Cell Phones Turned Into Student Aides

Oct. 14, 2005 &#151 -- In this week's "Cybershake," we take a look at how colleges are opening their arms to their students' best friends: cell phones. Plus, we note how one company wants to give old videogames the "pay-per-view" treatment.

Think of "channel surfing kids" and you'd probably come up with an image of youths mindlessly lounging in front of TV sets and rapidly flipping through hundreds of stations using the remote control. But "channel surfing" takes on a whole new meaning for thousands of students at one particular school.

At Montclair State University in New Jersey, school officials are handing out to incoming freshman living on campus free cell phones. The $250 Motorola phones will help students keep in touch with friends and family but also, and more importantly, act as mobile, wireless terminals to school-related information and news.

The school has partnered with Rave Wireless, a wireless software provider based in New York City, to create "channels" of information that are vital to student life on campus.

"It connects them to the campus in various ways – for safety purposes, for academic purposes and for social purposes," says Rodger Desai, founder of Rave Wireless. "They can get access to homework assignment changes … All the shuttle buses on campus are tracked by satellite so they can see [them on] interactive maps from their phone."

"It's pretty cool," says freshman student Ron Chicken. "So you know if the bus is coming right around the corner or if you're going to have to wait 10 minutes."

And since the mobile phones are part of the cellular network offered by Sprint-Nextel, they can also be used as regular cell phones for voice, text-messaging or even e-mail.

"I can be across campus and I can check my e-mail," says Chicken.

The school can set up and manage its own set of channels – so a teacher can instantly update an entire class about changes to schedules or syllabus. But students can create their own channels as well. Updates to channels can be made from any Rave phone or any computer on the Internet.