20101009 - Niazi's Dissertation - part 5 - proposed Mobile Learning Platform

Reading & blogging this while inside the aircraft flying BTU-KUL…evening of Sat 9 Oct 2010. Chapter 4 Proposed Platform 4.1 Goals and Platform Specifications Our approach is the integration of formal education into our daily lives. In other words, we want to design and develop a mobile learning platform which supports both learners and educators. Using this platform, learners are able to manage their courses, take quizzes, access course materials, labs, assignments and view their scores, messages and notifications from any target device. In addition, our platform provides tools for educators to create their educational materials for both PC platform and mobile device platforms. Technically, we provide some strategies for device-independent delivery of the educational materials. Target devices in our platform include cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, tablet PCs, laptops and PCs. Comments: Plus point is the mobile learning platform is meant for a variety of mobile devices. This is important so that learners using mobile phones to computers Basically, we consider our platform with the following characteristics: • Creating educational materials We believe that creating educational materials including course materials, quizzes, and labs should be done once by the instructor. Then the same content should be transformed into the various target devices in the compatible formats just by clicking a button. • Delivery of materials Our platform supports both offline and online learning. This means our platform is able to deliver educational materials online as well as offline. In the case of online learning, delivery of materials to mobile devices is done in XML format which is a standard and universal data format. On the other hand, for offline learning there are some challenges, including the variety of cell phones. Students have different brands of cell phones with different capabilities and constraints. Our platform is able to support this variety. In other word, our platform provides device-independent delivery. In both cases of offline and online learning, it is necessary to use the minimum bandwidth as well as the minimum memory usage that consequently leads to less power consumption. Hence, in design and development of our platform, we have considered these three factors to keep them at a minimum. • Tracking and evaluating students' progress This part provides some facilities to give feedback to student's works such as displaying correct answers when a student submits his/her quiz, analyzing, grading the quiz, and sending the result back to the instructor (optional). Also, students are able to try a quiz "n" time depending on the trial number defined by an instructor. • Learning Management System (LMS) LMS is a Web-based learning management system which allows all educators to access, assemble, package and redistribute educational materials including content, labs information, quizzes and assignments. Also, it enables students to manage their courses, access the content and educational materials generated by instructors. In addition, a mobile version of LMS (mobiLMS) available for online learning is supported in our platform. This mobiLMS which is deployed on mobile phone devices enables learners to connect to our server and uses educational materials online. • Making educational materials knowledge-based It offers instructors the opportunity to share their quizzes with other instructors. When instructors create their learning materials like quizzes, they have a chance to make their quizzes knowledge-based. If they take this opportunity; their quizzes will be saved in a knowledge-based database. This capability gives other instructors the chance to create their quizzes from this knowledge-based database randomly with respect to their keywords and topics searched, although they still have a chance to provide their quizzes from scratch. • Supporting Learning Metadata All educational materials are saved as XML files managed by the file management. Also, the platform has the capability to keep track of courses, content materials, labs, assignments, quizzes and their relationships for each instructor as metadata in the XML format. • Content distribution capability This capability offers instructors the ability to create their educational materials like lecture notes, labs, quizzes once, then generate and distribute them in different formats including XML, HTML, XHTML, WML, J2ME Midlet for Java-enabled devices and Blackberry API code for Blackberry devices. Comments: The turbulence has been really bad. I am feeling slightly dizzy and groggy. Pilot is descending the aircraft searching for better flying condition. I suppose we are flying over South China Sea. …Now getting better. Thank God. Praise the Lord. 4.2 Proposed Platform Architecture We divide our proposed architecture into two levels (Mobile Learning Management System and Electronic Learning Management System) and 4 different layers (storage layer, management layer, logic layer and presentation layer). Figure 4.1 shows the architecture of our proposed platform: mobiLMS is a platform to support online mobile learning. Its responsibility is to manage courses, discover educational materials for each course, display scores, messages, notifications, grade quizzes, and render educational materials adaptive to mobile devices. Technically, we summarize the mobiLMS into the following units: • Mobile Learning Content Management: it is used to manage courses. • Mobile Learning Content Presentation: it is responsible for presenting educational materials adaptive to mobile devices. • Context Discovery: its responsibility is to discover the context including the available courses, lectures and quizzes. • Coursework Analysis: it analyzes coursework, assigns grades, displays correct answers, and sends results to instructors. eLMS is a Web-based Learning Management System categorized into the 4 following layers: • Presentation Layer: this layer is responsible for converting generated learning materials to the Web browser adaptive form. In this layer, we use stylesheet, XSL, to convert these materials in the XML format (generated in the logic layer) to the HTML. • Logic Layer: this layer mostly provides and performs functions to generate, compile, pre-verify, pack and deliver educational materials in different formats including XML, WML, XHTML, J2ME Midlet and Blackberry API code. Technically, the functions in this layer are available to instructors. The folio wings describe these functions: o Content Generator: it has the responsibility for converting lectures provided in Microsoft Power Point into the WML, XHTML, XML, J2ME Midlet, and Blackberry API compatible source code. o Quiz Generator: it has the responsibility for converting quiz instructor-specified inputs into the WML, XHTML, XML, J2ME Midlet, and Blackberry API compatible source code. o Compile Engine: it has the responsibility for compiling Java source codes to Java bytecode class files. Our architecture supports two kinds of compiler; J2ME compiler and Blackberry API compiler. o Obfuscator function: it improves the size, performance and security of J2ME mobile applications. o Pre-verification function: in order to enable J2ME bytecode class files to be run on mobile phone devices, they should be valid bytecodes. For this purpose, pre-verification function must be applied. Preverification function converts J2ME bytecodes to valid bytecodes. This function only acts on J2ME CLDC application bytecodes. o Packing function: in order the generated codes be able to run on mobile phone devices, it is necessary to pack bytecodes and the relevant information to a special format such as jar or cod files. o Delivery function: as mentioned earlier, it is responsible for delivering educational materials in different formats on mobile devices. o Semantic Search: it is a tool to query the Knowledge-Based quiz database. It is responsible for searching and finding the relevant quizzes which are matched with entered user's keywords. • Management Layer: management layer is responsible for managing courses, users, and files. This layer provides and performs functions available to both educators and learners. The following shows a brief description of each function: o Authorization: it is used to authenticate and authorize users, o Course Management: it is used to mange courses for both instructors and learners. It enables students and teachers to add, delete and edit courses, o File Management: it provides facility to manage copy and delete generated files into the user directories and the relevant subdirectories. o Learner Tracking: instructors are able to keep track of students' progress by receiving students' coursework feedback and quiz result through email or SMS. • Storage Layer: our platform includes tables for user profiles, students, instructors, courses and other relevant information. In addition, it includes the other table for knowledge-based quizzes. There are other repository formats other than tables like XML files and metadata as well. Metadata are used to keep track of instructor's activity. The following explains a brief description of each repository: o Knowledge-bases Database explained earlier. o User Profiles hold information about learners' profiles, instructors' profiles, courses, instructors' courses, and students' courses, o Metadata in an XML data format, keep track of quizzes, courses and their relationships for each instructor. They are stored in the instructor's directory managed by the file management, o Educational materials and quizzes are stored in XML data formats. source: Design and implementation of a deviceindependent platform for mobile learning by Niazi, Razieh, M.Sc., University of Guelph (Canada), 2008