The Wireless Revolution: Teaching Advanced Techology to Diverse Audiences

在过去十年里，先进技术，特别是信息技术，以惊人的速度渗透到人们的日常生活中。这些技术将在未来几十年触及和改变当代和未来几代学生的个人和工作生活。这不仅适用于正在开发这项技术的SMET学科的学生，也适用于跨越学术界的许多学科的学生。很大一部分学生需要学习这些技术，以便开展他们的职业生活，并在一个将由先进技术定义的时代作为知情公民生活。此外，SMET学生需要了解技术在经济、政治、社会和商业中的非技术含义，以及这些非技术活动领域对技术的相应影响。该项目通过开发适合于向本科生传授高级技术主题的教育学和教学材料来满足这些需求，这些学科不仅在SMET学科范围内，而且在美术、人文和社会科学领域内。这种方法利用当今学生更好的计算机和数学素养，提供具有技术实质的课程材料，同时也着眼于技术在塑造社会和商业中的更大作用。该项目特别关注电信技术，以利用首席调查员在他最近开发的课程“无线革命：21世纪的电信”中向普林斯顿大学本科生教授此类材料的经验。这门课程涵盖了无线的技术、社会、经济和政治方面，非常成功地吸引了来自大学各地的大量不同受众。这种对这门学科的整体方法，以及在同一课堂上教授SMET和非SMET学生，为所有参与其中的学生带来了显著的教育好处。当然，尽管电信在世界范围内被广泛教授，但几乎没有可用的材料来全面教授这门学科，特别是面向本科生水平的混合受众。这使得很难向其他机构，甚至其他讲师输出“无线革命”的模式。这在一定程度上是由于该领域的非常动态的性质，这使得传统的文本材料不够用，因为它需要非常快地更新。这在一定程度上也是因为需要广泛的学科来充分解决这一问题，并统一挑战具有非常不同兴趣的学生。到目前为止，“无线革命”课程通过使用客座讲师解决了这一难题，这一解决方案不一定可移植到其他大学或教师。该项目的主要目标是编写有用的教学材料，既涉及这一领域的广度，也涉及该领域的活力。这些材料结合了传统的教科书形式，其中的主题相对稳定，而基于网络的资源则提供了更具活力的主题。这一发展的目标是让普林斯顿的其他教师以可持续的方式使用本课程的成功形式，并将其输出到其他机构。这些材料的范围将从无线通信扩展到一般的电信领域，以便主题将适合更多学生和机构的需求和兴趣。这些教学材料的可更新和灵活性质将允许内容随着新的电信技术的兴衰而年复一年地变化。这将进一步允许不同机构的内容不同，因为不同的讲师可能希望强调该领域的不同方面。最后，希望这一发展将为面向广大本科生受众的其他先进技术的整体教学提供一个模式。

The penetration of advanced technologies, and in particular information technologies, into every day life has proceeded at a breathtaking pace over the past decade. Such technologies will touch and transform the personal and working lives of current and future generations of students for many decades to come. This is true not only for students in the SMET disciplines who are developing this technology, but also for students in the many disciplines spanning the breadth of academia. A significant fraction of all students need to learn about such technologies in order to conduct their professional lives and to live as informed citizens in an age that will be defined by advancing technologies. Moreover, SMET students need to learn about the non-technical implications of technology in economics, politics, society, and business, and about the corresponding influences of such non-technical spheres of activity on technology. This project addresses these needs by developing pedagogy and pedagogical materials suitable for teaching advanced technological subject matter to undergraduate students across a broad spectrum of academic discliplines, not only within SMET isciplines, but also within the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences. This approach takes advantage of the greater computer and mathematical literacy of today's students to offer course material with technical substance, but also with a view toward the greater role of technologies in shaping society and commerce. The project focuses particularly on telecommunications technology, in order to exploit the Principal Investigator's experiences in teaching such material to Princeton undergraduates in his recently-developed course, "The Wireless Revolution: Telecommunications for the 21st Century." This course, which covers the technical, social, economic, and political aspects of wireless, has been very successful in attracting a large and diverse audience from across the University. This holistic approach to the subject, and the teaching of both SMET and non-SMET students in the same classroom, has resulted in significant educational benefits for all of the students involved. Although telecommunications is, of course, widely taught worldwide, there is little available material for the teaching of the subject in a holistic manner, and particularly to a mixed audience at the undergraduate level. This makes it difficult to export the model of "The Wireless Revolution" to other institutions, or even to other instructors. This is due in part to the very dynamic nature of the field, which renders conventional textual materials inadequate because it needs to be updated very quickly. It is also partly due to the breadth of disciplines needed to adequately address the subject and to uniformly challenge students with very diverse interests. This difficulty has been addressed in the "Wireless Revolution" course thus far through the use of guest lecturers, a solution which is not necessarily portable to other universities or instructors. The principal goal of this project is to develop useful pedagogical materials that can address both the breadth an dynamism of this field. These materials combine the traditional textbook format, where the subject matter is relatively stable, with Web-based resources for the more dynamic subject matter. The objective of this development is to allow the successful format of this course to be used in a sustainable way by other instructors at Princeton, and to be exported to other institutions. The scope of these materials will reach beyond wireless communications to the field of telecommunications in general, so that the subject matter will fit the needs and interests of a greater number of students and institutions. The updateable and flexible nature of these pedagogical materials will allow for the content to shift from year to year as new telecommunications technologies wax and wane. This will further allow for the content to vary from institution to institution, as different instructors may wish to emphasize different aspects of the field. Finally, it is hoped that this development will provide a model for the holistic teaching of other advanced technologies to broad undergraduate audiences.