Technology and Student Life at U. of Florida campus

We have started the campus-visit tour for my daughter as she prepares to go to college in Fall of 2010.

The first campus we visited was that of U. of Florida at Gainesville. Home of "The Swamp". "Gator Country". I also dragged my son there even though he has 2 additional years to prepare

4 Gators from different disciplines, some freshmen, some seniors gave us a really nice tour of the sprawling campus, including a mandatory visit to Ben Hill Griffin stadium - home of the national Football champions.

I started to hear enough about how much technology has permeated campus life, that I requested Sunny Davis, one of the guides to rack her brain and identify everything she could on how tech helps make life on campus better, safer.

Here's her list.

1. Wi-Fi on most of the campus. (The campus has plenty of land and lakes in its 2,000 acres for its agricultural and recreation programs which do not obviously have hotspots)  
2. "Clicker quizzes" in class
3. Swipe cards for restricted access to residence halls and specific floors 
4. Separation of accounts through your student ID (students may take their ID to Wachovia/Wells Fargo and activate it as a debit card. The "Vending Account" allows students to use their IDs to do laundry and use the vending machines)
5. Integrated Student Information System –ISIS – for various administrative tasks such as Bill pay, record retrieval etc. 
6. Selected lectures taped and uploaded on electronic platform
7. Fully functioning projector system in every classroom
8. On-line lottery to ration tickets to popular football and basketball games ( for other sports, the demand usually is close to supply, but every home football game has been sold out for the last 20 years) 
9. Listserves (supervised by the Center for Student Involvement, organizations are grouped in listserves to be reached conveniently)
10. "Chat with the Librarian" or "Chat with a Housing Officer" (Instant messaging with the Librarian or Housing officer through their website)
11. Mass text messaging system through the administration office to all students in case of emergencies and lockdowns
12. Look up books through the library website and text message the reference number to your phone.

Thanks, Sunny. Also, thanks for impressing both my kids. Yes, even my tough-to-impress son who was barely awake when the tour started :)

Comments

[Strouth Keane]

I guess it’s the best place for your daughter. Is she studying there now?

[Pettie Underhill]

I agree. School with high technology is the best school in this recent time.

[Milbourn Beardsley]

Wow! This is a very nice school for your kids. Yes, that's true that high tech campus is very necessary for students nowadays because of their lessons and assignments are best done through computer or internet. There are a lot of advantages a modern and high tech campus will give to the students.