"....semua makhluk ciptaan Tuhan samada manusia,binatang,tumbuhan, alam semulajadi dan sebagainya,saling perlu memerlukan,saling bantu-membantu kerana mereka berkait,terikat antara satu sama lain dalam satu kitaran yang berhubungan. Justeru, jangan diputuskan ikatan itu, kelak, seluruh kitaran akan musnah..." Ahmad Rais Johari
An outfit called Arista Networks — co-founded by inaugural Sun Microsystems employee Andreas von Bechtolsheim — is already offering hardware switch designed specifically for data centers that use software-defined networking, which involves moving many traditional networking tasks off of expensive hardware and into software.
Various other outfits are offering tools for software-defined networking, including Nicera and Big Switch Networks. The idea was developed in response to networking giants such as Cisco and HP, which in many ways control corporate networks because they control the networking hardware. Software-defined networking, built atop protocols such as OpenFlow, seeks to remove that control.
“It was eye-opening,” Kyle Forster, an ex-Cisco employee and a co-founder of Big Switch Networks, told us last year, referring to the first time he looked at the research that became OpenFlow. “So many of the intractable problems we faced at Cisco just felt so easy.”
Essentially, OpenFlow separates networking into one plane that handles data and another that controls its movement. This is the way cellular networks have worked for years, but it was revolution in the data center networking business. The control plane could be run on standard servers, and then the data center plane could be run by fairly ordinary high-speed networking chips — rather than lots of fancy new hardware
OpenFlow is a communications protocol that gives access to the forwarding plane of anetwork switch or router over the network.[1] In simpler terms, OpenFlow allows the path of network packets through the network of switches to be determined by software running on a separate server. This separation of the control from the forwarding allows for more sophisticated traffic management than what is feasible using access control lists (ACL)s and routing protocols. Its inventors consider OpenFlow an enabler of "Software Defined Networking".[2]
OpenFlow has been implemented by a number of network switch and router vendors including Brocade Communications[3], Arista Networks, Cisco, Extreme Networks, IBM,Juniper Networks, Hewlett-Packard, and NEC.[4] Some network control planeimplementations use the protocol to manage the network forwarding elements.[5] OpenFlow is mainly used between the switch and controller on a secure channel.
Version 1.1.0 of the OpenFlow protocol was released on February 28, 2011 and is still maintained at openflow.org, but new development of the standard was managed by theOpen Networking Foundation.[6]
Indiana University in May 2011 launched the SDN Interoperability Lab in conjunction with the Open Networking Foundation to test how well different vendors' Software-Defined Networking and OpenFlow products work together.
In February of 2012, Big Switch Networks released an open source package for OpenFlow software. The company has released Floodlight, an Apache-licensed open sourceOpenFlow Controller. [7]
In February 2012 HP said it is taking its first leap into OpenFlow-enabled network equipment, supporting the standard on 16 of its Ethernet switch products as it attempts to gain a foothold in a market likely to receive significant attention.
I sometimes hear that the classroom of today looks and functions much like the classroom of the 19th century— desks lined up in neat rows, facing the central authority of the teacher and a chalkboard (or, for a contemporary twist, a whiteboard or screen.) Is this model, born of the industrial age, the best way to meet the educational challenges of the future? What do we see as the college classroom of the future: a studio? a reconfigurable space with flexible seating and no center stage? virtual collaborative spaces, with learners connected via their own devices?
As Rice University celebrates its centennial and looks forward to its next 100 years, it hosted a dialogue on “ The Future of the Research University in a Global Age” at the De Lange Conference on February 27-28. The conference featured presentations by current and former university presidents such as James Duderstadt of the University of Michigan, Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania, and Charles Vest of MIT, as well as by Burton McMurtry, former chairman of the board at Stanford and Rice trustee emeritus; leading thinkers on higher education and learning such as John Seely Brown,Cathy Davidson and Robert Zemsky; and current and former leaders of organizations promoting research and education, such as Rita Colwell, former director of the NSF, and Hunter Rawlings of the Association of American Universities (also former president of Cornell and the University of Iowa). While the speakers discussed many challenges facing higher education, they also articulated strategies for shaping twenty-first century learning and pointed to some innovative models.
