Walled City to Wireless City

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Walled City to Wireless City Northern Irelands
Broadband Flagship Initiative Thomas Moore,
Lecturer, NWRC (formally NWIFHE) WIRELESS CAMPUS
/ SMART CLASSROOMS / TABLET PC PILOT FS01
Wireless Campus
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Project Elements

• Install a wireless network covering large areas
  of the campus, in a range of subject areas
• Create enhanced teaching and learning
  environments SMART Classrooms
• Pilot a Tablet PC mandate

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Wireless Campus - NWRC

• A Trapeze wireless network was successfully
  deployed
• across four buildings,
• employing 18 access points, with
• up to 54Mbps wireless access
• Wireless connectivity covering
• classrooms, lecture theatres, 14 computer, music
  and media labs.
• Wifi access enabled in the Student Resource Room,
  Tower Meeting Rooms, foyers and Learning Resource
  Centre.

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Area of Coverage
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Wireless Campus Kit Integrated into existing
infrastructure

• Trapeze Mobility Point (MP)

Trapeze Mobility Exchange
RingMaster software
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Wireless Campus - UU

• A Trapeze wireless network was successfully
  deployed
• Across Magee Campus,
• Employing 57 hotspots (access points), with
• Up to 54Mbps wireless access
• Coverage in lecture theatres MF124/25, MF138,
  MG122 and MG229, meeting rooms, library areas,
  student union areas and Magee canteens
• Staff within SCIS (School of Computing and
  Intelligent Systems) developed a method for
  secure authentication to the UU network from the
  Tablet PCs. Similar authentication used at
  NWRC.

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Wireless Campus - UU

• Wireless Technology Demonstration Centre (WTDC),
  based within the Intelligent Systems Research
  Centre at the Magee
• Method for SMEs and start-up companies to access
  skilled personnel
• To give companies a competitive advantage in the
  market place through integration of wireless
  technologies
• Develops innovative demonstrations of
  applications which use wireless technologies
• Technologies included RFid, Zigbee, Bluetooth,
  WiFi and GPS
• Assistance has been provided to over 20 companies

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SMART CLASSROOMS - NWRC

• Three designated Smart Classrooms
• Equipped with -
• wireless projector
• Promethean Interactive Whiteboard
• multimedia sound and video equipment
• wireless access
• Interactive response system
• Integration into college Virtual Learning
  Environment

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SMART CLASSROOM KIT - NWRC

• Panasonic PTLB30NTEA Wireless Projectors
• Promethean PRESENTA M 64" Interactive Whiteboard
• Nvolve Student Response System
• Blackboard VLE Delivery
• Video and Audio Pod Casts Via iTunes / Juice
  ver. 2 VLE

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SMART CLASSROOMS - UU

• 4 labs fitted with
• 1 x 72 rear projection smart board
• 4 x 50 plasma screens
• 1 x wireless data projector
• AMX audio/video control and interactive panel
• Motorised blinds and controlled lighting
• Classroom control software, Synchronise, to allow
  the Lecturer to view, control and present on the
  students machines from the SMART Board, and LinQ
  software to allow the Lecturer/students to
  wirelessly connect to the SMART Board system.

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Tablet PC Mandate - NWRC

• Tablet PCs Windows Enabled
• Toshiba Portege M200's
• 1.5GHz tablet PC with a 12.1in screen, 60GB HDD,
  1 GB RAM
• Wireless Enabled
• Students studying HND Interactive Media
• Three intakes of students have received the
  tablet PCs (75 Tablets in total)
• UU - School of Computing and Intelligent Systems
  staff and year 1 students over 2 academic years
  (300 PCs)

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Access Statistics

• Average wireless users per day
• Mon-Fri 30 users small amounts of browser
  traffic
• 300 Mbytes monthly Browser traffic
• Most Popular Access Point 2 Smart ClassRooms
  Canteen
• Major Authentication Web (95) 802.1x (5).
• The network is processing approximately 120Gbyte
  data per month

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Experiences

• Allowed the institute to develop a secure access
  and authentication wireless network which is
  centrally monitored and managed.
• Increased technical knowledge and ability of
  network administrators with respect to security
  and deployment.
• Afforded time and resources to allow the
  institute to build on the wireless infrastructure
  
• Academic staff developed an appreciation of the
  technological developments in wireless
  connectivity, electronic classroom management,
  current classroom interactivity

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Experiences

• Use of best practice to create teaching
  environments where students had increased
  involvement, increased teacher student
  interaction and student motivation.
• These experiences have been filtered through to
  other student groups outside of the original
  identified pilot cohort.
• Project has integrated into college 3 year ILT
  (Information Learning Technology) Strategy
• Experiences benefit future development - already
  overcome problems and difficulties in the
  installation, implementation and management of
  the technology.

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The Future

• Expansion of the existing network to include the
  whole of the college and incorporate new campus
  locations
• Implementation of whole college use of SMART
  CLASSROOMS
• Development of learning materials for use via
  mobile access
• Encouragement of student wireless access to
  learning
• Resulting Projects
• Hospitality and Catering - undertaking a project
  on wireless kitchens
• LSDA project on developing videocasts (Games
  Programming) that are sent to students using
  wireless tech such as iPods, phones and through
  the VLE.

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