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The Status of Ubiquitous
Computing
The ubiquitous computing movement
is suffering an identity crisis as a result of its own success. At its
zenith, the movement was led by campuses where all students had laptop
computers, all similarly configured. Then, as now, the objective of the
movement was that teaching should proceed on the assumption that every
student and faculty member has appropriate access to the Internet. Today
there are over one hundered laptop campuses. Most are in Canada and the
United States. Within larger universities are another fifty-plus
subgroups, especially colleges of business and engineering, that require
commonly configured laptops of students and faculty in the programs.
Beyond these universal laptop programs, we estimate that at least half of
all colleges and universities in the United States. Within are
“practicing ubiquity” – that is, teaching proceeds on the assumption
that every student and faculty member has appropriate access to the
Internet. Ironically, the tight definition of ubiquitous computing
no longer prevails because the concept itself has become ubiquitous.
The Rationale for Ubiquitous
Computing
Faculty in most institutions
throughout the developed have assumed that students will have access to
textbooks, library resources, and laboratory facilities, so the new
assumption is that all students will have reasonable and regular access to
the Internet. Just as for decades developed societies have presumed that
almost everyone can be reached by phone, so today a majority of academic
communities are presuming that students and faculty communicate via e-mail
and Web pages.
Investments in ubiquitous
computing are beginning to be justified by research on learning outcomes.
Shouping Hu and George
D. Kuh noted, from an analysis of responses to the fourth edition of the
College Student Experience Questionnairre(CSEQ) completed by 18,844
students at seventy one U.S. colleges and universities, that students at
campuses with greater availability of computers reported more student
faculty contact, greater cooperation among students, and more active
learning. Ross Griffith, in before and after analysis of CSEQ responses by
students at Wake Forest University, found significantly more co-curricular
participation and computer usage, as well as greater development of
interpersonal communication skills, of skills related to the integration
of knowledge, of specific skills needed to locate and evaluate
information. Ubiquity is making a difference!
The biggest advance seems
to be in communication and community building. Students area more active
members of more intellectual and co-curricular sub-communities. E-mail,
which Hu and Kuh found to be the electronic method most frequently used to
support teaching, is a very powerful benefit for professors and students
in these ubiquitous environments where everyone is part of the system.
Hierarchy of Ubiquity
Teach with Explicit Assumption of
Access
All Have Access to Public
Computer Labs
All Have Access to Threshold
Computers
All “Own” Network Computers
All “Own” Threshold Computers
All “Own” Identical Desktop
Computers
All “Own” Threshold Laptops
All “Own” Identical Laptops
All “Own” Identical Laptops +
2-Year Refresh
Lessons Learned by the Pioneers
In 1997, roughly one
hundred institutions involved in some form of ubiquitous computing were
invited to participate in the First Annual Conference on Ubiquitous
Computing. Some campuses, such as Dartmouth and Drew and the U.S. military
academies, had been engaged with ubiquitous computing since the early
1980s. From this group came most of the thirteen institutions that later
agreed to write up their experiences, resulting in the book Ubiquitous
Computing: The Universal Use of Computers on College Campuses. Leaders
from each institutions explain the learning concepts that shaped their
decisions, the politics of consensus, and the keys to successful
implementation. Together, the thirteen essayists contributed to listing of
lessons learned and suggestions to other institutions that are
implementing the ubiquitous computing strategy. This listing is reproduced
in the following sections.
Lessons on Planning for
Ubiquitous Computing
Don’t lose sight of the
ultimate goal: measurable improvement of education outcomes. Remember that
students are the center of the program: everyone else is important, but
the program serves the students directly. Stay focused on the goal of
enhanced student learning.
Clearly defined, defensible
program objectives are essential.
Develop a comprehensive plan
first and quickly match it with a multiyear financial plan. Establish a
clear financial plan and budget and a mechanism for revising the budget
annually. Include adequate startup and operating funds.
Demand for technology will
increase much faster than anticipated.
Most sunk costs (for example, old
computers) can be ignored.
Getting laptops to students is
only 10% of the challenge; decisions about, and implementation of,
policies, training, support, networking, exposure, and motivation remain
ahead.
Recognize that user – friendly
technology in the hands of dedicated faculty is the most powerful change
instrument that any academic administrator has ever had.
Top executive support is
essential.
The impact of computing on
teaching and learning is difficult to assess objectively.
10. Disciplines use the computer
in different ways, so a broad spectrum of faculty must participate in
system design decisions.
Lessons on Implementation and
Management of Ubiquitous Computing
Professional
project management is essential, especially during startup.
Be
prepared to outsource challenges; consulting help is essential.
Use
commercial course management software.
Spread
the gains from, and ownership of, innovation throughout all units.
Identify and incorporate existing assets before creating new ones.
Balance
central services and local control.
Provide
academic units staff of their own and plenty of equipment without hassle.
Put
in place an ongoing faculty and student-led oversight mechanism to monitor
and to adjust the program. Place some funds under faculty control. Apply
academic review structures to the program. Don’t let administrators have
control of faculty development.
Understand the role of standards
in the program, and obtain agreement on them from faculty and
administration.
Ultimate responsibility should be
given to a senior administrator with the authority to set directions and
settle disputes.
Never underestimate the power of
teamwork.
Involve parents as early as
possible.
Hardware and software decisions
are separable.
Communicate, frequently with all
stakeholders.
Manage expectations; they
invariably outrun the capacity to deliver. Address faculty and student
concerns truthfully, adequately, and quickly in order to quell rumors.
Keep your admissions office informed. Regularly reconcile program
descriptions in university publications with those on the Web.
High percentages of faculty will
use the computer if their initial introduction involves only email, URL
addresses, and course materials posted by a course management system.
Thoughts about the Future
The future of higher education is
about learning strategies. Ubiquitous computing enables teaching and
learning that is more interactive, more collaborative, more customized.
From the mass production of standardized disciplinary majors, student
programs are evolving into individually designed sets of courses. Instead
of following majors rigidly specified by a departmental faculty, clusters
of students request customized curricula and have more voice in who
teaches what and when. Curricula and databases are centered on individual
students – no longer on colleges and universities.
With customization comes the
demise of the textbook. Professors can now more conveniently swap course
materials. Syllabi are crafted from “chunks” of materials,
individualized to the capacities and objectives of each professor. Courses
are neither all face-to-face nor all virtual. Instead, each educational
opportunity includes some face-to-face and some virtual experiences. Each
student is encouraged to select the type of learning that works best for
him or her.
The current challenge in higher
education is to transition students from the campus experience to the rest
of their lives. While in college, students have read electronic “course
chunks”, have submitted electronic term papers, and have consulted
electronic reference materials that – without special effort – will
soon be lost to them. Unlike college students from previous generations,
they will not have on their bookshelves a Shakespeare book, for example,
kept from their college days. There is an urgent need to fill this gap, a
need that is being pursued by the e-portfolio movement.
An equal challenge is to provide,
after graduation, continuing access to the intellectual tool itself. If
students’ capacity to take these higher-ordered skills into life is to
be sustained, colleges and universities must ease the transition into the
years immediately after college. Institutions can do so by enabling
students to carry with them the computer they have relied on in college
and by facilitating, through alumni offices, the continuation of
friendship and learning groups after graduation.
Colleges and universities
need to realize that they are leading a cultural revolution. The
ubiquitous computing that has become so familiar on many campuses will
soon be spreading to secondary schools, then to businesses, and finally to
entire communities. The lessons learned at ubiquitous computing campuses
will be a rich resource for the building of whole societies based on
continuous, appropriate access to the Internet by all.
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