In many ways, universities’ present and near future seem gloomy. Although many Americans think of the US as being number one in education, Charles Vest presented OECD statistics telling a different story, with the US ranking 11th among OECD nations in the percentage of young adults with high school diplomas, 16th in the rate of college completion, and 48th in the quality of K-12 math and science education. According to Hunter Rawlings, 41 states cut funding for higher education in the last year. With declining state support, tuition costs are rising, placing a college education further out of reach for many people. Amy Gutmann presented figures showing that wealthy students are vastly over-represented at elite institutions even when controlling for qualifications. According to Rawlings, higher education is now perceived as a “private interest” rather than a public good. With mounting economic pressures, the public views the purpose of college as career preparation rather than as shaping educated citizens. In addition, studies such as Academically Adrift have raised concerns that students don’t learn much in college.
In the face of public skepticism about the value of higher education, Rawlings called on universities to renew their commitment to undergraduate education by rewarding teaching as much as research and drawing on learning science research in designing effective pedagogy. As Rawlings noted, some universities are recognizing the need to re-focus on undergraduate education; for example, Stanford recently released a report onThe Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford embracing “adaptive learning,” the ability to “integrate” one’s education and experience to tackle new challenges (13). Gutmann likewise emphasized the need to integrate knowledge across disciplines, questioning the artificial division between liberal and professional education and speaking to the importance of cross-disciplinary work. For example, the Penn Integrates Knowledge program recruits faculty whose research and teaching transcend disciplinary boundaries. Such a cross-disciplinary approach is essential in addressing “thorny challenges” like reforming health care, which involves policy, ethics, economics, business, science, nursing and medicine. Speakers cited models for innovative pedagogy, such as Johns Hopkins’ Gateway Science Initiatives, which promotes active learning in introductory science courses; Michigan’s “high-touch,” interactive approaches to teaching calculus; and the University of Minnesota Rochester’s emphasis on peer instruction and concept-driven learning over lectures. Vest suggested that “on-campus personalized learning” (such as CMU’s Open Learning Initiative) holds promise for delivering better learning at a lower cost, since it combines faculty guidance with technologies that are based upon learning science research, assessing the learner’s progress and providing customized exercises and support. But how can we disseminate and scale up such approaches, especially given resource constraints?
In part, we need to rethink how we conceive of education. Cathy Davidson and John Seely Brown (JSB) articulated learning frameworks for the fluid, dynamic Digital Age rather than the Industrial Age. Davidson explained that many of the practices we associate with education, including multiple choice tests and attention to task, were designed to serve the needs of the Industrial Age for standardization and a regulated labor force. In contrast, the Digital Age calls for mash-ups, customization, multi-tasking, data mining, and collaboration by difference. Davidson suggested that we should ensure that kids know how to code (and thus understand how technical systems work), enable students to take control of their own learning (such as by helping to design the syllabus and to lead the class), and devise more nuanced, flexible, peer-driven assessments. Asking “are we preparing students for the interdisciplinary approach necessary to solving grand challenges?,” JSB advocated for entrepreneurial, playful approaches to learning. He celebrated the creative problem-solving represented by design practices, which bring together thinking and doing (“head and hand”), provide an environment where it is OK to fail, and engage in peer and collective critiquing to promote new perspectives. Likewise, Vest (who was president of MIT when it launched the Open Course Ware initiative) suggested that universities can help to solve grand challenges by bringing together bits and brains, providing open access to data and enabling people to learn and solve problems.
Ultimately the conference suggested to me the need to “hack” higher education, to question traditional ways of operating and to play with creative solutions to these challenges. Throughout the entire conference, speakers emphasized the need to tackle “wicked problems” such as the Grand Challenges for Engineering (which includes “advancing personalized learning”). Of course, solving such problems requires the skills and insights of people from many disciplines and backgrounds; indeed, Vest offered a preview of a new grand challenge program, which will include partners from the UK and China and extend to disciplines in addition to engineering. The final session of the De Lange Conference, held jointly with the National Academy of Engineering, focused on “Engineering for Impact: Effecting Sustainable Change in the Developing World” and illustrated the promise of creative, user-focused, collaborative processes leading to low-cost, easy-to-use solutions in areas such as health care and energy. We can also see such a spirit of experimentation and innovation in blogs such as ProfHacker and Hack Education, books such as Hacking the Academy, funding programs such as Digital Media and Learning Competition and the Next Generation Learning Challenges, and programs such as the NITLE Innovation Studio (which I am coordinating).
So, ProfHacker readers, what would it take to “hack” thorny problems facing higher ed, such as expanding access to an affordable college education, improving learning, or devising more meaningful assessments?
