A Multi-tier Client-Server Project Employing Mobile Clients

McDonald, Chris

The current generation of Computer Science students are far more likely to engage with computer networking through their own mobile, wireless devices than they are using wired, desktop computers. Traditional approaches to teaching computer networking evolved when the Internet was composed of fixed wired infrastructure, and this historical background still forms most of the material in contemporary textbooks on computer networking. Today\'s students have strong expectations that their computer networking units will have a significant focus on the networking devices and applications that they use daily - increasingly mobile and wireless. This paper describes a client-server networking project which requires students to design, implement, test, and analyse, a client-server software architecture, using both desktop computers, and handheld, mobile, wireless devices. The application domain of the project is location prediction using only WiFi beacon frames - an application familiar to most students, but one about which they initially had little curiosity. The paper then reflects on the many lessons learnt from this project, both from the perspective of the students and the professor.

Cite as: McDonald, Chris (2014). A Multi-tier Client-Server Project Employing Mobile Clients. In Proc. Sixteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2014) Auckland, New Zealand. CRPIT, 148. Whalley, J. and D\'Souza, D. Eds., ACS. 91-96

(from crpit.com) (local if available)