INTEGRATING THE CLASSROOM AND THE LABORATORY IN THE TEACHING OF COMPUTER NETWORKS

The educational program of Electronics and Communications Engineering (IEC by its name in Spanish) of the Universidad Veracruzana (UV) in México, includes the area of computing, with subjects such as Data Transmission (DT) and Computer Networks (CN). These courses are usually offered to students currently enrolled in their third year of undergraduate studies, and have a high content of concepts whose application in professional practice are of great value. Teaching experience in these courses has highlighted the advantages of being able to integrate the theoretical work with the practical work in the same space, in other words, the integration of the classroom and the laboratory.
Formally, the addressed topics in each course are set out in the Curriculum for each subject. The evaluation criteria allow the grading of the acquired knowledge and skills developed by students throughout the scholar period through the submission of exams, the development of practices, the elaboration of documentary research reports from reputable sources and the implementation of projects.
It is in the implementation of projects, the part of the courses in which, working together, students are faced with situations similar to those of professional work, having the need to interact with their colleagues in specific cases resolution, which lead to implement computer networks. From group analysis of the case to solve, usually arise two or more proposals of solution, they analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each, and reach a joint solution proposal. Students then proceed to the construction and testing of cables, device interconnection is performed and configuration of computers and network equipment is done. Subsequently, the network is tested in operation. Sometimes it is necessary to make some minor corrections. The project culminates with the elaboration and delivery of a report of the work done.
This paper presents the results of the work described above, applied to groups of subjects DT and CN, located in semesters 5 and 6 of the IEC program in different scholar periods.