MANETs — Mobile Ad Hoc Networks — offer an innovative, effective way for educators and others facilitate the connection of familiar mobile technologies (typically wireless phones or laptops) into temporary, peer-to-peer networks that can be self-forming, self-healing, on-demand and independent of physical network infrastructure.
The World Bank Group suggests that “More households in developing countries own a mobile phone than have access to electricity or clean water, and nearly 70 percent of the bottom fifth of the population in developing countries own a mobile phone.” But the ubiquity of mobile phones does not necessarily imply a similar abundance of routers, switches, wi-fi hubs, home internet service or cellular data.
Networks that can form between students in physical proximity, mediated by software and built over common Bluetooth or wi-fi hardware would enable students to collaborate, share screens and resources, access files, form workgroups, “borrow” peripherals connected to a node (camera, printer, internet connection) or communicate. Educators could leverage these ad hoc networks to encourage social learning, group cooperation, democratic problem solving or peer teaching.
No switches to fail, no routers to crash, no cable to break, and no IT specialist required! With a free connectivity app, working on the already existing abundance of connectable gadgets, the entire network is essentially cost-free.
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Ichaba, Mutuma. (2018). Advancing Education System through Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) in the Developing Countries.
Digital Dividends — Overview. (2016). Retrieved January 24, 2021, from http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/961621467994698644/pdf/102724-WDR-WDR2016Overview-ENGLISH-WebResBox-394840B-OUO-9.pdf
Hi Lyndsay! In this context, it would refer to a network that can detect when a node is unreachable and fix that without the need for human intervention. Like if your internet connection borks, but repairs your connection without you having to call Rogers (or Bell, or Cogeco, or whoever is your local Household God).
For what it’s worth, this has typically, but not always, been my experience with my own network provider — if their (say) DNS goes down, when it comes back online my service is restored without me having to make a phone call.
The impacts this had on education accessibility are huge! Great find, Sean, and thanks for sharing.
Can you elaborate a bit more on what self-healing means in this context?