The Intel Educational Appliance - Where do I get one?

Last night, when I floated the idea of a truly turnkey Linux appliance for education, I already had a device in mind. Although my musings were more along the lines of "One Edu Distro to rule them all," the idea of a complete ICT solution for small or medium educational settings has a lot of appeal, whether implemented in hardware, software, or both. The device I had in mind was the Educational Appliance, part of Intel's Learning Series, and currently in pilots in several markets worldwide.

The Education Appliance, currently produced by Critical Links (known primarily for their EdgeBox network appliances), is an all-in-one networking, server, and communications system in a box for schools. Like the Classmate PC, the Education Appliance is a hardware and software reference spec that Intel has developed to support e-learning and provided to local OEMs for deployment. Although still in testing, the appliance has already been deployed as part of Portugal's large-scale Classmate deployment and school modernization efforts.

So what exactly does the appliance do? Well, pretty much everything, although it's important to remember that it is designed for smaller or more remote settings where ICT staff are either hard to come by or are non-existent. Larger settings generally have staff and infrastructure to support a variety of e-learning tools, but the Appliance essentially provides all of the infrastructure in a single box. Intel and Critical Links (I had a chance to talk a couple weeks ago about the device with Abdul Kasim, the vice president of global marketing and business development for Critical Links and several Intel developers and platform managers) both discussed the 3 core areas where the Appliance could provide an integrated educational solution:

• Learning
• Networking
• Administration

In terms of learning, the box enables wikis, blogs, forums, and chat. It contains a complete learning management system, integrates with interactive whiteboards, allows screen sharing between teachers and students, and can stream presentations out to student computers. It even integrates a gradebook. Although I'm the first to advocate for utilizing cloud-based services, this may be impractical, both in developing markets where high-speed internet service is hardly ubiquitous and in mature markets, where bandwidth can still be scarce and/or a preference for on-premise services makes the cloud less of an option. In that case, an onsite device enabling modern approaches to education and collaboration is a great idea.

Even in places where cloud-based services are more accessible, network management and security still need to be addressed. The Education Appliance handles everything from DHCP to content filtering and intrusion protection. Much like an average school firewall/content filter, the appliance takes care of networking needs that would otherwise be handled by a variety of equipment in a larger, enterprise setting.

Finally, the administration focus brings image and software management for the Classmate PCs to a central location. The Appliance also taps into the Classmates' theft deterrent systems and provides asset management tools for a variety of school needs. It incorporates a student information system and even allows students to safely access school resources from home.

Exact details of the stack are still being finalized, but all are delivered through a virtualized environment, allowing platform independence and the use of both Windows and Linux software.

The company plans to offer 4 different configurations when they officially launch. All will feature the same software stack, but will vary in capabilities from supporting 60 concurrent users all the way to 1000 concurrent users.

I should have a test unit coming to me around the end of this month. It remains to be seen when Critical Links (or another OEM) will begin offering the Appliance in North America. However, the Classmate itself started out exclusive to developing countries and is now seeing a fair amount of success in mature markets. I, for one, can't wait to get my hands on one of the Appliances and start using it with our own Classmate deployments.