Stolen iPad - Just because you know where it is, doesn't mean you can recover it

One of my students had her iPad stolen - we located it using the MobileMe application on the iPad and reported it to the Boston Police and to the Suffolk University Police, showing exactly where it was at a house in East Boston. This device costs $600, making it grand larceny.

The Suffolk University police were impressed by the technology.  They were amazed that we could actually see where the iPad was on a live screen on their computers.  They took a report and said that they would look into it.  Later on they said that they couldn't do anything since although the crime had taken place on campus, the stolen item was no longer on campus as we could plainly see.  (If it had been in a dorm room, could they have done something?)  I asked the chief of the Suffolk University police what they could do, and how quickly, since the device has limited battery life and would only report its location as long as it was on.  He said they would get their report to the Boston Police in a few days, less than a week.  The student  They failed to take action to recover it.    Details: Using GoogleMap we found the house address; using Zillow we found the house owner; Using public records on Internet we found the people who lived in the house; using ATT Reverse-Lookup we got their phone number.  We gave all this to the Boston Police.  They were reluctant to go to recover the iPad even though the GPS was Real-time and showed its location. The student (against all recommendations) went to the location and took photos of the Car parked in back of the building (where the GPS showed the iPad to be) and gave the photo of the license plate to the police.  Still no action.  The police said that even though we knew it was there they were powerless and couldn't get a search warrant or go to get the iPad.  The next day I noticed on the MobileMe that the iPad had moved from behind the house to a position in the street in front of the house.  This made it likely that the unit might be in a car, or was in a car at the time I was looking at the MobileMe. 

I have more details if anyone is interested in hearing them, but don't want to make this entry too long.

We would like to get this story exposed since this type of crime is common, and people believe that they can recover stolen items if they go to the police.  Please pass this link along.    Best answer may be using social network as did student in another state - see GOOGLE to:  www.pcworld.com/.../techsavvy_student_tracks_down_macbook_air_thief.html

I am using iPads in my class at Suffolk University studying digital textbooks and how they are changing education;  I loaned this iPad to a student.

to be continued...

Transformation is Happening in Education

This is a draft of an article I am submitting for publication.  It describes the class I teach at Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University.  

I divide the students in the class into six teams.  Five of the teams are assigned an eTextbook device and the sixth team is given a paper textbook for use through the semester.  The digital technologies have changed as new devices have emerged.  In the last semester I included: Amazon Kindle, Sony eReader Touch, Apple iPad, enTourage eDGe, CourseSmart.   The students in the class are also part of my study of digital textbook adoption.  I have been conducting this research as an ongoing longitudinal study over the past two years, to track the trends in student attitudes and behavior toward their use of digital textbooks (eTextbooks) in higher education. 

Background: 

As education has become a higher priority for the country there has been a greater focus the quality of learning and on the economics providing learning tools and equipment (textbooks).  In the 21st-century there is a clear and emerging desire by all stakeholders to take advantage of rich media and access to information provided by the Internet to provide better education. Concurrently the textbook industry and the broader industries of all print media are being disrupted and transformed by digital technology in the form of e-books and eReaders.

The challenges facing each of the major stakeholders (publishers, authors, bookstores, students, etc.) in textbook industry transformation are relatively similar, whether they are on the supply side or the demand side the equation. Each of the stakeholders is facing significant disruption in the marketplace that will profoundly affect their economics, operations and business models. The creation and distribution of information or content in printed form (aka books) is a highly integrated system facing business transformation on the supply-side mediated by adoption rates on the demand side. The dynamics and rate of transformation are being both mediated and catalyzed by a series of social, economic and technology forces.

General Observations:

Students in today's classroom are becoming much more technologically savvy every year. Their comfort with technology comes from growing up in an environment where they have encountered, and in fact been bombarded with new technologies at an ever-increasing pace. Digital technology pervades every aspect of their lives: how they play, how they socialize, how they communicate, and how they learn. These students have grown up with digital devices, and they are on the cusp of a generational cohort that is expecting technology to be integrated seamlessly into most experiences in the personal, professional and social aspects of their lives. It is a foregone conclusion that they are looking to further integrate technology into their academic life as much as possible. These cultural forces of technology are meeting head-on with the traditional academic environment. The academic environment of today can be characterized as a dynamic tension between tradition and innovation, i.e. balancing enhancing the foundation of existing knowledge, while pushing the frontiers of new knowledge. These forces are driving both the content and the media of academia.

In the Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, Department of Strategy and International Business, Boston, MA, a section of the strategic management class students are participating in research and exploring the technology disruption and industry response in the publishing market.  They are focusing particularly on the textbook segment of the market which is being significantly disrupted by the advent and influx of electronic readers, tablet-like devices, and digital textbooks.  The class, Management Strategy 429 is the capstone course at the Sawyer Business School. The Sawyer Business School focuses on global business education and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees. Suffolk University is a private, non-sectarian university.  Suffolk employs nearly 800 full-time and adjunct faculty members, who instruct approximately 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students.  Mitchell Weisberg  (me) teaches this section of the course with a focus on business and industry responses to disruptive technologies.

Plan to read more about this research and class in future blog entries and in other journals, publications and conference sessions.  Also, invite me to speak on this at your conference or group!