Learning the lessons of mobile computing
The increasing adoption of mobile computing in the education sector offers wide-ranging benefits to both students and staff. However, resellers that want to take advantage of this growing market must do their homework. Paul Bray reports
The mobile computing revolution promises numerous benefits in the education sector – for both students and teachers, and for the schools and universities themselves.
According to Andy Macleod, business development manager for education at Cisco: “In education, mobile computing is certainly the way to go. From a digital equality point of view, learners should have universal access to the web, plus their own storage space and applications.”
Mikko Kiukkanen, director of business development and sales at wireless infrastructure vendor Meru Networks, said: “The trend towards more collaborative and open learning environments, fuelled by the increasing availability of mobile devices among both students and faculty, is driving aggressive adoption of mobile computing solutions among educational institutions.
“With anytime, anywhere access to resources, students can work in unconventional settings, such as the cafeteria, student centre or the library. Similarly, wireless allows instructors to deliver lessons in places outside the classroom.”
Laptops and portable devices can be taken home by teachers for lesson preparation and by students for homework. According to Simon Brown, director at VAR Scalable Networks, those who benefit most from mobility are often teachers and support staff.
“Laptops or PDAs enable access to secure applications such as attendance tracking and lesson scheduling,” said Brown. “Meanwhile a teacher’s ability to move freely around the classroom helps solve behavioural issues and creates a more mature learning environment.”
Steve Dracup, managing director of interactive and display distributor Promethean AV, said: “Teachers can simply pick up their laptop, plug it into an interactive whiteboard [IWB] in a different room and run with a lesson straight away. This saves time compared with a desktop, because teachers don’t need to recall lessons off a network or save to disk.”
Macleod said: “There’s good ROI [return on investment] for applications that have nothing to do with teaching and learning. For example, if an estates manager can be in contact with the network via their PDA, they can respond to time-critical situations, whether it is opening a gate for a delivery or responding to an incident in the classroom.”
The ability to move kit from room to room means a school or college may need less equipment overall. Portables can be more easily locked away at night for security reasons (schools are notoriously vulnerable to burglars and vandals). And since many classrooms were never designed to accommodate computers, the space-saving aspect of portables can be a major attraction to education establishments.
Also, applications that businesses take for granted can be unexpectedly valuable in a school. Kelly MacMillan, business solutions marketing manager at networking vendor Mitel, said: “Traditionally, teachers didn’t have their own phone or extension number and classrooms don’t contain phones. By providing teachers with a softphone on their laptop, the days of notes in pigeon holes and students roaming the corridors to deliver messages are gone.”
With so much to gain, are schools and universities tooling up with mobile technology? Well, up to a point, according to Dave Leach, head of marketing at educational hardware vendor Research Machines (RM).
“Mobile computing is widely used and sales are increasing, but not as fast as everyone is predicting,” Leach said. “We see about a five per cent swing from desktops to portables each year.”
Portables account for about 30 to 45 per cent of education PC sales, depending on whose figures you believe, he added.
Ian Newell, director of SME and channel sales at Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC), said: “Portables are not taking over from desktops. Desktops are still used for fixed-based learning and for holding central information that mobile devices can access.”
The reason for this relatively modest growth is that, in schools at least, portables are issued to staff rather than students, according to Dominic Webb, senior category manager for the public sector at Hewlett-Packard.
“In primary education we see notebooks used by the teaching and support staff,” he said. “In secondary education we see the majority of notebooks used in the same way.
“However, a small but increasing number of secondary schools are starting to use notebooks for students. A sub-sector of secondary education – the newly formed academies – tend to have a wider use of notebooks across both staff and students. Further and higher education both show widespread use of notebooks for staff and students alike.”
Mike Puglia, product marketing director at wireless security vendor Bluesocket, said: “Many universities require students to have their own laptops. Students truly live in the information age. You would be hard pressed to find a university student without several forms of wireless mobile devices, such as a mobile phone, laptop and PDA.”
Although some schools are experimenting with issuing laptops, tablet PCs or PDAs to some of their students, it is more likely that individual students will buy their own machines. This is a practice that is becoming more common among sixth-formers, according to Leach.
University students tend to buy their laptops through standard consumer channels, but schools are beginning to help their students to buy, either by advising on where to get the best deal or actually buying laptops to lease to them. The latter arrangement has tax advantages for the students or their parents. This is similar to the old Home Computing Initiatives scheme, which was recently scrapped by the government (CRN, 8 May).
Apart from special cases and private-sector sponsorship, dedicated funding for mobile technology purchases is rare, and the government’s Laptops for Teachers scheme has also ceased. Webb said that in most cases the purchase comes from the school’s standard IT budget, so price and performance is a major influence.
“Primary and secondary schools tend to buy medium specification laptops,” he said. “They have a 15in display, a good battery life and a DVD drive with either CD or DVD writer capabilities. Most establishments are open to either an Intel or an AMD offering.”
