Aulacast: A Single Board Computer Platform to Support Teaching

Fabiano Sardenberg Kuss, Marcos A. Castilho, Leticia M. Peres and Fabiano Silva

Computer Science Department, Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, Brazil

Keywords:

Educational Technology, Internet of Things, Multimedia, Educational Ecosystem.

Abstract:

The use of mobile technologies in educational environments has potential to promote relevant changes in te-

aching and learning process. Aulacast is proposed as a solution which can aggregate concepts of educational

mobility and Internet of Things. It is based on insertion of software and hardware suitable with embedded

technologies in an educational context, offering support devices for teachers to obtain, present and manage

educational objects with multimedia content. The solution was implemented on low cost single board com-

puters using an open architecture and independent network infrastructure, allowing the interaction between

mobile devices and multimedia presentation devices. This paper presents the motivation of the project, the

applied strategy to build the prototype of Aulacast and results of observation of its use.

1 INTRODUCTION

Mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets

have a great potential of use in teaching and lear-

ning processes (Milrad et al., 2013). The decrease

in the prices of these products since 2010 (Viberg

and Gr

onlund, 2013) has allowed people of different

social economical proﬁles to have greater access to

these tools, specially teachers of various teaching le-

vels in urban areas. Computers of generic use called

“single board computers” have arisen in this low cost

context with high capacity of processing, low energy

consumption and small dimensions. These computers

are capable of providing a bigger ﬂexibility in the im-

plementation of tailor-made solutions to the demand

of individuals included in teaching and learning acti-

vities.

Mobile tools have directed educational techniques

focused on the students, a strategy that has demanded

new abilities to be developed. In projects of informa-

tion and communication technologies insertion, it is

possible to observe a great effort regarding the adap-

tation of teachers to those tools(Direne et al., 2012).

Considering that the success of these tools depends

on how capable teachers are to operate them (Dole

et al., 2015). It is also possible to notice that there is

not enough emphasis on the development of devices

more appropriate to educational needs that consider

the different users proﬁles.

When the educational environment completeness

is analyzed, it can be deﬁned as an ecosystem (Chang

and West, 2006). Giving a greater importance to

the recognition of the roles represented by the ele-

ments which this ecosystem is composed of, paying

attention to the relationship established among them,

in a way in which the improvement of the environ-

ment can be promoted harmoniously. The concept of

ecosystem can be used as a metaphor to a structure of

the system that can be generalized and created by a set

of components that interact with one another in their

environmental context (Pearce and Ahn, 2010). In

an ecosystem like this, the software tools of informa-

tion and communication technologies (ICT) become

an important interaction facilitator element, promo-

ting interoperability among several devices nearby.

The role performed by a teacher in an educational

ecosystem requires, besides direct interaction with te-

aching activities, administrative abilities, organizing

time, constructing the contents for the lesson plans,

participating on the decisions making process regar-

ding the school’s structure, among others. A techno-

logy that provides support only to the content mana-

gement, used on the basic activities of teaching and

learning, presents a blank space between the activi-

ties performed by the teacher and the daily demands

of their professional activities. Therefore, a combina-

tion of academic and management activities when in-

troduced like any application that people use on their

smartphones, is a strategy to avoid the opposition to

changes and to reduce the effort demanded to learn

the product use (Anshari et al., 2017).

One of the traditional uses of computers in schools

366

Kuss, F., Castilho, M., Peres, L. and Silva, F.

Aulacast: A Single Board Computer Platform to Support Teaching.

DOI: 10.5220/0006776803660373

In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2018), pages 366-373

ISBN: 978-989-758-291-2

is the computer lab, a place where there are compu-

ters to be used in speciﬁc activities, in which students

and teacher must go to the lab to use the machines.

This was an important setting to provide access to ICT

in the 2000’s, including cases that have had a great

success such as the project “Paran

a Digital” (Castilho

et al., 2007), although it got outdated because of other

technological advances. A model that uses new tools

provides a new level of interaction capable of rever-

sing the old setting, that is, allowing the ICT’s tools

to go where the students and teacher (Liu et al., 2017)

are, promoting a more efﬁcient use of the resources.

This project proposes the creation of an integrated

educational environment based on a basic computing

infrastructure focused on all the aspects of educati-

onal system, differing from other attempts to insert

technologies focused only on speciﬁc aspects of tea-

ching and learning activities. Bonilla (Bonilla, 2009)

presents arguments that differ the demands of digital

inclusion using ICT tools from the use of supporting

tools in teaching activities. Instead of including tools,

an educational ecosystem depends on the identiﬁca-

tion of strategies of process improvement by imple-

menting devices that can be used as problem solvers

or as activities optimizers.

The use of ICTs has a strong link with teaching

and learning activities. In addition, the concepts and

tools of Internet of Things (IOT) allow a qualitative

leap, considering that they provide a natural ﬂow of

information exchange between the physical and the

virtual world (Vihervaara and Alapaholuoma, 2017).

All the options given by devices with well-deﬁned

functions and particular uses may reduce the cases of

resistance to change and also reduce common difﬁcul-

ties found in the process of learning how to deal with

projects based on tools that offer generic interfaces

and those with several functions, such as computers.

Another aspect that can be observed in this new pe-

dagogical model is the capacity of integrating tools as

they become popular.

The aim o this paper is to present Aulacast, an ele-

ment to be inserted in the teaching ecosystem in order

to act as a supporting tool to the teachers activities,

using single board computers connected to smartpho-

nes that do not depend on a network infrastructure or

other computers. Its prototype illustrate the possibili-

ties offered by the concepts of IoT applied to an ele-

ment of an educational ecosystem model.

