A New Kind of Academic Freedom

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A New Kind of Academic Freedom

4/21/2004

By Linda L. Briggs

At UMC, Lim is hoping for a better convergence of cell phones and PDAs "The cell phone has a great potential because it’s so convenient and everyone has [one]," he says. But it has a ways to go to be a useful learning device, he says. "If it combines some PDA capabilities… that will really enhance it as a communication and learning tool." So far, he hasn’t seen a device that effectively integrates functions of the PDA and phone. "Right now, you have either a good phone or a good PDA, not both."

The other holdup in using that sort of handheld wireless device for learning is software. "Of course, until we create some compelling software which isn’t constrained by that little screen," Lim points out, "or until we have some learning platforms," the device won’t really be effective for learning, at least.

Lim also says that more challenging than the technologies themselves is changing the mindset of faculty, staff and administration to embrace new ideas in IT."The faculty will always be a generation behind our students," Lim says candidly. The faculty and staff’s willingness (or unwillingness) to embrace a new technology "affects how they teach, and how they design learning programs."

In order for a university to truly embrace a new model like mobile computing, Lim says, "we’ve got to invest in training our teachers, rather than just investing in the infrastructure. Training is often like an afterthought – you can end up with hundreds of laptops sitting around, with students and teachers not using them."

"Training is often like an afterthought – you can end up with hundreds of laptops sitting around, with students and teachers not using them."

Wireless Still Getting Up to Speed

The relatively slow speed of the average wireless network compared to wired broadband often makes it a companion technology to wired rather than a replacement. At Pomona, Schultz says, "We certainly wouldn’t want to use [wireless] full-time. We [hard]wire all of our buildings and our dorms. We aren’t suggesting that people go completely wireless, but it’s a nice companion. If you need speed, it just isn’t there."

Its current speeds limit the usefulness of wireless, agrees Lim. With the current standard of 802.11b deployed on his campus, he says most students get just one or two Mbps throughput. "Naturally, that’s not fast enough for our students." A wireless technology’s maximum speed is seldom what’s actually delivered. "So when we upgrade to 11g, which is five times faster, [students] may not get 50-some megabits per second, they’ll get five to ten megabits per second."

At Carnegie Mellon, which has had complete wireless coverage since 1998 based on the 802.11b standard, Bartel says that the university is looking at next-generation wireless technology for speed reasons, and experimenting with 802.11a and g standards. "[802.11b] is now becoming a bit slow by today’s standards."