e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[Tinroad]

OT: Malaysia Pilots Psion's netBook for Nationwide Wireless Education
Date: 7th May 2001, 12:31 PM
Author: Andres Jugnarain

One-Ed Dot Com -- a Malaysian based joint venture between the Kedah State Development Corp, Ericsson and others -- have secured government approval to replace school textbooks with 'eBooks' supplied by Psion in all schools by 2004. The move will make Malaysia the first country to implement digital education nation-wide for its student and teacher population of more than 5 million.

Up to 8000 students and 1300 teachers will pilot the use of Psion's netBook in local and wide area wireless configurations, in areas where access to the critical mass of students and teachers is seen as a significant success factor. The joint initiative between One-Ed Dot Com and Psion will initially cover about 4000 secondary students and 650 teachers at 50 Malaysian schools from June this year. All participants in the pilot programme will be using the Psion netBooks powered by the Symbian OS. Students' textbooks and their educational syllabuses will
be made available by One-Ed Dot Com in digital form. The netBook will also act as the teachers and student's personal gateway to the education portals and Internet whilst in the school or at home.

One-Ed Dot Com will be using the netBook as the core component of its `eLearning' programme and mobile learning solution for students and teachers. The netBooks will be equipped with both fixed and wireless communication capabilities allowing students to connect from their homes, roam the school and classroom wirelessly, whilst retaining high speed access to educational content and curriculums.

The netBook is part of a new generation of Psion mobile devices targeted at enterprise-wide implementation. Weighing about 1 kilo, the battery-operated terminals have a standby time of 8 hours. The device runs on the Symbian OS and supports Java and Citrix ICA Client giving MS Outlook and Office access, and IBM MQSeries Everyplace. The sub-notebook-sized netBook features instant power-on capability. The incorporation of Java support will also help provide for rapid application deployment, application re-use and compatibility across the enterprise from hand-held to server.