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SCHOOLS WARNED OF WIRELESS WIPE-OUT
Schools could be wasting thousands of pounds on tablet devices that won’t work properly due to old and insufficient wireless connections, according to experts. Supplier Probrand says slow download speeds, frequent disconnections and complete ‘wireless wipe-out’ are becoming more common because schools don’t check their wireless network capacity before they invest in tablets. The warning follows predictions from the British Education Suppliers Association (BESA) that almost a quarter (22%) of “pupil facing computers” will be tablets by the end of 2015. Andy Cartwright, education team leader at Probrand, explained: “Old wireless local
area networks – WLAN – traditionally designed to cope with one mobile device to every three users are the main cause of ‘wireless wipe-out’. However, demand has risen to more than three devices per user [according to Gartner] and aging wireless networks simply cannot meet the demands of numerous modern devices.” Common issues include users regularly getting disconnected as they move around campus and high signal interference, which hinders connectivity and speed of downloads, he says. This dictates poor user experience. “Educators need to appreciate tablets and other mobile devices present different
IT challenges to laptops and classroom PCs from security to accessing the main network. Advice should be sought if planning to move to a mobile infrastructure.”
ONLINE UNIVERSITY GETS BIGGER
Coursera, an online university set up by academics from Stanford in California, will now offer online courses from 62 universities from all over the world. After setting up less than a year ago, here are now 2.8 million online students
registered, according to the BBC. The co-founder, Andrew Ng, said the initiative was helping universities globally to
“raise their impact both on and off campus”. The service offers a platform for universities to offer courses, often referred to as MOOCs (massive open online courses), for people to study from home more. Global names now include Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ecole Polytechnique
in France, Leiden University in Holland, Sapienza University of Rome in Italy, the University of Tokyo in Japan, National University of Singapore and the University of Geneva in Switzerland. US universities joining the online
platform include Northwestern, Penn State and Rutgers. One major step is that Coursera’s
online courses can now count towards a degree. To date, while the courses may be just
as difficult as those offered on campus, they are not yet formally being recognised as course credits.
What we learned
More than one in 10 young people don’t think their computer skills are good enough for the working world. This is according to the Prince’s Trust and follows a £500,000 donation by hip hop star
will.i.am to the trust last year towards projects to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills. “I was intimidated by science and advanced maths,” said the pop star, who donated his fee for appearing on BBC talent show The Voice. “When I say, ‘Hey kids, you guys should want to be scientists, technicians, engineers and mathematicians...’ I say that because I too am going to school to learn computer science,” he told the BBC. “I’m taking a computer science course, because I’m passionate about where the world’s going, curious about it and I want to contribute.”
www.edexec.co.uk / april 2013
STATS 73%
OF SCHOOLS SAID THEY ARE INVESTING IN NEW TECHNOLOGIES BEFORE FULLY REALISING THE FUNCTIONALITY OF EXISTING DEVICE (Source: Ricoh)
s_bukley /
Shutterstock.com
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