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-- Handheld Devices & Wireless Connectivity (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=1246)

Help, help help -- please:

The university that pays my salary (limited as it is) is about to fund an initiative that will provide its students and faculty with handheld computers (Visors) coupled with traditional connectivity (Hotsync and Modem Internet browsing) along with a wireless classroom and a campus-wide environment. This will permit students and faculty to communicate and share course information anywhere/anyplace. (Notebook computers are too expensive and are not very convenient to use and carry in comparison to the handheld.)

I need your help to make this initiative become a reality. Those of us pushing the initiative are being asked, where else is such an undertaking being considered or already in place. To date a few medical schools are using the handheld for its medical students, but not in the way we are considering.

Let me have your responses so I can help make this a new direction in higher education (secondary education needs to move here too) a reality. The Visor with appropriate software coupled with services such as AvantGo distibuting course content can make the teaching/learning process a more exciting/meaningful experience.

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly with your response should you not wish to post it on the great site.

If our initiative gets the anticipated support, I will share the details here at VisorCentral with help from James.

Thanks to all.

One idea to consider is centralized syncing. There are probably other products, but the one that I am currently evaluating, WaveSync, looks very promising. You might want to bring this product to the attention of your IS staff.

Bluetooth

or

802.11 - (average link).

Our University is going to plug the latter. It's cheaper(today). GL.


-Paul

[This message has been edited by kodye57 (edited 04-11-2000).]

Looks like my reply wasn't clear enough. WaveSync is a WindowsNT Server based solution. It operates indepenently from the actual connection to the server (cradle, modem, ethernet, etc.). The advantage of WaveSynce is that you don't have to configure the conduits on each desktop, and you can roll software and data out by administrator defined groups. This latter feature should be perfect for custom content for each class.

Yucca,

Thanks for the useful information. To deploy Visors widely among a student population, syncing is a fundamental task that needs to be easily accomplished.

The Psychology Dept at Wake Forest University used Palm Professionals in the spring of 1998 to conduct experiments. Students were given the Pilots and asked to fill out a survey at specified times of the day. That is as far as they got to integrating hand helds to my knowledge. Then again, Wake has been distributing new IBM Thinkpads to freshmen on their first day since 1996.

Wake Forest Med school uses IBM WorkPads with some of their students as well, but the IR function is deactivated to keep students from beaming confidential patient information.

[This message has been edited by Kemp (edited 04-12-2000).]

Kemp,

Thanks for the helpful info. Need to know what others have information about in similar initiatives.