Author:
Chris McDonald
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia, Australia
Keyword(s):
Simulation, Wireless Networks, Computer Science Education.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Computer-Supported Education
;
Domain Applications and Case Studies
;
e-Learning
;
e-Learning in Electrical, Mechanical, Civil and Information Engineering
;
e-Learning Success Cases
;
Errors in e-Learning
Abstract:
The current generation of Computer Science students are far more likely to engage with computer networking through their own mobile, wireless devices than they are using fixed, wired desktop computers. Traditional approaches to teaching computer networking evolved when the Internet was composed of fixed wired infrastructure, and this historical background still forms most of the material in contemporary textbooks on computer networking. Today's students have strong expectations that their computer networking courses will have a significant focus on the networking devices and applications that they use daily - increasingly mobile and wireless. This paper describes a computer-networking project, examining delay tolerant networks, that has successfully assessed students' understanding of networking protocols using both simulation and actual implementations on Apple iPods. Importantly, students developed identical source code to be compiled and then executed by both the simulator and the
iPods. The paper then reflects on the use of simulation in computer networking projects, identifying some deficiencies in students' understanding that may be masked by the use of simulation alone.
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