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On the Move
2/17/2005
“It sounds silly, but the handheld really did change the entire nature of this course,” he says. “Using a handheld allowed me to give assignments that would allow students to bring things together in a much different way.”
The handheld effort was not without its challenges. Because the Axim product was a “new toy” for everyone including the instructor, there was a steep learning curve with certain applications on the tool. What’s more, Frydenberg says the device’s small keyboard made it difficult to type more than one or two sentences at a time, a reality that was mitigated with the use of laptops in conjunction with the handheld technology. Finally, Frydenberg had to spend extra time training technical support staffers to teach them how to tackle problems on the new device. This investment paid off—over the course of the semester, no troubleshooting issue went unresolved.
In the Cart
Troubleshooting was what led the University of Toledo (OH) to devise an equally innovative mobility solution. In 2003, school officials were faced with a challenge: Physical space in the school’s College of Business Administration was at a premium, and they needed more desktop labs. To rectify the situation, Joseph Kielczewski, director of college computing, turned to Dell for a solution that hinges on Dell Latitude C800 and C840 laptops equipped with Cisco Aironet 350 wireless cards, and carts that recharge the computers when they’re not in use. The solution essentially comprises a virtual lab, and is known on campus as just that—the Stranahan Hall Virtual Lab.
The original solution consisted of 108 new Latitude notebooks and three carts to store them. A slew of new wireless access points, as well as access points on the carts themselves, guaranteed that each of the laptops would be able to connect to the Internet from anywhere within a half-mile radius of the building. Since then, the school has purchased an additional cartfull of 36 laptops for a total of four carts and 144 notebooks. Today, when students need to use the computers between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 p.m., they can check out notebooks and take them to a classroom or the mall immediately outside the building. In some cases, Kielczewski says that teachers can check out entire carts of laptops, enabling entire classes to utilize the system.
“This program vastly increases the number of computers that can be in use by students at a given time,” says Kielczewski, who notes that students with their own laptops can connect to the network as well, provided they have the proper wireless cards and configurations. “[Mobility] is a direct and viable alternative to the school’s desktop computers.”
Matt Villano is senior contributing editor of this publication.
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