After several years of experimenting with “hybrid” Spanish courses that mix online and classroom instruction, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has decided to begin conducting its introductory Spanish course exclusively on the Web.

Spanish 101, which had featured online lessons combined with one classroom session per week, will drop its face-to-face component in an effort to save on teaching costs and campus space in light of rising demand for Spanish instruction and a shrinking departmental budget.

This speaks to work on Large Course Redesign, and the convergence of economic need and technological capability.

The buyer of a Nokia Booklet is probably tech-savvy not needing help and also a heavy Wi-Fi user unwilling to overpay for carrier usage. The tech-savvy and Wi-Fi profile matches the student-type except for the $599 price. Nokia perhaps has to cut distribution costs and create demand like Apple’s history. Nokia does partner with California college campuses. Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley have Nokia Research Centers, Nokia teamed with UCLA for a GoGreen campaign, and the University of California at San Diego has a High-Power Amplifier Laboratory partly funded by Nokia. California campuses are perhaps a more targeted pilot of Nokia’s Booklet with online fulfillment instead of Best Buy stores.