A grant from the Hewlett-Packard Company provides Zollman and Rebello 40 hand-held, high-end, personal digital assistants. "The only thing they don't have is a global positioning systems built in," Zollman said. The company also provided a small tablet PC, a computer projector, a printer and a cart to store and recharge the hand-held units. The grant is estimated to be worth $60,000.

Using software developed for K-State Online the personal digital assistants, with just a Web server, asks students either a straight forward, multiple choice question, an actual calculation problem or an open-ended question to answer. Rebello or Zollman can then see what kind of responses students are giving.

If the students are comprehending the material, the instructors can proceed; if not the instructors will stop and go over the material again in a slightly different way. The technology also allows the pair to have students talk to fellow classmates about their answers or to have the next question be different for various students, depending on the previous answers.

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