Educational Applications
Wireless technology has already had a considerable impact on education.
Two particular cases are mentioned here: Parkersburg Indepedent School District in Iowa and Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota.
Elementary students using wireless computers in Parkersburg, Iowa
Parkersburg is a small school district, 900 kids K-12 and 125 staff members. The school shares its technology with one other school district and has been involved with the technology for about 7 years.
Parkersburg purchased 32 wireless computers last year. One factor influencing the district's decision to go wireless was simply space. The school had run out of room and going wireless was a cheaper soulution than erecting a new building. With wireless computers, a cart with all the computers on it is simply the lab and it can easily be transported from classroom to classroom. This enables students to be in their own learning environment when using computers.
Students at Minnesota State University
n March of 2001, college students at Minnesota State University in Mankato were given the opportunity to lease wireless laptops from two high tech firms, Midwest Wireless and Nokia at reduced rates. In return the students participated in regular focus groups to help the companies refine their product.
Alliances between tech companies and universities are common for a variety of reasons. Most companies see colleges as the perfect market for testing new products.
"They get wide-eyed when they think about the millions of students, the hundreds and thousands of schools and the thousands of districts. . ." says Steve Robinson, vice president of Madison-based Discourse Technologies.
To see an example of an Interactive Environment at Northwestern University, please click on the logo below. The IE ate Northwestern consists of data nodes, compute nodes and visualization nodes tightly coupled through a private gigabit network. These nodes serve, operate and render the data. Final output appears on a display, visualization workstations, desktops, and high-speed wireless devices. The IE connects to the building networks, including wireless, through a firewall.
Source: www.northwestern.edu