Mobile Platforms
Description
Mobile platforms encompass all portable computing devices, including laptop computers, tablet computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs, including BlackBerry, iPAQ, Palm, etc.), and wireless phones.
The purpose of this initiative is to explore the ways in which portable devices can be utilized to best serve the students, faculty, staff, and administration at the University. Successful deployment of mobile platforms will allow members of the University community to maximize their use of University and worldwide computing services on mobile platforms of their choice. Currently, many people carry a laptop for e-mail access, a PDA to track their calendar, tasks and address book, and a wireless phone for phone service. Ideally, a person should be able to carry only one of those devices without sacrificing any of the services. Moreover, a person should be able to alternate between wireless protocols (cell phone service, 802.11b or Bluetooth) depending on his or her circumstance at any given time.
Initial investigation has focused on PDA devices with integrated wireless phones that allow Internet access. Future investigations may focus on wireless phones with Internet capability, which have been programmed with PDA functions, or on laptop computers using wireless phone PC cards. Although the result would appear to be the same in all three cases, the key difference between the three is form factor.
Publications
N/A
Resources
IT Wireless
The MOBIlearn project consortium
Primary ET Contact
Bill Mountz WMountz@psu.edu
Collaborators
Groups internal to Information Technology Services (ITS) include Administrative Information Services (AIS); Applied Information Technologies (AIT) in ASET; Consulting and Support Services (CSS); and Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT).
External groups include The Schreyer Honors College, The College of Health and Human Development, the Office of Governmental Affairs, and the Office of Public Information.
Expected Deliverable(s)
Periodic progress reports will be published via this Web site.
Level of ET Involvement
Emerging Technologies, in partnership with the collaborators listed above, plays a very active role in this initiative.
Initiative Start Date
January 2003