A Wireless Educational Toolkit: Transforming education with 5G
Up to 100 times faster than current wireless networks, 5G is being touted as the future of entertainment and telemedicine. But how might it begin to transform education?
For a glimpse of what’s next, look no further than an immersive new educational toolkit in development from NYU and Columbia Engineering researchers with public school teachers throughout New York City.
The group explored how middle and high school lesson plans could be enhanced through COSMOS—the advanced wireless testbed Rutgers, Columbia, and NYU are jointly deploying in West Harlem as part of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program. Together, the educators created a trial classroom kit of equipment to set up small-scale COSMOS-inspired testbeds along with curricula for 35 online educational labs ranging from signal modulation to data analysis. A pilot program launched in schools this past fall.
Designed to teach fundamentals of math, physics, and computer science through interactive research experiments in wireless networking, the toolkit will use virtual and augmented reality to create STEM-themed “escape room”-style games. In recognition of its innovative approach, the project has just won a $100,000 prize from the Verizon 5G EdTech challenge, one of only ten selected for their potential to harness 5G speed and bandwidth to enrich curricula in under-resourced middle schools.
Read the full story here:
https://engineering.columbia.edu/news...