The BlackBerry is a fixture in the business world and a local icon in Waterloo, Ont., where its creator Research in Motion Ltd. is based. And now the mobile device is the latest tool in the education of MBA students at Waterloo's Wilfrid Laurier University.

In August, Laurier issued BlackBerry Curve smartphones to 106 students in its full-time MBA program. The students will use them throughout the current one-year program as part of a pilot aimed at seeing how mobile technology can enhance teaching, says Ginny Dybenko, dean of business and economics at Laurier.

Rogers Communications Inc. provides the network services, and Rogers and RIM "gave us a very good deal," Ms. Dybenko says.

Besides basic BlackBerry functions like phone, e-mail, calendar and instant messaging, the devices are preloaded with special applications to support the MBA program.

Desire2Learn, from Kitchener-based Desire2Learn Inc., is online course-management software that gives students access to assignments, class lists, online quizzes, discussion groups and other course resources from their BlackBerrys or computers. Fredericton-based Chalk Media Corp.'s Mobile Chalkboard lets professors transfer presentations to the BlackBerry.

Students can also use the devices to collaborate within teams that work on assignments together. "For me personally," says Deborah Carter, a student in the program, "the BlackBerry is a revelation in terms of the intensity of collaboration."

The device makes it easier for students to work wherever they are, Ms. Dybenko says. "We talk about bringing the BlackBerry into the classroom — what we're really doing is taking the classroom out to everywhere else they are."

The pilot is scheduled to run for a year, but Ms. Dybenko clearly plans to carry the idea further. "I won't rest until I see a BlackBerry in the hands of every Laurier business student," she says.