January 10, 2006 By Jason Deign, News@Cisco How do you prepare today's engineering students for the commercial realities of a future ever more dependent on IP networks? This is a question that Jaime Lloret Mauri, Cisco Networking Academy® Program instructor at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV) in Spain, faces daily. It is also a question that is becoming more important around the world as communities and nations look to technology to boost productivity and competitiveness. In Spain alone, for example, an extra 10,800 people were needed in 2005 to meet the demand for advanced technology skills, according to a Cisco Systems®-sponsored study by IDC. Lloret is one of more than 30,000 Networking Academy program instructors worldwide who are at the frontline of delivering these vital skills, by teaching students how to design, build and maintain computer networks. The secret formula, says Lloret, who has published several papers about educational strategies in European Society for Engineering Education conferences, is that there is no secret formula. "As an instructor, you have to know what educational strategy to employ depending on the student in front of you," he points out. Lloret, 33, is one of three founder instructors at the UPV's Networking Academy program, which was awarded the title of 'Best Cisco Training Center' in 2005, as well as teaching for the university's communications department at the Higher Polytechnic School of Gandia. In common with other instructors, he is keen to point out that he has not experienced an average day. But many features of his work are replicated in Networking Academy programs across the world. "I spend about 50 percent of my time respectively on university and Networking Academy program teaching," he says. "The university teaching is very theoretical, with the objective of giving students a solid foundation of knowledge. The Networking Academy program complements this, not just from a practical perspective but also in helping develop each person's skills. "The idea is to expose students to real-life problems and give them a sense of what it is like to work in a commercial environment." Lloret is well qualified to impart such experience. Before helping set up the UPV Networking Academy program, and after gaining a degree in Physical Sciences from the Universitat de València in 1997, he worked as a technical troubleshooter for BEEP, Spain's largest IT distributor. In 1999 he also finished a Masters in Corporate Networks and Systems Integration, which he currently teaches. Meanwhile, over a four year span, his job brought him into contact with a range of networking challenges in small, mid-sized and large businesses, and also led him into tutoring as clients requested IT training alongside the technologies they were installing. He worked alongside five local businesses in helping train unemployed people in IT when the opportunity arose to create Valencia's second regional Networking Academy program, the fifth in Spain. "Two of my colleagues and I were certified as trainers and immediately started helping people gain new skills. There were no real networking courses and many of our students had just left university only to find they were unable to get work." In 2001, Lloret took a job as associate professor at UPV. After a year, he was able to convince the university's Professor Manuel Esteve, to host the Networking Academy program. Esteve is now the program's legal main contact at the institution. To this day, however, the program remains very different to standard university courses. Teaching is much more highly focused, with around 25 students per class, compared to, say, 75 for UPV classes. Plus Lloret and his colleagues ensure the emphasis is very much on practical problem-solving. "In university studies there is a lot of competition, so I try to foster team-working with my Networking Academy program students," he says. "And when teaching, I give students time limits. After all, if you are out there in the real world and you cannot fix a problem within, say, a two-hour deadline, you are fired. Besides," he grins, "it makes the classes a lot more interesting." Many of the networking problems that he sets his students are based on ones that he has faced in a commercial environment. Besides his work for businesses, Lloret was responsible for designing the UPV's wireless coverage, which now covers 86 percent of the 50 buildings across the two kilometer-square campus. As part of the project, Lloret designed a formula that allowed him to work out the optimum positioning of wireless access points, without having to resort to trial and error, shaving months off the roll out time. Lloret completed higher training ('ciclo superior') in Electronic Engineering in 2003. Today he is a regular contributor to a number of important technology bodies and panels, including the World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society, the International Association of Science and Technology for Development and the International Conference on Networking and Services 2006 Technical Program Committee. He is also an author of technical papers, with articles being published in the Cisco Internet Protocol Journal. "An instructor has to be in touch with new emerging technologies, observing the latest market trends, reading technical magazines, Web news and so on," he says. And as someone who has reached eminence in his chosen field, he is justifiably proud of helping his students to do the same. "Through my links with business, I often get asked to help fill job vacancies, so I am able to show students that there are real work opportunities out there," he says. "It is a real buzz to see a student gain interest and overcome their barriers as part of the Networking Academy program tuition." Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain. |
