The company’s estimates have shown that tablets are becoming an important part of education.
The vice president of Hewlett Packard has recently released a statement that has shown that the use of mobile technology will be important to preparing students for life in the workplace, and he accompanied this prediction with an estimate of how much U.K. schools will be spending on this equipment.
In fact, in 2015, alone, HP has estimated that schools in the United Kingdom will spend £196 million on this tech.
According to Gus Schmedlen, the HP vice president of worldwide education, printing and personal systems, said that many schools have been adopting an attitude to “wait and see” how things go with new mobile technology devices, but they have been highly influenced by the trends being set by early adopters. Schmedlen stated that schools would be starting to make the digital leap forward.
HP feels that the time has arrived for schools to start using mobile technology as a part of overall education.
Schmedlen explained that “IT is an essential part of learning as it allows pupils to understand concepts such as the sourcing of information, skills such as coding and also prepares them for the workplace.” He went on state that “Additionally for the teacher, IT provides a value-add by attracting students’ attention as well as motivating, enhancing and complementing learning.”
HP feels that the use of mobile tech is going to change the way students receive their educations, saying that ongoing assessment of the use of various types of devices is going to play a vital role in moving ahead.
The statement released by Schmedlen expressed that using technology for formative assessment can give teachers feedback in real time (or close to real time), so that interventions and adaptations in the teaching strategy can be put into place in a timely manner, instead of having to wait until the end of a term or a lesson, when final testing and overall scores are tallied.
The idea is that mobile technology can allow the right actions to be taken throughout the learning process, instead of waiting until a child is already failing.
The company is going to start selling its Freewheel wireless service that is based exclusively on WiFi connectivity.
Cablevision has announced that it will be going into direct competition with mobile technology service providers in February, when it will start to sell a new service that it has called Freewheel, which is meant to be a low cost, WiFi based alternative to traditional cell phone connectivity.
The existing internet service subscribers at Cablevision will receive the first offers for Freewheel.
Those who subscribe for $9.95 per month will be able to take advantage of their mobile technology through unlimited talk, text, and data. That said, for consumers who aren’t already internet service customers at that company, the same package for their smartphones would be $29.99 per month. This will clearly be much more appealing to those customers who are already subscribers of internet service through the company.
At the time of the launch, Cablevision will be selling only one piece of mobile technology: the Moto G.
Customers purchasing the Motorola smartphone through Cablevision and its Freewheel program can expect to pay $99.95 for that mobile device. It will be preloaded with authenticating apps that function with any of the hotspots from that service provider.
In 2007, Cablevision began the expansion of its own Optimum WiFi network, and it now boasts over 1.1 million hotspots throughout the New York tri-state area. In 2014, the company implemented WiFi sharing similar to Fon, which made it possible for many of the routers of its customers to be converted into public hotspots, simply by adding a separate additional network that is accessible by any Optimum customer. That would now include Freewheel subscribers, once that program officially rolls out.
Additionally, Freewheel customers will also be able to use their mobile technology at any of 300,000 more hotspots across the United States, through the CableWiFi initiative, which interconnects WiFi access points from large providers such as Time Warner Cable, Cox, and Comcast. The service will also allow a customer to use their device with any other WiFi network to which he or she has access, including home and work.
Schmedlen explained that “IT is an essential part of learning as it allows pupils to understand concepts such as the sourcing of information, skills such as coding and also prepares them for the workplace.” He went on state that “Additionally for the teacher, IT provides a value-add by attracting students’ attention as well as motivating, enhancing and complementing learning.”