Smoking is prohibited in the following areas:

• both terraces/patios of the Siegel Center, including the stone wall on the front terrace
• inside any College building, including residence halls
• within 25 feet of any building entrance or restricted pathway

Over the years there has been discussion on how to address the issue because many smokers ignore or were unaware of the policy. Recently I decided to use Google Maps and, roughly, overlay the areas that fall within the stated policy. What I found was no surprise to me. — There are few spaces to smoke on campus if someone adheres to the policy.

This means you can be on the road and print your important document at your printer of choice. It’s that simple. No biggie, right? Of course the printer is going wireless, isn’t everything?

It’s time to install the application and print while on the way to school/work! Hold that thought.

Academia is often slower to deploy such eye popping technologies for a variety of reasons, support being one of the biggest. Security is incredibly important and the I.T. world is not known for it’s rapid deployment of new technologies. The path followed is likely to be described as “Tried and true.” It’s safe and it’s proven. Two words a CIO will like.

What is the present state of printing at your institution?

• Can you print via the wireless network?
• Can you print from a laptop via Ethernet or wireless?
• Can you print to any printer or only a select printer?
• Do you have to swipe a card to release a job?

What would be the best solution for you – students, faculty, staff?

Students are going mobile. Schools need to pay attention to this and get relevant information to students for reasons including: communication, retention, community, feedback, etc. When should this be done? ASAP.

For the past two years Sarah Lawrence College has polled its student body about a number of technical items including cell phones, texting, etc.

Looking at some of the highlights (significant increases, +6% or more, are bolded)…

Responses (of apprx 1500 total both years):

• 2008-2009 - 565
• 2009-2010 - 332

Computer ownership:

• 2008-2009 - 98%
• 2009-2010 - 97%

Cellphone ownership:

• 2008-2009 - Cell phone 80% Phone in residence (aka landline) 1% Both 16%
• 2009-2010 - Cell phone 80% Phone in residence (aka landline) 1% Both 12%

Carrier:

• 2008-2009 - Verizon 41% Cingular 35%
• 2009-2010 - Verizon 41% Cingular 32%

Receiving text messages:

• 2008-2009 - Once/day 13% Several times/day 62% Several times/week 12%
• 2009-2010 - Once/day 8% Several times/day 73% Several times/week 6%

Sending text messages:

• 2008-2009 - Once/day 16% Several times/day 58% Several times/week 10%
• 2009-2010 - Once/day 9% Several times/day 70% Several times/week 5%

Email checked via cell phone:

• 2008-2009 - Y -  22% N – 73%
• 2009-2010 - Y – 30% N – 61%

Web accessed via cell phone:

• 2008-2009 - Y – 23% N – 72%
• 2009-2010 - Y – 32% N – 60%

Non-iPhone

• 2008-2009 – 8%
• 2009-2010 - 14%

iPhone

• 2008-2009 – 12%
• 2009-2010 - 13%

iPod touch ownership:

• 2008-2009 - 10%
• 2009-2010 - 17%

Reviewing the data, our students are sending and receiving multiple text messages per day via their smart phone or iPod Touch and checking their email and browsing the web more using hand held devices. This is not outlier data. Next year I anticipate even higher use of text messaging and hand held web browsing.

What does this mean to SLC and to you (other institutions and companies)?

Now, yes now, is the time to begin implementing technologies that will be, at least, one-way communication with your constituents. They want to know what is going on and expect that we will provide the solution.

Emergency/weather notification systems are all the fad in the academic world. But students want more. They WANT to know more, to stay connected. An opt-in service is a best bet because there is no possible way to know what every student does/does not want.

I have just re-initiated my research and would love to hear from those of you who have found great SMS tools (for academia) – comments welcome.

I could say more and defend the trend but the title says it all. What are you/we doing to get our information mobile?

Below is the response chart for the tech survey. As you can see the response rate jumps significantly after a reminder is sent. Below the chart are the numbers used to create the graph.

Additional data will be posted soon. The survey close at midnight last night.

Click to view complete graph

Date    Total Responses    Complete Responses    Incomplete Responses    Remaining        Time
4/13/2010*    0    0    0    2161    launch    12:00
4/14/2010    161    136    25    2025        9:00
4/15/2010    179    152    27    2009        9:00
4/16/2010*    186    159    27    2002    reminder
4/17/2010
4/18/2010
4/19/2010    285    240    45    1921        9:15
4/20/2010*    295    251    44    1910    reminder    9:53
4/21/2010    359    304    55    1857        10:00
4/22/2010    369    313    56    1848        12:00
4/23/2010*    372    316    56    1845    reminder    9:00
4/24/2010
4/25/2010
4/26/2010*    432    368    64    1793    reminder    9:54
4/27/2010    557    467    90    1558    closed    9:13

* = reminder sent

This year we released the survey to the entire campus in one fell swoop – last year we released it in two phases: students then faculty and staff.

I will be tracking the daily numbers and will post response rates as I did last year.

The important changes/additions include:

• iPad interest and purchase plans
• eBook interest
• eReader interest and purchase plans
• Microsoft Office ownership, use, and interest in purchasing a discounted copy
• Open text field asking for suggested uses of any technology for use on- and off-campus. We asked them to think big!
• Due to the financial standing of the institution no incentive was made available.

Stay tuned.

Make Way for youtu.be Links
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/12/make-way-for-youtube-links.html

What is the change?

Original = 31 characters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
New = 16 characters: http://youtu.be/

A reduction of 15 characters.

Sure, it’s not the ultra short link shortener but “when you see a link with this URL, you are indeed about to click on a YouTube video.” – from YouTube blog linked above

What else is better besides the 15 character crunch?

Also, because the link contains the ID of the video you’re going to see, developers can do interesting things like show you thumbnails, embed the video directly, or track how a video is spreading in real-time.

So, grab that shortened URL and start sharing.

At a student club leader presentation two weeks ago I reviewed a number of labs and explained Undo Send. Note – I had approximatley 5-10 minutes to review the entire Google Apps suite so I was going quickly. About 3 seconds after I explained Undo Send and had paused for effect one student literally gasped with jaw agape! You could see the “OMG HFCIT FTW” look across her face. She was elated.

Though not at profound a reaction, possibly because of the brain melt that has affected them, students also smile a the fact that they can change the undo time from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.

Tasks has graduated to become an official part of GMail, when will Undo Send.

Nobody has snubbed the lab feature. Yet. Will someone? I’d be amazed.

Read the GMail blog on Undo Send:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-in-labs-undo-send.html