Dr. Jason But - Teaching Portfolio
Use of Technology in Teaching
Telecommunications is a technical area where use of technology is prevalent.
In order to stay current in my teaching programs it is essential that I remain
current in the use of technology within the field. In this spirit, we should
also endeavour to make the best possible use of technology to improve teaching
as well as use as a topic of teaching. On this page I look at how we have tried
to use technology to improve the teaching outcomes of my Units - this could
involve using technology to improve the academic process/outcomes and could
also involve technology to decrease the administrative load in teaching
RULE - Remote Unix Learning Environment
The RULE infrastructure was developed at CAIA
to facilitate the teaching of Unix to our students, it is heavily used in HET306
(Unix for Telecommunications) and HET436 (Broadband Multimedia). The major problems
in teaching Unix skills are:
- Lack of space to install Unix only computer laboratories
- Security - lack of access to administrator level rights
- Access to Unix computers when lab would be used for another class
RULE seeks to overcome this by using a remote environment where the Unix machines
are locked away in a rack, students are allocated specific Unix hosts for the
duration of the semester which are then accessible via any Windows lab on site as
well as from home via the Swinburne VPN
The initial incarnation of RULE consists of a number of virtual Unix hosts running
on a single machine, future expansion (RULEv2) will deploy a number of physical
machines in a rack to overcome the limitations imposed by virtual computing, allowing
further exploration of the capabilities of Unix
The introduction of RULE has been extremely successful, annecdotal evidence shows
that RULE has encouraged a small but fixed percentage of our students to install Unix
on their home computers for further experimentation, while the use of live
demonstrations in the HET306 lectures has led to some students using their laptops
during lectures to immediately apply the what they have learnt to their allocated
RULE hosts. Future research may look at trying to quantify these benefits
The development and use of RULE has led to some publications and some presentations,
links are provided here:
RULE home page
I made a presentation about RULE at the
Swinburne
ADS Learning and Teaching Showcase
Armitage, G. and Harrop, W., "Teaching IP networking fundamentals in resource
constrained educational environments",
Australasian Journal of
Educational Technology, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 263-283, May 2005
Auto-marking Lab Exams
One key burden on the assessment of HET104/706 is
that of the practical Lab Exam. Students get a second attempt at the Lab Exam if
they fail on the first attempt and the Lab Exams are run during the Examination
period. Lab Exams can only be run in sessions of up to 24 students with two sessions
per day, this is to accomodate a two hour exam immediately followed by the marking
process (which takes three markers approx. 1 hour to complete) and resetting the
equipment for the following session. With a student count of 200-300 for each semester
and a typical resit rate of 50-65%, scheduling and running these exams is difficult:
- The same group of markers need to schedule and assess the HET424/708 (CCNA3/4)
Lab Exams using the same equipment
- Avoiding clashes
- Maximising equipment use
In recent semesters (2006, Semester 2 and 2007, Semester 1) I have modified the
details of the examination to make the requirements less ambiguous and also to
make the final result easier to assess mechanically (by reducing the possible set
of allowable answers). The eventual aim is to fully automate the procedure of
assessing and collecting student results. The primary benefits of this will be:
- Marking can be achieved by one person (instead of three) in 10-15 minutes
- Larger groups can be scheduled to sit the Lab Exam
- Free up markers to free up scheduling of this Lab Exam and HET424/708
- Remove the potential for incorrectly passing/failing a students lab exam due
to tiredness of the markers
Recently I have begun a process with the Faculty Technical Support staff to develop
an automated marking system for the HET104/706 Lab Exams. We are hoping to trial
the system in 2007 Semester 2. It is expected that when fully operational, this
will allow us to decrease the total workload:
- My Time - Reduce my (Lab Exam) marking workload from about 18 hours to
about 6 hours per semester
- Other Academic Staff Members - Reduce marking support from other
Academic Staff from about 10-25 hours to nothing per semester
- Sessional Staff - Will no longer be required for Lab Exam marking,
we would expect to save about 12 hours of sessional staff rates per semester
Auto-creation of Online NetLab Accounts
One of the administrative burdens on HET104/706 is
the creation of student accounts on the Cisco
NetAcademy and NetLab (note only
accessible from within Swinburne) websites. Both of these sites utilise a web
based account creation scheme where student account details must be individually
entered rather than bulk-uploaded through the use of a spreadsheet. Given our
typical student numbers in HET104/706 this often means that 200-300 student accounts
need to be created on each system at the start of semester.
This task is usually accomplished by our Faculty admin staff and typically takes
two complete working days. Recently we have begun a process between myself and the
Faculty Technical Support staff to develop a system where the NetLab accounts can
be automatically created using details from the student enrollment database. It is
expected for this to be complete for Semester 2 in 2007, potentially saving 1 day
of administrative staff time
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