A B-LEARNING APPROACH FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING BASED ON WIRELESS ACCESS TO PEDAGOGICAL E-CONTENT

Pedro Assunção, Carla Lopes, Rafael F. S. Caldeirinha

2006

Abstract

This paper describes a novel pedagogical approach and its application to undergraduate Electrical Engineering courses. A b-learning model is proposed where students are subject to different types of interactions and diverse learning experiences characterised by the type learning session and pedagogical agent in use. These include face-to-face teaching sessions in the classroom, standalone e-learning sessions, working groups and supervised laboratory work. A wireless LAN infrastructure, as part of the Portuguese Electronic University Project, is used for the e-learning component of the proposed approach. In practice, this is an application of the “anywhere, at anytime” concept to learning processes by extending classroom boundaries in both space and availability domains. From a technical point a view, the paper addresses the information network infrastructure used and its quality of service in multimedia communications, the e-content generation, its characteristics, requirements and possible adaptation to heterogeneous environments. A student survey was conducted to evaluate technical and pedagogical aspects of the learning process using the proposed model. The results show this is a promising approach towards flexible learning in Higher Education Institutions and also revealed that students tend to adapt rather slowly to emerging pedagogical approaches, though they are truly in favour to use IT in their own learning processes.

References

  1. Duderstadt, James J., The Future of the University in the Digital Age, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 145, Nº 1, pp. 54-72, March 2001.
  2. Castro, M.; Lopez-Rey, A.; Perez-Molina, C.M.; Colmenar, A.; de Mora, C.; Yeves, F.; Carpio, J.; Peire, J.; Daniel, J.S.; Examples of Distance Learning Projects in the European Community, IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 44 , Issue 4, pp. 406- 411 November 2001.
  3. Nyiri, K; Towards a Philosophy of m-Learning, Proceedings of the 1st IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education, pp. 121-124, Vaxjo, Sweden, August 2002.
  4. Tzu-Chien Liu; Hsue-Yie Wang; Jen-Kai Liang; Tak-Wai Chan; Jie-Chi Yang; Applying Wireless Technologies to Build a Highly Interactive Learning Environment, Proceedings of the 1st IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education, pp. 63-70,Vaxjo, Sweden, August 2002.
  5. Lehner, F.; Nosekabel, H., The role of mobile devices in E-Learning First Experiences with a Wireless ELearning Environment, Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education, pp. 103-106, Taoyuan, Taiwan, March 2004.
  6. Schutz, Frank, Producing e-Learning Materials on the Fly - Only a Great Dream?, Proceedings of the II International Conference on Multimedia and Information & Communication Technologies in Education, vol. 2, pp. 959-963, Badajoz, Spain, December 2003.
  7. Chen, T.; Ma, M.; Meinel, C.; Schillings, V.; A Novel Approach to E-Learning Content Creation, Proceedings of the II International Conference on Multimedia and Information & Communication Technologies in Education, vol. 1, pp. 410-414, Badajoz, Spain, December 2003.
  8. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Short Description of the Standard 802.11,1999.
  9. Wu, D.; Hou, Y. T.; Zhu, W.; Zhang, Y-Q.; Peha, J. M.; Streaming Video over the Internet: Approaches and Directions, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 11 No 3. pp. 282- 299, March 2001.
  10. Crespo, L.; Amado, T.; Caldeirinha, R.; Assunção, P.; Indoor Radio WLAN (811g) Performance in Multimedia Communications, Fifth IEE International Conference on 3G Mobile Communication Technologies, pp. 407-411, London, UK, October 2004.
  11. ITU-T, Recommendation H.262, Generic Coding of Moving Pictures and Associated Audio ISO/IEC 13818, 1995.
  12. Santos, N.; Assunção, P.; Transcoding of MPEG-2 Signals into MPEG-4 Visual Objects for E-Learning Applications, 5th Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services, WIAMIS2004, Lisbon, Portugal, April 2004.
  13. Wang, Y.; Context Awareness and Adaptation in Mobile Learning, Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education, pp. 154-158, Taoyuan, Taiwan, March 2004.
  14. Rickel, J.; Johnson, W.; Mixed-Initiative Interaction between Pedagogical Agents and Students in Virtual Environments (1997).
Download


Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Assunção P., Lopes C. and F. S. Caldeirinha R. (2006). A B-LEARNING APPROACH FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING BASED ON WIRELESS ACCESS TO PEDAGOGICAL E-CONTENT . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications - Volume 1: SIGMAP, (ICETE 2006) ISBN 978-972-8865-64-1, pages 277-286. DOI: 10.5220/0001573402770286


in Bibtex Style

@conference{sigmap06,
author={Pedro Assunção and Carla Lopes and Rafael F. S. Caldeirinha},
title={A B-LEARNING APPROACH FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING BASED ON WIRELESS ACCESS TO PEDAGOGICAL E-CONTENT},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications - Volume 1: SIGMAP, (ICETE 2006)},
year={2006},
pages={277-286},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0001573402770286},
isbn={978-972-8865-64-1},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications - Volume 1: SIGMAP, (ICETE 2006)
TI - A B-LEARNING APPROACH FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING BASED ON WIRELESS ACCESS TO PEDAGOGICAL E-CONTENT
SN - 978-972-8865-64-1
AU - Assunção P.
AU - Lopes C.
AU - F. S. Caldeirinha R.
PY - 2006
SP - 277
EP - 286
DO - 10.5220/0001573402770286