Pico Communications, Palm, Inc. and Stanford University School of Medicine have completed a trial of a new wireless interactive learning system for medical students.

This summer, students used Palm m125 handhelds equipped with the Palm Bluetooth Card, a Secure Digital Input/Output card that slips into an SD/Multimedia expansion slot on many Palm handhelds, and Stanford's custom-designed software to communicate wirelessly with instructors via Pico's PicoBlue Internet Access Points.

The Stanford University School of Medicine said it conceived of the project several months ago as a way of improving the quality of classroom interaction between medical students and instructors. Instead of asking for the traditional show of hands or engaging in one-on-one question and answer sessions in a large class, the instructor electronically polled the class in real time. All involved said the new approach is faster and it provides more accurate feedback due to the cloak of anonymity it lends to students. Based on student responses, instructors were able to dynamically tailor course material to meet the needs of a particular class.

"Our students come from very different backgrounds," said Dr. Pat Cross, professor of structural biology at Stanford. "In the same class, engineers, English majors and Ph.Ds in biochemistry sit next to each other. Being able to more precisely fine-tune our content leads to better-educated students and, ultimately, better-trained medical professionals. The key is really the anonymity the students have. Their answers are more truthful since there is no public embarrassment for answering incorrectly."