Abstract
Digital classrooms today are commonly based on Ethernet LANs. However, use of tablets or notebooks with touch screens is also becoming increasingly popular. Many such devices do not have LAN plugs. WLANs also permit mobility which increases flexibility of educational process. This paper shows that WLANs are intrinsically less reliable and one should be careful when designing digital classrooms based entirely on WLANs. Among other conclusions, this paper shows that for classes of up to 40 students - the official upper limit for elementary school classes in Japan - one needs to split the class into at least two groups each served by a separate wireless router. Although this paper is based on the specific example of using WLANs in digital classrooms, experimental setup and findings are generic and can cover a wide range of web applications running over a shared wireless medium.
