Work in progress - mobile computers in a closed lab environment for CS majors

Abstract

The paper describes the usage of mobile laptop computers in closed labs for the Computer Science majors. The Computer Science Department at Salem State College, Salem, MA modified the Computer Science major curriculum in 2001 to add closed labs to all appropriate Computer Science major and minor courses (more then sixty percent of the total number of courses taught). One of the consequences of this decision was the need to conduct several simultaneous closed and open labs in parallel. The existing laboratory infrastructure was insufficient to support this additional load and we decided to introduce a laptop based mobile lab to satisfy the increased computer hardware and lab space requirements. We describe the steps taken to implement the lab and present the analysis of the results and the problems encountered during the two-year usage of this new teaching environment.