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Buena Vista University in
Iowa has, for some years, required that all students
in each entering class purchase identical wireless laptops.
Every couple years, they upgrade the model of laptop. I saw
several things at BVU which helped me understand better why
an institution might want to do that.
First, they've been able to "cut the
powercord" for laptops. One crucial advantage of wireless
laptops is the ability to work anywhere with a computer and
the Internet, alone or in groups or in formal classes. No
special lab required. But that's only a mirage if the
laptop's battery is drained. BVU takes advantage of the fact
that the batteries of all laptops are the same by providing
several stations around campus where students can swap
drained batteries for charged ones.
Second, undergraduates at BVU produced a
wonderful "care and feeding" video to train incoming
students about what they most need to know about their
laptops. The video is hilarious, and effective. (It won an
award for humor in a competition for professional training
videos, the "Tellies.") If all students hadn't had identical
laptops, such a video wouldn't have been as useful. In other
words, support can be cheaper and better when the platform
is the same. (The
video is distributed on DVD at BVU; here is a low-resolution
streaming version; click to get the 'care and feeding'
video.)
If there are educational reasons at your
institution for most students and faculty to have laptops
and wireless, those are just two reasons why it may be
worthwhile to standardize on one model.
Ken Clipperton,
at that time managing director of University Information Services,
mentioned several other reasons for standardizing on a
single platform.
"1. We permanently mounted AC adapters for
our laptops in 55 of the study cubicles in the Library. A
student in a long study session can just plug their laptop
into the adapter and not worry about draining the battery
while they study. We've done the same thing in many offices
that utilize student workers. This enables many students to
leave the AC adapter in their room instead of having to lug
an extra pound of AC adapter in their backpacks.
"2. Another benefit of the laptop standardization is space
and time efficiency. The repair pool we maintain could
support additional models but it would take more storage
space and additional organizational efforts to get the same
results. Space costs money.
"3. A single software image to maintain for all faculty and
students's machines. This saves the tech team time, effort
and cost.
"4. We avoid the pain of maintaining a bunch of computer
labs/clusters with varied models of computers. We're down to
a single supported lab in the library using one standard
model of desktop computer plus the Media Studies (Macintosh)
Lab using one standard model/configuration of Macintosh.
He concluded, "In many ways, standardization is your friend
because it enables you to drive down cost and/or increase
service. There are limits to the benefits of
standardization, of course. Some situations truly do require
non-standard hardware. Our experience is that the vast
majority of our faculty and students are best served by a
standard unit."
Matt Wagner,
Director of BVU's Center for Teaching and Learning with
Technology, told me, " The advantage we make of this
environment is stripping down any barriers of access that
students and faculty might encounter. You can really notice
the benefit when you go from flexibility of the wireless
laptops to teaching in a traditional computer lab."
Posted by Steve Ehrmann at June 27, 2005
02:32 PM
Steve,
Thanks for mentioning us. I do have a
couple minor clarifications. First, rather than require
incoming students to purchase the laptops, the
university actually purchases and issues the laptops to
all faculty and full-time students on our Storm Lake
campus. The cost of the computers is built into tuition.
Second, the fact that faculty are provided with
identical hardware/software as our students frees our
faculty to use the technology in the learning
environment with the knowledge that if the faculty
person can do it, so can their students.
This was fascinating information. I
watched the video. It was very funny. Kudos to the
production team. The short clip fast pace reminds me of
something I learned about twenty years ago when the
first wave of students who grew up on "Sesame Street"
came to high school and college. We educators came to
the conclusion that these students wanted their
classrooms to operate in the same manner. Students like
short clip fast pace presentations.
Great video! I was really impressed with
the students' use of older clips and varying video
styles for it's comical effect. I can see how
standardizing hardware across a campus makes everything
easier for the students and faculty.
I saw the video. The work of the
students is really very impressive. At first i just
clould not believe that this was done by students and
not professionally trained persons. The comical effects
were a real treat to watch. Way to go guys........
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