Mobility November 2009 Archives

Mobility in Action: Transforming Education at Purdue University with Pervasive Wireless Connectivity

A Chat with Purdue University’s CIO

Last week Cisco and Verizon took the wraps off their joint effort to help Purdue University deploy a pervasive, high-performance wireless network throughout the University’s 2,500-acre West Lafayette campus. Verizon Business is installing a Cisco Unified Wireless Network with more than 6,000 802.11n wireless access points, giving Purdue’s 51,000 students and faculty seamless mobile access to collaborative educational and research tools no matter where they are.

Shortly before the announcement, I spoke to Gerry McCartney, Vice President for Information Technology & CIO at the University, to get his perspective on the project and what it will mean for education at Purdue.

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Posted by Dave Trowbridge at 06:05AM PST

The Human Network Really Is Changing How We Live

 

I’m writing this blog from the Emergency Room at Akron Children’s Hospital.  My 6 year old son Fritz has an eye infection, so he’s lying in bed watching Scooby Doo while we wait for his CT results.  My cell phone doesn’t have coverage in his room, but luckily the hospital has a Cisco wireless network, so I can keep in contact with my husband who is out of town on business.  He is in a remote part of West Virginia which doesn’t have great cellular coverage, but he can email and text from his iPhone.  We have 3 young children and I  know from experience that ER visits usually take 2-3 hours, so I brought my laptop just in case I have time to catch up on email.

My day started at 6:30am when Fritz woke up with his eye swollen shut.  My friend Michele is an ER doctor at Children’s Hospital, so I  called her on her cell to make sure she was on call and let her know we were on our way.  When we arrived they immediately sent us to a room where our contact information and insurance was submitted wirelessly.  Michele examined his eye and submitted the order for a CT scan. While we waited to be taken to the CT room our nurse Beth came in to insert Fritz’s IV.  She said Dr. Walsh told her to ask me about our Halloween Party.  Funny you ask, I have pictures right here. I pulled up my Facebook page and showed her pictures of Michele and I in our costumes at the party.

When Fritz and I went for his CT scan the technician asked Fritz if he plays computer games.  He loves Lego.com, and was so excited when she gave him a Popsicle mouse for good behavior.  How times have changed…when I was a kid we got stickers for being good at the Doctors!

Michele came back with his CT results and said that he needed to be admitted for a few days so they could administer IV antibiotics.  Fritz was calmly watching Special Agent Oso so I continued to work on my email until we were moved to a room.  I received an email from my cousin Tom, the VP of Marketing and Advertising  for Armani Exchange.  He forwarded me a link to The Future of Shopping viral video that he received from Calence, a Cisco Partner asking me if I knew about the technology. I watched the video over the wireless network and responded back to his email.  I also made arrangements to meet with Tom for dinner while I am working at Interop in NYC the week of November 16^th.

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Posted by Beth Dannemiller at 01:13PM PST