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REINVENTING HISTORY
4/6/2005
Mobilizing Enrollment
Creighton isn't the only school to embrace mobility; at Colorado Technical University, officials turned to the M275 notebook-to-tablet PC to solve a more pressing concern. Faced with a significant tuition increase last year, school officials were forced to augment the value of education in order not to lose enrollment. To do this, the school purchased 1,500 M275s-one for every student and faculty member. Educators then converted classes into hybrid courses that enabled students to complete up to 25 percent of their coursework online. The added flexibility, coupled with the new technology, apparently has done the trick: officials say enrollment is up 30 percent this year.
At San Juan College (NM), mobility is at the heart of a technology refresh program also designed to address enrollment. Officials launched the program by giving every faculty member a laptop in 2002; since then, with special education pricing from Gateway, the school has updated 25 percent of the computers every year (the most recent batch consisted of 450Es and M275s). To supplement this program, San Juan administrators have extended the environment to students with laptop carts that convert any classroom into a computer lab. According to Shah Ardalan, vice president for technology services, the solution works because it fosters flexibility and keeps students interested.
"Our [enrollment] has grown 10 percent a year every year for the last ten," says Ardalan, who notes that over that same period of time, the college has not increased its physical footprint at all. "A mobile environment like the one we've created has been a great way to manage this expansion, and we haven't missed a beat."
Investment in Quiet
Different decisions led to investments in a different technology at the California State University. Officials on the school's Long Beach, Calif., campus recently were looking to replace 200 desktops in the school's main computer lab. Because this lab is crowded from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, technologists wanted desktops that stand the test of time. After years of dealing with the noisy cooling fans of ordinary desktops, they also sought machines that were quiet. After investigating machines from a variety of vendors, CSU administrators settled on the brand new E6300 desktops from Gateway, the first desktop computers to offer Gateway's revolutionary new BTX design.
The idea behind BTX is simple. The design improves upon the old Advanced Technology Extended (ATX) standard by directing a stream of air over the hottest parts of a PC. Two fans are used in BTX chassis, one at each end. These fans direct air over the processor, which is now located at the front of the motherboard (it used to be in the back). The fans also help remove heat given off by powerful graphics processors. Marc Demars, senior director of desktop product planning at Gateway, says that side effects of the new design are cooler, quieter systems that prolong the life of motherboards. Liem Nguyen, operating system analyst at CSU, said these were top selling points for his school.
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