Back To The Future

Electronic News, Sept 3, 2001 by Steven Fyffe

Technology has been part of the educational experience since someone first strung a few beads on, a string and called it an abacus. Today, the desktop computer is considered the driver of the electronics industry's back-to-school sales. But the trends, they are a changin', as I discovered during my own recent return to graduate school.

"The only equipment I consider essential is a cell phone-failing that, at least a beeper-and a tape recorder," wrote Susan Rasky, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, in an e-mail to incoming students.

When I went shopping for a cell phone, I began to suspect the process was some kind of sadistic final entrance exam. You need a doctorate in mathematics, or at least an MBA with an accounting major, to figure out what each different service plan actually costs, once you add up all the hidden charges.

Even the glossy brochures designed to spell out the terms in plain English read like questions on the GRE test all prospective graduate students in the United States are required to take.

If Plan A offers 300 anytime minutes, except when a phone call is made outside of designated area X, and Plan B offers 450 minutes of long distance, restricted to calls made between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. from area Y, which plan would charge less if you were calling your elderly mother in Vermont from a drunk tank in downtown Oakland, Calif., at 2:33 a.m.?

The other back-to-school suggestion from Professor Rasky was a notebook computer.

"If family or friends want to give you a going-away gift, ask for a laptop ... it is nice to have the convenience of something portable," she wrote.

Students and teachers don't want to be tethered to desks and static phone lines anymore. They want to be free to roam (without the threat of excessive roaming charges, if possible).

Most analysts agree that demand for desktop computers is slowing. The recent gloomy earnings forecasts from both Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have done nothing to make anyone think otherwise, or raise expectations of a return to double-digit growth anytime soon.

As semiconductors continue to get smaller, cheaper and more power efficient, the shift to a mobile mindset is in some ways a natural progression. But it also reflects the changing nature of education itself.

Even today, I doubt a physics lecturer would make it compulsory for students to own a cell phone, unless they were going to disassemble it in class and figure out how the laws of physics applied to what they found inside. However, university-based education is becoming more specialized and more vocationally driven.

Gone are the days when students either studied law, medicine or engineering. Now they can study animal husbandry, golf course management and even public relations. Many occupations that used to be thought of as trades to be learned on the job, including journalism, are now taught at universities.

So while it might not be important for a physics major to be on-call 24 hours a day, a cell phone can be an invaluable tool for journalism students trying to get in touch with elusive sources in time to make their next deadline.

Now, if I can just figure out which plan is really the best deal.