Wireless technology provides ubiquitous connection in a
concentrated area. When wireless network is established
for a campus, teachers and students can enjoy
closer
interactions and better access to knowledge resources.
Not only students will feel more open and comfortable
when they ask questions through wireless connections with
the teachers, but also teachers can interact with
the
students more privately and directly, thus creating more
personal relationship between teachers and students and
improving the quality of education.
This close-up
interactive environment is hard to be
provided with
clumsy desk-top computers in a classroom setting, where
such a classroom would have to be carefully furnished and
wired, thereby lowering the density of participants
in
the room.
Wireless campus also allows teachers and students to stay
in touch with education material. They can conveniently
access the library, check their e-mails,
chat with
others, search information on the Internet, and retrieve
or review education material. Combining with thin-client
devices, the wireless campus is an effective way for IT
ownership in schools with much reduced cost,
compared
with wired campus. Furthermore,
wireless campus
encourages portability, connectivity, and communication
efficiency. The deployed network
is scalable and
flexible.
There are three objectives in this project:
1. Provide Wireless Technology and Architectural Evaluation
This objective calls for investigation on the cutting edge
technologies in wireless and thin-client equipment,and the
forecast of what would be available in the near future for the
best performance and price consideration.
2. Develop Software and System Infrastructure
We plan to design an overall wireless campus architecture,
including the acquisition of wireless and thin-client devices,
the number of required components, and their hierarchical
distribution and appropriate layout structure. We will also
develop software infrastructure for teaching and learning in
wireless networks. This infrastructure includes software
components for (i) lecture presentation and student/teacher communication,
(ii) graphical user interface design,
(iii) multimedia applications for information searching and
contents retrieval.
3. Create Wireless Quality Education Service and Content
This objective focuses on the development of courseware for
wireless setting. The developed courseware will emphasise
high interaction and user-friendly multimedia contents. It
will
also develop wireless-based testing mechanism. Students
can perform test in the wireless environment, and testing
questions can be dynamically adjusted according to students'
learning progress and capabilities. |