Using the 5G 8K-quality live stream to improve Finnish cities’ functions, the school infrastructure, and the learning experience : What does the new technology have to offer for the Finnish cities and school systems?

Abstract

The global digitalization and the rapid pace of network development have created a massive demand for technology manufacturers to develop new devices and software to improve the easiness and effectiveness of businesses and individuals. The recent launch of fifth generation (5G) networks has offered unforeseen possibilities with more efficient and powerful network. As the global pandemic of corona virus impacted heavily around the world, the school system faced a challenge on how to arrange remote schooling of the students as efficiently as possible without a decrease in the quality of teaching or the students’ motivation to study. With the new technology and 5G-network, students and teachers were able to test new methods of studying and teaching.

The aim of this thesis is to identify the possibilities and challenges of the 5G 8K-quality 360-degree live stream and how to use it to improve the current school infrastructure and learning experience of the students. To gain wide understanding of the current mindset of the students, the data covered in this thesis, was gathered after the experiments in participating schools. The students’ answers from the question forms and technical input from the streaming site are covered and analysed in this thesis. The gathered knowledge from the experiments is also used to create a new learning theory which can be seen as a more suitable option for modern era of studying when compared to the traditional learning theories.

The results of this thesis are limited but directional. They show that the students are already ready to try modern ways of studying as majority of students were interested in using the 5G 8K-live stream in their future studies as well. The participating students also gave important insight on which type of events or lectures they would be interested to watch in the future with the new technology. The identified challenges of the used technology were mainly related to the technical issues. The recently deployed 5G-network and its requirements are significantly higher when compared to the previous networks which caused several issues in the experiments of this thesis’ project as well. It was discovered that the best possible outcome was achieved when the stream was sent from outdoors with stable and fast internet connection. However, the used equipment in participating schools was not on the necessary level to fully benefit from the ultra-high streaming quality of 8K.

Based on the results, it was possible to build a new learning theory which better describes the current era of studying. This was made by connecting useful parts of the traditional leaning theories of behaviourism, connectivism, constructivism and humanistic learning theory.

With the world heading towards more digital world, there is a massive need for improving and developing our infrastructure to meet the new requirements and achieve the full potential of the digital tools. This thesis introduces different possibilities that could be used in the future and describes the current limitations of the new technology.