Although the beginnings of the Internet don't seem that long ago, current Hamilton students grew up with it and never knew a world without it. A 2002 study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 60 percent of students said it improved relationships with classmates, and nearly half said e-mail allows them to communicate more often with their professors.
A few years ago Hamilton was listed as one 100 "most wired" campuses by Yahoo! Internet Life, but the excitement on campus is now for wireless technology. David Roback, network and systems administrator, said in addition to the traditional wired network connections, the new Science Center will also be covered entirely by wireless, "Doing the whole building is a departure from what has been done in the past," Roback said. "But it makes it so much more mobile for people with laptops. Instead of having to hook up cables and look for network jacks, they can just switch on their computer and go."
Students will be able to take notebook computers or handheld devices wherever they go in the Science Center and connect with professors or fellow students via e-mail. The will be able to log on to class Web sites and visit databases with the click of a button. "This will be easier for faculty and students in the classroom," Roback said. "We use wireless in the library and the existing Science Building, but there is only one computer outlet in the labs, and support services are frequently asked to bring in 'hubs' to support classwork."
The hub expands one outlet into many, but Roback said the result can be messy, "Cables everywhere… not long enough to reach lab stations."
This technology support requirement reflects a change in how science is taught. In Steve Festin's biology courses, students use computers to run large data sets at the same time they may need to access information on the Web or in a database. With wireless networking, they can look up information in the middle of an experiment.
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Access point base station with antenna attached. The access point is hard-wired into the wired infrastructure, and the radio antenna covers, approximately, a 300-foot radius. |
Technology is also opening up new areas of study. In addition to computational chemistry, a field made possible by the purchase of a "supercomputer," Festin and his biology colleagues were recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish the Biology Computing Facility at Hamilton. "To understand even the simplest living system may take many individuals years to complete," Festin said. "Computers have been used as tools by biologists for many years, but only recently have computers provided the capability to investigate problems previously thought to be unapproachable." [Bioinformatics]
Roback said most college and university campuses are quickly becoming wireless. At Hamilton, in addition to the Science Center the College has already invested in access points covering all of Burke Library, the entire science building, the Ferry Computer Science Building, Bienecke Student Activities Center, and much of McEwen Hall. "In order to utilize the wireless system, you need to have a wireless card in your laptop," Roback explained, "but (having) this card is becoming the standard on newer machines." The laptop card sends and receives signals from the base station.
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| Hamilton's debate team in Toronto. Adams sent "real time" images and video clips of the debate. |
Another wireless application found on campus is "Bluetooth," which is primarily used for handheld devices. John Adams, visiting professor of rhetoric and communication, uses Bluetooth to wirelessly transmit images and videoclips of students captured on the cell phone to a computer for subsequent posting on courses' Blackboard site. He also wirelessly transmits pictures and videoclips via cellphone as e-mail attachments directly to students. "I believe the students benefit from the immediacy of the visual feedback they receive," Adams explained. "Especially on the Web, a medium of communication that is now ubiquitous … they need to know how they appear so they can construct an effective presence that is suited to the medium." At the very least, the experience will acquaint students with what Adams believes will become a commonplace event. "Students are already engaging in 'cellphonography' from wireless devices capable of sending video clips across the Web and around the world seconds after they've been taken."
The Bluetooth receiver is good only for a 30 foot radius. Adams said, "It is mostly used as a quick way to get images and text from my handheld devices to the PC." He also use Bluetooth to update his electronic calendar and to copy texts for editing on his iPaq, a handeld device with all the features of a PC.
Hamilton's wireless system is based on convenience and mobility. "You can walk in and sit down in a common space, a lab or an office, and you're connected to the Web (and the world) without having to lug around cables or look for a jack," Roback said.
Although wireless is becoming more and more popular, it will not replace (but augment) the traditional wired facilities. The new Science Center will have nearly 1300 wired network jacks in addition to the planned wireless coverage. Roback explained that when a new facility is built or renovated, the College identifies all the space that is in need of voice or data communication -- both for the present and the future. "In general, with any new building, the pathways for wiring are planned in the construction phase to easily accommodate what the future might have in store," Roback said. "The new Science Center building was wired using the highest rated network cable to allow for speeds that are not currently used but may be used in the future."