Towards the Integration of Emerging Technologies as Support for the Teaching and Learning Model in Higher Education

Abstract

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 impacted the entire world, but the significant challenges to be faced during this crisis opened an opportunity for organizations to evolve toward a digital transformation. Educational institutions were a concrete example of the use of technologies, which were abruptly incorporated into the teaching–learning model. Although this initiative was initially a challenge for teachers and students, it has now become a tool for new innovative teaching models, such as hybrid, online, and flexible models. The impact of technology used in education has been beneficial due to emerging technologies (virtual reality, augmented reality, games, web applications, mobile applications, etc.), which have served as tools to facilitate and motivate studying. These educational trends contribute directly to the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). This research analyzes whether the use of a web application, as a support in the educational model, can make students better understand the subjects of network infrastructure and be more efficient when configuring equipment in a data network. Therefore, this research is based on the design of an educational web application based on Python libraries, which allows the configuration of networking equipment based on the concept of network automation with the application of a graphical user interface (GUI). The web application can be deployed with communication equipment or in conjunction with the GNS3 simulator. This versatility allows this web tool to be applied to the teaching of network equipment configuration in any mode of study (classroom, online, hybrid, or flexible). The results obtained in this research are encouraging and open the way for the implementation of network automation and Python libraries for educational applications that can be important tools within the teaching and learning models of higher education.