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Old 08-29-2004, 02:17 PM
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Default Practical uses of ADSL in Education

Practical uses of ADSL in Education



After discussing the technical obscurities of ADSL, it is important to look at the inherent benefits that ADSL has to offer, not only to users on a faculty or facility-basis, but also for personal use, and learning.



Without going into the ins and outs of the effectiveness of e-learning which is obviously outside the scope of this paper, it is personally believed to be an asset when looking at self-guided, e-learning. Currently e-learning hasn’t left its “wary” phase in most people’s minds, but it is still a very useful, and potentially viable tool for gaining new skills and knowledge, or gaining professional (online) certification, as a completely independent secondary learning goal (SLG) for students. Learners have the ability to select from a range of e-courses, which would ordinary be outside the realms of practicality, due to the cost of an Internet connection for extended periods of time, or more likely due to the limited bandwidth to deliver material to a user. Out of interest, at current time of writing, it’s actually possible to enrol on a Microsoft-Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) online course, with material from the acclaimed New Riders publishers, for £300 per year [5]. The cost is attractive, especially for those either interested in professional certification, either alone or alongside traditional taught courses, those wishing to further their careers, or even for technical staff to become more competent – quite possibly a must for the often-abused network service staff in most further education colleges!



Email use is also further enhanced with the facility of a large Internet pipe – emails are ordinary kept dull, un-imaginative, and oddly boring due to their purely textual nature. This is primarily due to the fact that most people keep their emails small and particularly lean, in order to avoid giving the e-mail’s recipient a large download when he or she decides to download it. At speeds of around 60-240kb/s (for 512kbit to 2048kbit services), emails can contain assignments – either the assignment task sheet itself, or works in progress. Most tutors that I work with would probably agree that a reason why most modem-using students avoid sending in their work for comments, would be due to the long transmit/receive times involved in such a process. By making this cycle more rapid and accessible, this would enhance formative-learning opportunities, and allow students to take more control over their development.



Moving back to an institution-wide basis, many community projects are in a position whereby their learners would greatly benefit from Internet access, but their budget cannot reach to such a length.





Although the specific costing is quoted later in this paper, ADSL provides the opportunity for a low-cost Internet connection which can be reliably and effectively shared amongst many students simultaneously. Allow for the possibility of a cache server to increase the efficiency of the service, and a complete set-up can quickly and cheaply be applied to most situations, including college’s networks


Gareth Roberts
Copy Rights 2004
http://webhostingchat.com
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