Strayer University, AT&T Partner to Offer Employees College Study Options
By Ronald Roach
RALEIGH, N.C.
A leading veterinary medicine school plans to provide its students with wireless handheld computing devices, joining a growing trend among medical and health science schools. This fall, North Carolina State University (NCSU) College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh will provide a Palm Tungsten C handheld device to all first-, second- and third-year students. The handhelds will be used in classroom instruction and to prepare students to use the technology during their fourth-year clinical rotations.
The high-speed wireless device with integrated 802.11 technology (also known as Wi-Fi) met the requirements of the college's Mobile Computing Initiative, according to Dan McWhorter, director of Web-based instruction, who coordinated a two-year pilot program built around wireless access.
"The Tungsten C handheld has everything we want — color, wireless connectivity and the Palm OS platform," McWhorter says.
The handhelds will give students access to a large body of reference works provided by NCSU, such as lab normal values, virus references, medical dictionaries and drug formularies. Students will use Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm OS to access the Veterinary Teaching Hospital's policy and procedure manual with an interactive table of contents on everything from what to do if a dog bites during an exam to how to handle the unexpected death of an animal.
"NCSU is recognized as one of the top four veterinary schools in the United States, and its adoption of cutting-edge technology over the last couple of years has other schools taking notice," says Mike Lorion, vice president of education at Palm Solutions Group.
