From online poker to instant messaging, laptops equipped with wireless Internet access in classrooms can be used for purposes other than academic enrichment.
But could they also be a safety concern?
Chemistry professor Paul Engelking first became interested in the issue of wireless access in classrooms fall term, when he taught general chemistry for the first time in years. While walking around the classroom helping students one day, he noticed that a student was using a laptop computer to play poker on the Internet instead of working on an assigned problem.
“That sort of was discouraging, that they were engaged in a game of Texas Hold ‘Em,” Engelking said.
Engelking also said he heard complaints from students about being distracted by images unrelated to class on the laptop screens of other students sitting in front of them.
In October, Engelking filed a preliminary notice for a motion to have the University Senate debate the possibility of removing wireless
Internet from classrooms. He pulled the motion because University Senate President Peter Keyes told him to do more background research on the issue, Engelking said.
Engelking realized it would be impossible to shut off wireless access in classrooms without shutting off access to areas outside classrooms.
Dale Smith, director of network services for the University, said that while his office can have a general idea of where wireless Internet use on campus is high, it has no way to tell whether someone is using a laptop inside a classroom or in the hallway outside the classroom.
All but a few buildings on campus have wireless Internet access at least in most high traffic areas, according to a map produced by the University InfoGraphics Lab.
In his background research for a motion, Engelking also found that some wireless networks use the same kind of wavelengths as microwave ovens, which he became concerned about.
“Meat is a lot like people, and you cook meat in a microwave oven,” Engelking said.
A microwave oven operates at 700 to 1,000 watts of power, and if everyone in a large lecture hall seating hundreds of people operated a wireless device at full power, that could produce hundreds of watts of power, Engelking said.
“You could be sitting at a fraction of the power level in a microwave oven, certainly above acceptable leakage levels for a microwave oven,” Engelking said.
Smith said the intensity of emissions from wireless devices is generally limited to 100 milliwatts, or one-tenth of a watt. This is less than the limit for cell phones, and Smith said he does not know of any health consequences from wireless devices.
Smith said the campus wireless network accepts three types of wireless cards: 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g. The most commonly used cards are 802.11b and 802.11g, which run on the same 2.4 gigahertz band as cordless phones.
The 802.11a cards operate on the 5 gigahertz band that microwave ovens run on. In a recent sampling of 6,000 computers connected to University wireless networks, only four used the 5 gigahertz band, Smith said.
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