Editing Personal digital assistant (section)

==Educational uses==
{{Refimprove section|date=August 2010}}

PDAs and handheld devices were allowed in multiple classrooms for digital note-taking. Students could spell-check, modify, and amend their class notes on a PDA. Some educators{{Who|date=August 2010}} distributed course material through the Internet or infrared file-sharing functions of the PDA. Textbook publishers released [[e-book]]s, which can be uploaded directly to a PDA, reducing the number of textbooks students were required to carry.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.centredaily.com/2010/08/20/2161625/10-tips-to-save-on-college-textbooks.html |title=10 tips to save on college textbooks |publisher=Centre Daily Times |date=20 August 2010 |access-date=21 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100823051729/http://www.centredaily.com/2010/08/20/2161625/10-tips-to-save-on-college-textbooks.html |archive-date=23 August 2010 }}</ref> Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK was the first medical school to provide wide scale use of PDAs to its undergraduate students. The learning opportunities provided by having PDAs complete with a suite of key medical texts were studied with results showing that learning occurred in context with timely access to key facts and through consolidation of knowledge via repetition. The PDA was an important addition to the learning ecology rather than a replacement.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Mobile Medical Education (MoMEd) – how mobile information resources contribute to learning for undergraduate clinical students – a mixed methods study|first1=Bethany S.|last1=Davies|first2=Jethin|last2=Rafique|first3=Tim R.|last3=Vincent|first4=Jil|last4=Fairclough|first5=Mark H.|last5=Packer|first6=Richard|last6=Vincent|first7=Inam|last7=Haq|date=1 January 2012|journal=BMC Medical Education|volume=12|pages=1|doi=10.1186/1472-6920-12-1|pmid=22240206|pmc=3317860 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Software companies also developed PDA programs to meet the instructional needs of educational institutions, such as dictionaries, [[thesauri]], [[word processing]] software, encyclopedias, [[webinars]] and digital lesson planners.

===Recreational uses{{Anchor|Sporting uses}}===
PDAs were used by music enthusiasts to play a variety of music file formats. Many PDAs include the functionality of an [[MP3 player]]. [[Rallying|Road rally]] enthusiasts can use PDAs to calculate distance, speed, and time. This information may be used for navigation, or the PDA's GPS functions can be used for navigation. [[Underwater diving|Underwater divers]] can use PDAs to plan [[breathing gas]] mixtures and [[decompression schedule]]s using software such as "V-Planner".