In the age of AI, teaching networking principles remains more important than learning protocols

A few weeks ago I took part in the SIGCOMM 2026 Education Workshop, provocatively titled “Networking Education in the Age of AI”.

Perhaps that title isn’t provocative to most educators today, but it is to me: I’ve repeatedly voiced my skepticism about AI in education (and other fields).

I was also a student in another “age of AI” in the mid-1980s, which was followed by one of several “AI Winters,” but of course that couldn’t happen again, right? Fortunately there was much more to the workshop than its title might suggest, and Larry and I came away with some fresh energy and new ideas on what we still need to do for our 7th edition.

I should mention that the event was a successful hybrid event, thanks to some serious effort by the organizers and support from SIGCOMM to use professional camera operators and audio gear.

There was no escaping the early wakeup call to attend an event eight time zones away, but at least I didn’t need to fly anywhere.

The large number of remote participants and high-quality setup ensured that the interactions never devolved into local-only discussions (although I missed the coffee breaks).

I’m going to have to leave out a lot of what was good about the workshop (especially since I only joined at lunchtime) but I recommend taking a look at the accepted papers and artifacts to get a sense of the level of creativity and enthusiasm that was brought to the occasion.

Notably, the papers were not actually presented; in some cases they were summarized or provided a jumping off point for a discussion.

But this was a real working session, not a set of paper presentations.

Engaging students with design One highlight for me was co-chairing an open mic session with Jim Kurose.

Jim’s networking book (co-authored with Ken Ross) is the leader in our field, with Computer Networks: A Systems Approach at best a distant second.

In a discussion about different teaching approaches including the use of labs as a primary teaching tool, I asked a question about the role of programming assignments in driving adoption of a textbook, and Jim’s answer was something like “programming exercises, Wireshark labs, etc.—all important, but don’t underestimate the value of nice, animated PowerPoint slides.” It’s a reminder that we have more work to do than just writing a book if we want it to be chosen for classroom instruction.

One reason this is challenging is that neither of us has taught using our book for a long time – in my case, all my classroom teaching was in graduate classes that used systems papers rather than a textbook as the assigned reading.

There were a dozen speakers in the open mic session, all of whom had something worthwhile to say, but I’ll highlight a few things that stuck with me.