How wireless Technologies facilitate education sectors in current epidemic?
Wireless technologies have effortlessly supported the educational programs and teaching class throughout the pandemic. Lectures and classroom work are effectively transferred to digital platforms with the support of internet service provider for the educational institutes. On account of the current pandemic situation, higher education institutes shift their teaching methodologies to the digital platform to support advanced wireless technologies and turn the institutes into digitally-connected campuses. Among the various technologies, WI-FI and 5G technologies n are widely adopted by educational institutes to provide consistent teaching programs and educational services.
WIFI
Universities are now converted into Smart campus to enhance the Campus’s teaching and learning experience due to current pandemic. Smart campus infrastructure is an effective solution providing well-organized services which are frequently used by the students (Zimmerman, 2019). Smart Campus will modernize the learning and teaching experience by implementing the WIFI networking system throughout the Campus. Ultimate wireless connectivity facilitates access to teaching platforms, research tools, student, and faculty management systems (Zimmerman, 2019). The infrastructure supports robust connectivity and internet access to thousands of campus people. Additionally, Arizona State University has implemented the Cisco access point in university to monitor the environment and temperature inside the Campus (Zimmerman, 2019). The significant advantage of integrating smart infrastructure is it deliberately cut down the cost by minimizing the campus resources. For instance, implementing sensor technologies, smart car parking, campus monitoring, and wearable payment methods will cut down the need for manual resources (Zimmerman, 2019). Smart wireless technology is providing a cost-effective and smooth connectivity experience without human help. WI-FI technology is an effective solution to deal with the current pandemic situation. However, constant connectivity and technology standards are significant challenges for WIFI. Smart campus structure is connecting multiple devices at the same time (McKenzie, 2018). Due to heavy traffic, devices may lose connection or show poor connectivity (McKenzie, 2018). Updating campus technology to new standards may result in inappropriate functionality and network interruption.
5G and 6G
Covid-19 pandemic emphasizes the need for fast connectivity, high capacity, and low-budget network to fulfil social-distancing demand in higher educational institutes. 5G technology enable connectivity of 5g service phone with the laptop to get access broadband service. It covers the extensive broadcasting data fueling thousands of connections and the private virtual networks. Advance generation technology supports argument reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) that provide useful video lesson experience within classrooms. The student can travel to another planet or discover the human body’s inner organs in fact (Ahmad & Mokhtar, 2020). Students can view, touch and feel the things displayed with exceptional quality supported by virtual reality (Ahmad & Mokhtar, 2020). IoT based smart classroom saves the time of teachers by providing worksheets and collecting rapid feedback from students. Teachers can also directly login to the school without interacting with students manually (Ahmad & Mokhtar, 2020). 5g supported application and robots provide assist to the special children. Applications are highly responsive and hold problem-solving skills that help students attend classroom activities without getting interrupted. The most significant benefit of this technology is it supports low latency application by processing information efficiently (Ahmad & Mokhtar, 2020). 5g technology is popular due to high responsiveness and connectivity, which is helpful in monitoring and controlling the Coronavirus effects. However, this technology is troubled by the Big data challenges. The network is highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to large quantity of valuable data capture by the application.
E. Zimmerman, “Higher Education Invests in Wi–Fi Technology for Smart Campus Projects,” Ed tech, 29-Mar-2019. [Online]. Available: https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2019/03/higher-education-invests-wi-fi-technology-smart-campus-projects-perfcon. [Accessed: 27-Nov-2020].
L. McKenzie, “At What Cost Wi-Fi?,” Inside higher ed, 17-Apr-2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/04/17/universities-work-offer-complete-wi-fi-coverage-campus. [Accessed: 26-Nov-2020].
J. B. Ahmad and U. Mokhtar, Research gate, Jul. 2020.