Mobile Curriculum Computer Labs

KraZFoo writes "Apple has come up with an innovative idea: make a computer lab curriculum-specific, and mobile! Each lab comes with iBooks, a printer, and an AirPort base station. Depending on the curriculum, other components like digital cameras, video cameras, science equipment, specific software, etc. ..." There's nothing new about mobile labs, but I've not seen ones tailored to specific curriculums, and besides, this one is really cool.

If MS started doing this

[mhesseltine]

It would give new meaning to the term "crash cart"

Other Uses outside the classroom?

[greenhide]

Does anyone else see these carts as being useful in other situations as well?

They could be especially useful for organizations or companies where most employees don't have/use laptops on a regular basis. They could even make a smaller version of these carts which could be used for portable outdoor instant networks, for conventions, rallies, or other instances to set up an "instant network".

Oooo fun fun fun.

[catwh0re]

*thinks of all the naughty things I did in the computer labs....* now I can do them in every lesson.

It's a great idea that apple have been doing for a while.

But there is one flaw.. the kids always out smart the teachers in the end.

Re:Oooo fun fun fun.

[Mikey-San]

I don't find that a flaw at all. On the contrary, the student should always keep the teacher on his or her toes ... Otherwise, no one's learning anything, and that's the whole point, right?

In time, the student will become the teacher. It's the teacher's job to learn from his or her students and make sure that doesn't happen just because some computers fall from the sky.

-/-

Great idea, but...

[EnlightenmentFan]

This idea would be a great cost-saver for big districts--you could let lots of kids share one set of computers, and having each one tailored to a specialized curriculum would cut down on the confusion of untrained teachers.

But does Apple realize how cold and drafty portable classrooms get during a New England winter? It's hard to type when your fingers are frozen stiff.

But--wait--fortunately, we've got global warming. Good, I was worried for a minute there.

They are cool

[MoneyT]

Our local highschool ordered one of these things earlier this summer to experiment with it. It's pretty neat stuff, makes for gettting computers and equipment from one area to another very smooth. It's not much in the way of design, basicaly a file cabinet on wheels with doors on either side. IIRC, it has a single plug on the outside for plugging the whole unit into a wall to powwer the laptops and other equipment, and then outlets laid throughout the inside. All in all a very nifty toy.

K-3?

[sporty]

Granted, an 8 year old can be taught to behave, but what is going to stop a kindergartener from doing something distructive to a $1000 machine?

Re:K-3?

[jellomizer]

Thats not apples consern. It is the shools consern. But what is to stop a kindergartener from breaking a desktop instead. Basicly there is Teacher and Teacher Aids supervision when the laptops are out. and there is also the concept of teaching in small groups as well.

Re:K-3?

[sporty]

Thats not apples

consern. It is the shools consern. But what is to stop a kindergartener from breaking a desktop instead. Basicly there is Teacher and Teacher ,Aids supervision when the laptops are out. and there is also the concept of teaching in small groups as well.

If My spelling bugs you. Then my work is done.

Ow. owowowowoww.. now most words in the english dictionary look spelled wrong. Thanks :) What makes it worse, is that all the longer words are fine. /me jumps out of window

Re:K-3?

[jellomizer]

Long night, little sleep, Big Headach, makes my already bad spelling worse.

Interesting expansion on their original concept

[pvera]

The original cart as I remember carried enough iBooks for a classroom, plus airport (I don't remember if it had a printer). This is a kickass concept, it kept the iBooks secure and recharged, and it is really easy to move the whole thing to a different classroom.

This could easily work in a small business scenario. My company has 12 employees and everybody is on macs except myself. They issued me a Compaq but within a month I have purchased my own iBook, and the Compaq is used as a server. I am always worried that it is just too easy for somebody to grab one of the LCD iMacs and walk away from the office without anyone noticing. Once I started carrying the iBook to all my meetings the other employees started whining that they wanted iBooks too, but I told the powers-that-be that I am not going to trust these people with remembering to chain their iBooks to their desks whenever they were not at their offices.

A cart like this would rock, since at the end of the day I could pick each iBook as I leave the office and lock it in the cart. Next morning I know all the iBooks will be safe and charged, so no distractions with people chasing for open power plugs 5 minutes into a meeting just because they forgot to recharge their iBooks.

A school I consult at is doing this.

[nystul555]

A school I have been doing consulting for has been doing this for almost two years now, and it works very well. We have several similar carts, each with a wireless access point. Additionally, each cart has a few extras depending on where it is used, for example the production/design/art ones has some digital cameras, the science/math ones have special measurement tools (some logger pro stuff, I don't know the details), etc.

It is a very effective system. They get to share the laptops, and can use them anywhere. They will generally use them in the classrooms, or one of the commons areas. They have about 80 laptops available (for a school of 450) that are rotated around on these carts, and they have enabled the school to get by with only around 80-90 workstations in what could be called "computer lab" locations (this is a very wealthy private school, which uses a non-traditional teaching environment, so they don't have actual computer labs, or a library either, instead they use a "commons" system).

However, although the school has a decent amount of Macs, all of the laptop carts are Compaq.

Carts have been available for some time

[York the Mysterious]

I'm not sure about the content, but Apple has had these carts available in the US for sometime and in other countries for quite a while. The idea of a wireless cart is very nifty. My school bought a cart from a company called MobileLAN. It was a pretty neat and cheap setup. You told them what laptops you wanted and they could buy them or you could ship them. Then they provided you with a cart with a motor in it that went forward and backwards at about 2-3mph. The cart was just a big powerstrip inside with a bundle of laptop power adapters in a covered shelf at the bottom. They simply ran the cables the cart and put the plugs in a convenient area so you could slide the laptops into these 3in shelves (backwards) and plug the power cable in. The system took a 10mbit ethernet connection into a lucent tranceiver that had 2 pcmcia slots. We upgraded to new laptops and simply pulled all the power plugs out and put new 128bit cards in the basestation. Very simple.