Teaching Technology Fellowship Results and Side Effects WPI Food for Thought Luncheon Presentation April 1, 2008 Robert Kinicki, Mark Claypool and Mingzhe Li Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, MA, USA Presenter - Bob Kinicki

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Outline Motivation Teaching Technology Fellowship AY0507 Research and Assessment Plan B05 and B06 Details Brief Assessment Post Mortem Thoughts Side Effects and Lessons Learned

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Motivation Anticipating the future impact of wireless networking technology. –Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) will become ubiquitous! –The societal impact of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is still in its earliest stages. RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) Environmental measurements Health care applications Surveillance (Big Brother!) Computer networking curriculum and textbooks have not kept pace with the speed of these wireless changes.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, WSN Example: Vineyard Installation At each Mote location: 2 soil moisture sensors 12” and 24” depth 1 soil temp sensor to calibrate soil moisture sensors Copyright 2006 Camalie Vineyards

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Alarm-Net: Assisted Living University of Virginia

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Teaching Technology Fellowship (TTF) Strategy: to leverage our wireless measurement tools and research. To provide a ‘hands-on’ laboratory experience in WLAN measurement. TTF Hypothesis:TTF Hypothesis: A student WLAN measurement experience would reinforce important networking concepts from course lectures in CS4514, Computer Networks.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Wireless Streaming Multimedia Lab Topology Slide courtesy of Mingzhe Li

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Research and Assessment Plan Conduct B05 version of Networks course using an extra written assignment to design a wireless network configuration for a fictitious situation. Develop and test prototype WLAN measurement assignment in graduate networks course, CS 513, in Spring Modify undergraduate measurement lab based on grad course experience. –Tools for graphing was recognized as a student weakness. –Measurement instructions were too cryptic and tasks were too long.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Research and Assessment Plan Modify the measurement assignment to include a ‘cookbook’ and seek assistance from Matlab Instructor, Adriana Hera. Conduct B06 version of Networks course and require an extra WLAN measurement lab in the Fossil Lab. –Create a video in the TV Studio on “Computer Systems Performance Methodology”. Compare B05 and B06 CS4514 student performance on subset of the Final Exam questions (namely, the WLAN questions on the exam).

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, B05 Wireless Design Project Paper design project came on the heels of Hurricane Katrina. Three person groups were asked by FEMA to prepare a design for a prototype WLAN measurement study in Alumni Gym to evaluate future use of WLANs to assist disaster victims temporarily housed in gymnasiums.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, B06Wireless Local Area Network Measurement Configuration Server Access Point Good Client Bad Client queue Downstream Upstream

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, A Few More Details Fossil Lab was painted with special paint with metal chips to reduce external wireless interference from CCC APs. With only one measurement system in Fossil Lab, students had to sign up to reserve times around the clock to use the WLAN measurement system. Originally, measurement lab assignment set to occur in one week – immediately after Thanksgiving break in B06. The assignment due date was extended two days because student groups needed more time for the write up and to produce Matlab graphs from measurements.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Entry Course Survey Prior background of two classes was equivalent.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Assessment Oops!!

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Post Mortem: What Happened ?? chuck fullCS4514 is ‘chuck full’ of material and splitting it into two courses had been previously suggested by the students. Adding two wireless lectures plus the measurement lab made for a very tight fit of topics in CS4514. While the ‘cookbook’ streamlined the experimental times, it also took most of the discovery and creativity out of the lab experience. A few students commented that the lab activity was boring.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Post Mortem: What Happened ?? In both instances of the course, students worked in three person groups. However, the actual lab setup was crowded for three people. Two person groups in the lab was the most common scenario with the third person often responsible for producing graphs or writing the measurement report. to think more about the issuesWhile only a paper design project, the B05 project forced the students to think more about the issues in conducting WLAN experiments.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Positive Side Effects of TTF Experience From preparing the video, I became familiar with and saw real value in using the Sympodium tool to enhance Powerpoint presentations. The TTF created the impetus to finally propose splitting the course into two courses. –The idea is to introduce an in-depth lab measurement experience in the second course. The Matlab experience was very positive and useful for the students. I became aware of a key weakness in scientific methodology in the current CS major experience.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Pedagogy Lessons Learned Adding and subtracting material from seven-week courses is challenging. –More can produce less! Technology per se does not always improve the learning. Conjecture – Conjecture – The students did not watch the video due to: –Lack of time in their schedules. –They did not see it as critical to completing the WLAN measurement. Carefully targeting the use of the technology is the key to a successful lab experience. Scheduling the WLAN measurements around the clock did not bother the students as much as expected.

Food for Thought Lecture April 1, Acknowledgments Valuable assistance and support provided by Adriana Hera, Jeanne Hubelbank, Feng Li, Amy Ricci and Dave Taranto.

Thank You! Questions ?? Teaching Technology Fellowship Results and Side Effects