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And now it begins.
From 41 students bending over paper and pen to some 3,400 plugging into the
Internet and other high-tech wonders -- that's the road Carolina has traveled
since 1795, the year the nation's first public university held classes.
The 2000-01 academic year will usher in a new era at the University, as the
Carolina Computing Initiative, or CCI, takes the campus to a world where
technology is part and parcel of undergraduate education.
All freshmen will be required to have a laptop computer as standard equipment.
That makes Carolina the largest university in the country -- and the only major
research institution -- to have such a mandate.
Carolina also is the first and only public university to support a laptop
requirement with a program like CCI, which will ease the financial burden for
students and provide hardware and software for faculty and staff.
And while this year's freshmen won't be required to bring their laptops to
every class, their use of the machines to perform out-of-class tasks such as
research will mean that "every student will be touched in the freshman class,"
said Marian Moore, vice chancellor for information technology.
Freshmen will have to bring their laptops to calculus, chemistry lab and
English composition.
Assistant professors of English Todd Taylor and Daniel Anderson welcome laptops
in their composition classes.
"Writing can be a very interactive thing," Taylor said. "I prefer that every
student has his or her own computer, so they can share ideas though networks.
Also, 90 percent of all writing today is done on computers, to facilitate
manipulation of text. The computer helps teach revision, which is the most
difficult part of teaching writing."
Adding Internet capability allows students to bring a sort of library to class,
said Taylor, who also teaches students how to evaluate the credibility of
online information.
Faculty teaching freshmen in other classes will not be required to have their
students use the laptops, and that's how it should be, Moore said. She sees CCI
as giving professors the option to support instruction through technology.
Now, faculty members who choose to have students use laptops to complete
assignments can say, "`Go do it -- I know you've got [the equipment]'" Moore
said.
Keeping pace
Massive moves to technology in the classroom such as CCI stem from the
simple fact that "You can't look at technology today and say you don't need
it," said Moore, who developed CCI at the request of Carolina's former
chancellor, the late Michael Hooker.
"We need more efficient ways to distribute knowledge, because there is so much
more of it," Moore said. We must make information more easily available and
learning more efficient."
For example, music students will hear more sound samples and access more scores
than any one library on any one campus could physically hold.
In chemistry lab, students can run several trials of each experiment because of
laptops, which can attach to sensors measuring experiments in progress. This
makes data collection easier and allows more sophisticated data analysis.
Already, some of these feats have taken place in labs and classrooms with
desktop computers, and in classes for students who bought laptops before the
requirement -- about half of all freshmen last year.
Innovations in learning are expected to proliferate as the proportion of
students with laptops grows each year.
"Because they know that the student body is carrying laptops, faculty will now
be able to take this initiative and run with it," Moore said.
Training sessions
About 89 percent of this year's freshmen arranged to pick up their CCI
laptops and receive training this summer at CTOPS, or Carolina Orientation and
Testing Program.
The CCI laptops are provided by IBM and come preloaded with Office 2000
Professional, Windows 98, Netscape Communicator and training tutorials.
Other freshmen are expected to bring their own laptops or buy laptops during
fall orientation, attended by all new students, Aug. 19-21.
At the CTOPS sessions, computing staff helped students assemble and begin to
use their new laptops. Freshmen learned how to care for the machines,
bookmarked useful web sites, registered for e-mail accounts and signed up for
ResNet, the residence hall network. They also learned the University's network
usage policy.
Of the more than 2,500 CCI laptops that had been distributed to students as of
late July, only five had been "dead on arrival," said Janet Tysinger, the
Academic Technology and Networks (ATN) training center manager who coordinated
the CTOPS sessions.
"It's going very well," she said July 26. "Quality has been outstanding."
All freshmen qualifying for financial aid were eligible for grants to buy CCI
laptops at Student Stores. Hooker designated up to $3 million annually in the
University's budget to ensure all students would have laptops.
Through Aug. 9, 813 students had received laptops through Student Stores with
full grants and 90 with partial grants.
Departmental distribution
In a CCI effort paralleling the student distribution, ATN staff will
have by this fall offered new computers and training to all 700 faculty members
in the College of Arts and Sciences, where most of Carolina's some 15,400
undergraduates study. (See story above.)
Staff members in the College of Arts and Sciences also are getting new
computers as part of CCI. Since last fall, more than 1,800 computers have been
distributed to faculty and staff, said Linwood Futrelle, co-chair of the CCI
Logistics Team, which is charged with delivering the computers.
As of Aug. 9, only nine departments hadn't yet received their CCI machines.
They were: geology, physics/astronomy, biology/ecology, computer science,
aerospace studies, outdoor drama, naval science, military science and the
dean's office. They should get the machines no later than December, Futrelle
said.
"[The distribution] has gone very well," he said. "The effort by each
department to help make the process go smoothly has been exceptional -- I think
there is a definite improvement in most arts and sciences faculty's access to
computing resources."
The long-term goal is for computers campuswide to be no older than four years
and for one-fourth of all faculty and staff to get new machines each year
through CCI, Moore said. The professional schools are next in line after the
College of Arts and Sciences, and the timing of getting them the new equipment
will depend on funding, Moore said.
The departmental machines stem from Carolina's four-year contract with IBM to
buy desktop and laptop computers at substantial discounts. The contract, which
took effect in July 1998, marked the beginning of pooled University purchases
of computers for faculty and staff.
Previously, ad-hoc purchases led to a variety of computer types and
capabilities across campus, and not always acquired at the best prices.
Going wireless
Professors and others will enjoy even more flexibility in their teaching
as Carolina begins another technological leap this fall: offering wireless
Internet access at an increasing number of locations. Already, Greenlaw Hall
and other buildings near the Pit, Carolina's traditional gathering place, have
equipment that will enable laptops to connect to the campus network without
wires.
By the time classes begin Aug. 22, the equipment will have been installed in
Davis and House libraries, the Frank Porter Graham Student Union and Lenoir
Hall.
Any computer within about 50 feet of these "access point" devices can, if
equipped with a small accessory called an access card, pick up signals from the
access point that allow Internet connection without the usual modem or phone
line connection via a cable.
Wireless access will allow more and more classrooms to house computer-enhanced
instruction without the expense and disfigurement of providing direct hookups
in every classroom. Where new access points will be installed will depend on
student demand, Moore said.
But no matter how technologically advanced Carolina becomes, Moore believes,
computers never will replace professors in teaching.
"The classroom needs to be the most human of all places," she said. "We have
the most fabulous faculty here, and their job is to inspire, and they do a
great job of it. That's why we still are and always will be a residential
campus."
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