My son starts his junior year at Burlington High School next week and his will be the first graduating class to use iPad-2's rather than textbooks as part of their 1:1 computing program. Though they join 600 other nationwide schools, the handout of the 1,000+ iPad-2's in Burlington is a marking point in time. Now it's our responsibility to be sure that this technology leap focuses on more than the basics of research, paper writing, tweeting, and secure exam delivery.
The High Schools are focused on delivering required curriculum and state requirements need to be met but there are also electives added into the mix. What if we design and deliver a course on Mobile App Development?
There were already 50M iPads in the market in March '11 when Marc Benioff's kicked off Cloudforce New York 2011, and they showcased mobile apps that were a staple at his keynote and show floor in San Fran last week. Let's share the vision of some of those applications with the next generation of app developers. We've showcased a Chatter integration application for Salesforce users to support field service technicians, and schools could be a catalyst for this by making some of their existing power, HVAC, and food service systems connected.
Why not think larger still: maybe it's time to help the local school districts into a grid of smart buildings in the same way college campuses do, or as states are pushing their students to do today? Doing so will spark ideas on new connected products which in turn will produce composite assets and build a new generation of workers that "thinks connected", and builds the M2M solutions of tomorrow.
If your school systems are using iPads now, are they thinking about them as a console for a mobile workforce, or a dashboard for connected systems? How do we help make that happen?
