title: Design and implementation of a deviceindependent platform for mobile learning I am reading this while flying from KL to Bintulu. It's now Wednesday, 6 October 2010. 1.1 Forms of Education Today, there are two forms of education and training. One is conventional education and the other is "distance education". In conventional education, the learners are assembled in a class, in a particular place, at a particular time and with a particular curriculum and taught by a teacher. Unlike conventional education, in distance education there is no particular class, and no particular time. In this form, teachers and learners can communicate at their own choice of time by exchanging either printed or electronic media, or through technology in a real-time communication [33]. In this system, the teacher is separated from the learner and the learner from the learning group [24]. The next development of distance education was e-learning. E-learning which means "the provision of education and training electronically, on the Internet and the Web" [24], removes boundaries of the classes, saves costs of education and makes education available at every time and just for the right person. E-learning helps both instructors and learners to customize and personalize learning content targeted toward enhanced performance. It enables us to take various electronic courses as much as we want and we need. With e-learning, we take advantage of the evolving technologies in Internet including hyper text, video, audio, email, chat, discussion panel and conference system and combine them together, to make a virtual learning environment which has been very successful in the last decade. The following statistics presented in [24] demonstrate the impact of e-learning as a major sector in education and training: • "There were about one million courses on the Internet, 30,000 of them complying with a scientific definition of online, 70,000 of these were listed on the Telecampus portal, with many of them making didactic use of the World Wide Web" • "WebCT kernel alone was used by 5,100,000 students in 123,000 courses, developed by 33,000 university and college faculty at 1,100 institutions in 48 countries" Comments: I wonder what is the current statistics pertaining to e-learning and m-learning. Recently, we have seen significant advancements in mobile technologies and mobile devices. In fact, we have entered in an era of global mobile communication. We are in the Mobile age. This provides us a great opportunity for a new transformation from "electronic" to "mobile" services. As we can see today ebusiness is moving to m-business and e-learning to m-learning. M-learning is becoming the third form of education and training. However, there are several issues in mobile learning. For instance, there are various definitions about m-learning. In addition, given the wide varieties of mobile devices available with different capabilities and constraints, there are many technical challenges in developing mobile learning systems. These challenges include device-independent delivery of content, support for a wide variety of mobile devices, and reusability of educational materials. Hence, in this thesis, we consider these issues. We propose a mobile learning model and the design and implementation of a system to demonstrate that it is possible to create a device-independent mobile learning system for educators and learners that facilitates teaching, learning, and supports a wide variety of mobile devices. 1.2 Mobile Technology and Mobile Learning By the end of 2007, it is estimated there will be 3 billion mobile subscribers world wide [8] whereas the number of PC users worldwide is expected to reach 1 billion by 2010 [9]. This means more people have mobile phones than PCs. People are very comfortable with their cell phones because of mobility, size and weight. They support different capabilities and services such as voice, SMS for text messaging, email, Internet, MMS for sending, receiving photos, videos, and camera for taking pictures. They can also act as an mp3 player and a mass storage of music, photos, images, and documents. In other words, mobile phones have progressed as a device for both communication and entertainment. However, they still have lots of potential for new additional revolutionary applications and usages. Mobile learning utilizes mobile devices into learning. The term mobile device includes not only cell phones, smart phones and PDAs, but also every portable device which has mobility and portability like laptops and tablet PCs although there are some debates on the inclusion of tablet PCs and laptops in mobile learning [28]. Comments: There are a multitude of definitions on mobile learning. I need to show the similarity and diversity of meanings in my Dissertation. Generally, there are various definitions of mobile learning given in [3], including: "Mobile Learning is e-leaming through mobile computational devices: Palms, Windows CE machines, even your digital cell phone." "The term mobile learning (m-learning) refers to the use of mobile and handheld IT devices, such as PDAs, mobile phones, laptops and tablet PCs, "According to software vendors, mobile learning is 'the point at which mobile computing and e-leaming intersect to produce an anytime, anywhere learning experience.' Translation: It's the ability to enjoy an educational moment from a cell phone or personal digital assistant (PDA)." We can consider these definitions from two aspects: * the use of mobile handheld devices in mobile learning, and * mobile learning (mlearning) is a natural extension of e-learning that goes beyond the e-leaming experience and makes learning even more available and accessible [25]. Futurist Wayne Hodgins said, mobile learning provides "just the right content for the right person in the right place on just the right device at just the right time" [14]. 1.3 Opportunities in Mobile Learning 1. What is the potential of mobile technology to establish pervasive learning environments? 2. What opportunities will mobile learning offer? 1.3.1 Potential of Mobile Technology for Learning Mark Weiser [15, 29], the father of pervasive computing, talked about a third way of computing, in which technology will be hidden in the background of our daily lives. This means technology will support us at every time, in every where and we always have access to it. This definition can be extended for pervasive learning as well. In pervasive learning, education will be available for all people in all scopes from toddlers to seniors, even people who are hard-to-reach, people in rural areas with limited learning resources or people who have been geographically isolated. However, in order to establish pervasive learning environments, we take the following items into account:
• We need pervasive communication networks. Recently, we have seen advancements in wireless LANs like WiFi. But they are only available in hotspots. However, according to some statistics [8], the number of mobile users is growing exponentially and this requires the exponential growth of wireless networks as well. Hence, in the near future the wireless infrastructure will cover many places. Another phenomenon about to happen is the arrival of 3G technologies. These technologies eliminate many of the encountered obstacles in bandwidth, speed, connectivity, data transfer rate and create a great opportunity to establish pervasive environments. • We need connected devices. Ideally, in pervasive computing and consequently in pervasive learning we should have access to technology at any time, from any where. Hence, mobility and portability are two important requirements of connected devices in the context of pervasive computing. Comments: Even 3G is old technology. Now, it is 3GX technology. Mobile operators in Malaysia are offering 3GX, 3G, EDGE and GPRS. Speeds differ very much between 3GX and the snail-speed of GPRS. 3GX enable web and WAP, whereas GPRS is only suitable for WAP. Mobile devices have lots of potential in establishing pervasive learning environments: o Today, mobile devices are light-weight, cheap, small in size, and portable. They support lots of capabilities and services and can be always carried by people. In other words, mobile devices have remarkably improved as a multi purpose device for communication and entertainment, o Mobiles are ubiquitous today. So far, there is a high rate of mobile phone ownership and still increasing, o Another important aspect to consider is the personal nature of mobile phones which are used as a device for entertainment, communication and building relationships with friends. In fact, the young define their cell phones as a personal space that can give them an opportunity to communicate with friends, explore new relationships and provide a sense of freedom. by Niazi, Razieh, M.Sc., University of Guelph (Canada), 2008 |
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
20101006 - Niazi's MSc Dissertation - part 1
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