in the UK. He is also a contributing writer for http://www.smaller.com and http://www.brighthand.com.