In developing the new system, Stanford said it sought to improve upon currently available polling systems based on proprietary technologies. "We wanted a cost-effective solution that would take advantage of open standards and that would allow students to use their Palm handhelds for hours at a time. The Bluetooth networking solution offered by Pico and Palm is a great option for us," said Dr. Henry Lowe, director of IT, Stanford University School of Medicine.

Each time an instructor started a poll, students used their Bluetooth-enabled Palm handhelds to connect wirelessly via PicoBlue access points in the classroom to a web-based polling server developed by medical students and the Stanford University School of Medicine's IT department. Responses were logged almost instantaneously and tallied by the server. Notified when each student had responded, the instructor then projected the results for the entire class to see.

"Based on the success of this trial, we envision deploying this solution more broadly across the entire medical school, particularly as use of Bluetooth-enabled Palm handhelds increase," said Todd Grappone, assistant director of development, wireless and mobile computing at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "Currently, the majority of Stanford medical students have a Palm handheld. It's just a matter of time before they all have this type of capability." Grappone added that the trial also allowed students to familiarize themselves with the same networking and computing technologies now becoming prevalent in hospitals.