There is a sense of anticipation in higher education technology circles these days, a feeling of prickly excitement that hasn’t been experienced since the heady days of the dot-com boom. For the past five years, the landscape has been littered with funding shortfalls, problems with network capacity and security, and the never-ending scramble of trying to stay ahead of maintenance and upgrade curves. Today, there is a new buzz in the air—along with a growing cacophony of beeps, ring tones, vibrations, and occasional random sound effects that startle and amuse.

The mobile revolution is finally here. Wherever one looks, the evidence of mobile penetration and adoption is irrefutable: cell phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), MP3 players, portable game devices, handhelds, tablets, and laptops abound. No demographic is immune from this phenomenon. From toddlers to seniors, people are increasingly connected and are digitally communicating with each other in ways that would have been impossible to imagine only a few years ago.

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