RM claimed that £500 machines with 1.5GHz Celeron M processors and 256 or 512MB RAM are popular. After all, says Leach, educational software and accessing the web are not particularly hardware intensive.
There is also a trend towards putting somewhat higher specification laptops into classrooms in place of desktops, Leach said. This allows ‘fixed’ resources to be moved around the school more easily. Such machines may be built with extra robustness and special features such as a quick-release power cable in case a student trips over it.
Leach claimed that laptops are the most suitable hardware format for education. Because the standard applications used in schools work best with a mouse and keyboard, tablet PCs and PDAs can be awkward to use, although teachers may find PDAs useful for high-mobility applications.
Other vendors have more faith in smaller form factors. Newell said: “We are seeing a growing demand for tablet PCs because they allow teachers and pupils to access their work easily and they can connect to the other devices in the classroom, such as IWBs.”
Some education authorities are experimenting with PDAs, including Wolverhampton, which has deployed 1,000 hand-held FSC PDAs to allow pupils to view content on classroom IWBs and access learning materials at home. Government targets to install IWBs in every classroom have firmly established the technology in schools, according to Dracup.
“Because a PC or laptop is a core part of the IWB bundle, continued investment in the technology represents an opportunity for resellers to target education with integrated sales,” he said.
Leach said that accessories such as spare batteries, memory sticks and digital cameras can add value to the portable sale. Classroom-based machines may be wheeled around on trolleys, which also act as charging stations overnight.
USB Flash drives are becoming more popular, according to Dave Flack, director of marketing at peripherals distributor Catalus.
“USB Flash drives are ideal for backing up data, transporting documents between college and home, and downloading journals to read on-screen,” he said. “Universities are encouraging students to use digital media for storage, with many now offering a USB drive as part of their freshers’ welcome pack.”
However, the critical supporting technology for mobility is wireless networking.
“Wireless is both a driver of portables into this user segment and a result of portables entering this market,” Kiukkanen said. “For students and teaching staff it delivers productivity and convenience. For the IT staff, wireless represents a comprehensive broadband network solution that can be deployed without the hefty price tag or administrative overhead of traditional wired LANs.”
Wi-Fi deployments in schools are increasing, but the technology brings its own headaches for IT managers, especially when students and teachers want to connect their own machines to the network. Are students’ PCs secure and free of viruses? Does the network support the right version of Wi-Fi? Can it support high-user densities and operate over widespread campuses?
On the other side of the coin, Wi-Fi can have competitive and even commercial advantages, especially for universities.
“Students today are more technologically savvy than ever,” said Kiukkanen. “Wireless access throughout campus and student living areas helps academic institutions compete for students and faculty.”
Puglia said: “Most universities used to make a profit from providing phone services in dorms, but with the advent of mobile phones they have lost this revenue stream. Fixed mobile convergence – the ability to use dual-mode mobile phones over both mobile and Wi-Fi networks – may allow resellers to partner with carriers to assist universities in a revenue sharing model. This leverages their wireless network infrastructure.”
For some resellers, selling Wi-Fi to education is a more attractive prospect than selling portable computers and laptops. Steve Byatt, technical account manager at Aruba Networks reseller Online Network Solutions, said: “We focus on the mobility network infrastructure and avoid selling portable devices where possible. Many in the education market will have contracts with companies such as RM to provide PCs. While we often make recommendations on 802.11 compatibility, the choice of client device should be left to the customer and their incumbent supplier.”
Leach said: “Education is a quirky market and quite tricky to get into. It’s well serviced and we have plenty of competition.”
He added that resellers who want to break into education should ensure they are offering something new in terms of service or price, and should focus on solutions and manageability.
“The issue is to identify the end-user and ensure the products offered focus on that end-user,” he said.
While primary schools can be reached via their Local Education Authority, secondary schools and colleges tend to control their own budgets, so a direct relationship with the individual establishment is important.
“Don’t underestimate the power of local relationships,” MacMillan said. “A small, localised VAR is in an extremely good position to approach a local school, empathise with its situation and offer a solution. Often, teachers will be quite technology adverse. This means that the benefits in terms of improving student performance, time efficiency and cost savings need to be easily demonstrable.”
Resellers may also need to demonstrate relevant experience, according to Byatt.
“With contracts ranging from £5,000 to more than £100,000, most customers will want to know that VARs have already deployed a similar solution elsewhere,” he said.
Getting certified by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency and Catalist, the government buying and procurement group, can give resellers extra credibility in the education market. There is a National Notebook Agreement for selling portables into universities, but only a handful of vendors and resellers are included. Puglia also advised resellers to look out for government grants so they can guide customers through the approval and procurement stages.
Breaking into the education market is undeniably hard work, but with mobility becoming increasingly important to the sector, it can still be worth the effort.