A New Kind of Academic Freedom

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A New Kind of Academic Freedom

4/19/2004

By Linda L. Briggs

Mix the proliferation of portable computing devices on campus with the growth of wireless networks, and you have a small revolution in learning taking place at colleges and universities. Suddenly, mobile computing is a fact of life all over campuses.

Nearly every college or university runs some sort of wireless network, at least to select points like the library and student center, but that’s just part of the mobility picture. Add in the prevalence of student laptops, the growth of tablet PCs, the popularity of wireless PDAs and other handheld devices, and of course mobile phones. Combine that with the latest scramble of IT administrators in higher education to upgrade to faster and more pervasive wireless networks across campuses, and major changes in how and where students learn are in the works.

Examples of advances in mobile computing are all over. At Dartmouth College, for example, students can use wireless devices to connect to the network virtually anywhere, including playing fields, parts of town, and yes, even the cemetery (a popular study area). Wireless computing is so popular and pervasive there that cell phones use is actually down. And a new Voice over IP (VoIP) initiative at the college is moving students away from traditional phones in favor of computer devices and the Internet for local and long-distance calls.

At the University of Minnesota at Crookston (UMC), where students and faculty have been issued laptops at enrollment for over 10 years, wireless is more and more in the works – especially as throughput speeds increase. The effect will be to un-tether laptop-toting students in a technological leap like the one that mandated notebook computers years ago.

And at Carnegie Mellon University, also a mobile computing leader with its pre-802.11 "Wireless Andrew" network since 1994, the school is now looking to upgrade its wireless network to the newer, faster 802.11g wireless standard. In doing so, it will triple its wireless access points to nearly 2,000 spots across the campus.

In short, the convergence of wireless networks and portable computing devices is making college campuses a hotbed for mobile computing. For students, faculty and staff, the ability to connect anytime, anywhere is more and more a reality – and more and more compelling.

Wireless Drives Mobile Devices

A mobile campus needs a wireless network to make it work, obviously, and the more pervasive the wireless signal, the better. The ripple effects of a seamless wireless network that allows students and faculty to connect anywhere on campus can be interesting. At Dartmouth, having a total wireless overlay drives up laptop acquisition, according to Larry Levine, Dartmouth’s director of computing. Almost anyone who buys a computer now at Dartmouth purchases a laptop rather than a desktop model, he says—including 96 percent of the latest class to enroll. Also, "most of the time, faculty members elect to get a laptop" rather than desktop machine, because the wireless network helps them see the value in mobile computing.