Using Networks to Teach About Networks

Summary

Computer networks have become a common utility and the Internet provides new opportunities for education. In addition, we see an increasing deviation of the deployed Internet from the basic principles driving the design of computer networks. All this has an impact on how we educate young minds in computer networking and hence it is required to rethink how education in computer networking should be organized, which topics are essential to cover and which ones are merely nice illustrations of core concepts. Furthermore, it seems necessary to think about using the Internet itself more intensively to develop new educational materials. In order to start a discussion of such educational aspects, a Dagstuhl seminar titled "Using Networks to Teach About Networks" has been organized. Some questions discussed during the seminar were:

• Which topics should be taught in a typical undergraduate course? What are the essential basic principles that need to be understood? Which topics should be covered in a typical graduate course? How to deal with the fact that architectural concepts are often violated in real networks?
• How should topics be taught? How to best use the Internet for teaching how the Internet works? How can we more easily ’mesh’ teaching materials? Can we better organize the sharing of video content, assignments, or experimental setups? Do we need an open source platform for teaching materials? What about open source books on computer networks replacing traditional textbooks?
• What is the experience with modern teaching styles, such as pure online courses like MOOCs or flipped classrooms? Which role should project work play? How can novel teaching ideas best be leveraged and integrated into existing educational concepts?