The work presented here demonstrates the feasibility of using the single-mode fibers of an optical Internet network to deliver visible light between separate laboratories as a way to perform remote spectroscopy in the visible for teaching purposes. The coupling of a broadband light source into the single-mode fiber (SMF) and the characterization…

People live in an era of social, enterprise-oriented, and increasingly cloud-based technology; a dramatic shift away from stand-alone isolated silos that previously dominated. Computing systems can flourish today only when built to easily exchange data and services. An application that stands alone may provide practical functionality but may not…

Laboratory experience is a key factor in technical and scientific education. Virtual laboratories have been proposed to reduce cost and simplify maintenance of lab facilities while still providing students with access to real systems. It is important to determine if such virtual labs are still effective for student learning. In the assessment of a…

Under pressure to keep spending down but also keep pace with rapid technology changes, many districts are future-proofing their schools--trying to get the most out of tech spending by providing solutions they can use now and in the future without major, expensive infrastructure overhauls. In the Folsom Cordova (California) Unified School District,…

The word "wisdom" is rarely seen in contemporary technology and learning discourse. This conceptual paper aims to provide some clear principles that answer the question: How can we establish wisdom in complex learning networks? By considering the nature of contemporary calls for wisdom the paper provides a metatheoretial framework to evaluate the…

The use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is increasingly common. Its use for specific applications has been mandated by a number of major retailers, as well as by the U.S. government; however, core RFID technologies and networks lack consistent approaches to maximize the efficiency and security of RFID applications. The purpose…

Ethnographic and interview data from a long-term study of "NetU," a wired community and college, are used to investigate the effects of computer-mediated communication on social relationships. During the course of this research "LAN" residents of NetU are compared with a similar group of non-LAN residents who lived in the same neighborhood, but…

Education facilities managers are faced with a daunting set of challenges: They must find new ways to reduce energy consumption and carry out greener energy policies. HVAC typically accounts for more than 30% of a building's electricity costs, so there is a clear incentive to eliminate unnecessary heating and cooling of unoccupied rooms. With more…

This article describes an accessible e-learning environment that was designed to deliver advanced IT skills to legally blind students in preparation for employment. The aim was to convert industry-standard training materials in print into accessible formats and to deliver the learning materials in ways that are more suited to adult students with…

Simulation environments make it possible for science and engineering students to learn to interact with complex systems. Putting these capabilities to effective use for learning, and assessing learning, requires more than a simulation environment alone. It requires a conceptual framework for the knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking that are…

We implemented two local area network (LAN) projects in our introductory data communications and networking course. The first project required students to develop a LAN from scratch for a small imaginary organization. The second project required student groups to analyze a LAN for a real world small organization. By allowing students to apply what…

Embarking on a universitywide journal-hosting initiative can be a resource-intensive undertaking. Providing such a service, however, can be equally rewarding, as it positions the library as both partner and colleague in the publishing process. This paper discusses ideas and strategies for institutional journal hosting gleaned over two years by the…

The limitations of home Internet connections make Personal Videoconferencing (PV) interaction vulnerable to network trouble. This dissertation explores how novice couples collaboratively manage PV network trouble so as to carry on their conversation. It is found that transmission/reception and their perturbations are material frames for…

Cloud computing is definitely a thing now, but it's not new and it's not even novel. Back when people were first learning about the Internet in the 1990s, every diagram that one saw showing how the Internet worked had a big cloud in the middle. That cloud represented the diverse links, routers, gateways, and protocols that passed traffic around in…

Didactical advantages of audience response systems (ARS) have been discussed extensively ever since they have been used in classes. However, conventional ARS bear some drawbacks, such as requiring specific hardware, generating costs (text messaging based and web service fees) and creating a dependency on external hosts. In this paper we present a…