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 pre-

sents the related works. Section 3 describes the Aula-

cast tool and results of observation of its use. Section

4 discuss the potential application of the presented

tool. Finally, Section 5 concludes with considerations

and future work.

2 RELATED WORKS

2.1 Technological-educational

Mobilities

Nowadays, mobile devices are constantly used by stu-

dents and not always this use has an educational aim.

Researches made by Quinn (Quinn, 2011)Sharples

(Sharples, 2002), Kukulska-Hulm (Kukulska-Hulme

and Traxler, 2005), Sharples et. al (Sharples et al.,

2005) are the basis of studies about uses of mobile

devices in education. In their researches, the authors

theorize about the organization of these types of lear-

ning in formal and informal spaces which support the

mobile learning. Researchers also consider some of

the impacts that these tools cause on learning process.

According to Vavoula et. al (Vavoula and Sharples,

2009) the use of mobile technologies constructs a new

background and promotes changes on the paradigm

of learning, since it makes new models of learning

in different contexts a possible goal. Sharples (Shar-

ples, 2002) and Kukulska-Hulme (Kukulska-Hulme

and Traxler, 2005) defend that the learning is deep

and enriching when the students can choose among

various resources and ways to conduct their studies.

When organizing the methodology of an educatio-

nal activity using technological-educational mobility,

Sharples et. at. (Sharples et al., 2005) defend that the

relation between teacher, students, content, time and

space must be assessed. The mobility allows the re-

lation between students and teachers to be temporal,

with learning taking place beyond class time. Analy-

zing the practice of teachers, Veiga (Veiga, 1996) de-

fends that the pedagogical practice is a social proce-

dure and, by consequence, it must be oriented through

objectives and learning purposes and it must also be

incorporated in the context of a social practice. In ot-

her words, the pedagogical practice is deﬁned by the

current social conception, considering the historical

and social model nowadays.

Sung and Liu (Sung et al., 2016) point out that

there is a great diversity of equipment and also ad-

vantages obtained using computers in teaching and

learning, specially those based on mobile technolo-

gies. The promotion of interoperability among se-

veral structures offers possibilities of constructing ri-

cher environments to support educational activities.

Sharples and Spikol (Sharples and Spikol, 2017)

present a set of challenges to be solved in an envi-

ronment where there is a great variety of devices and

medias available in a learning context based on mo-

bility. On their text, the authors discuss topics related

to educational objects and how these objects contri-

bute to a learning process that occurs outside school

Aulacast: A Single Board Computer Platform to Support Teaching

367

context using mobile devices. However the authors

support that this technology answer one out of many

nuances inside teaching and learning process.

2.2 Single Board Computers (SBCs)

The popularization of smartphones has allowed a

great increase on the industry of systems on chips

(SOCs) of low cost, high process capacity and in-

teraction with many kinds of sensors (Lewis et al.,

2016). SBC is a kind of computer implemented on a

printed single board that uses the capacities SOCs in

its modeling. It also allows data storage in an external

unit and offers several interfaces to interact with other

electronic devices.

Among all the most popular SBCs, Raspberry Pi

(Lewis et al., 2016) stands out. Constructed as a

tool to support programming learning, it became one

of the main references on developing tool prototypes

that requires processing power similar to traditional

computers, which merge a great number of interfaces

with other electronic devices.

The most popular mobile devices, tablets and

smartphones, are produced giving priority to demands

of communication, entertainment and personal orga-

nization. On the other hand, some projects based on

SBC, more speciﬁcally Raspberry Pi, which was cre-

ated to be used in studies of computer science (Heeks

and Robinson, 2013), have arisen as devices suita-

ble to teaching and learning processes. The project

of uses of Raspberry Pi for the construction of low

price computers using the product functionalities have

already been presented with lower processing capa-

city versions (Ali et al., 2013), but with a very simi-

lar proposal to projects such as On Laptop Per Child

(OLPC).

2.3 Ecosystems

An ecosystem can be deﬁned as a metaphor to a ge-

neral system structure, which can be reproduced and

constructed through a set of parts that interact with

one another in their delimited environmental context

(Pearce and Ahn, 2010), inhabited by species that

interact with one another and with the environment

itself, aiming at personal gains (Boley and Chang,

2007).

Digital ecosystems can be deﬁned as open com-

munities where there are no central controls, being

capable of redeﬁning themselves according to the ne-

cessities found inside the system. Some deﬁnitions

of digital ecosystems present a model of ecosystem

abstraction to represent digital environments. Digital

ecosystems present a model that anticipates the exis-

ting species and virtual environments – created and

maintained by computers – considering the presence

of living beings working either as elements that gene-

rate input events or as agents that consume the outputs

of a system.

Digital ecosystems can be deﬁned as open com-

munities where there are no central controls, being

capable of redeﬁning themselves according to the ne-

cessities found inside the system (Boley and Chang,

2007). Some deﬁnitions of digital ecosystems present

a model of ecosystem abstraction to represent digi-

tal environments (Boley and Chang, 2007). Digital

ecosystems present a model that anticipates the ex-

isting species and virtual environments, created and

maintained by computers, considering the presence of

living beings working either as elements that generate

input events or as agents that consume the outputs of

a system.

2.4 Projects to Include Computers in

School

Reconsidering solutions embraced on projects to in-

clude computers as supporting tools to educational

process such as One Laptop per Child (Kraemer et al.,

2009) or UCA (de Macedo Guimar

aes et al., 2013),

it is possible to see the focus on technologies based

on devices supported on speciﬁc projects of hardware

that promotes a project of social-digital inclusion fo-

cused on the access to low cost computers. These

proposals did not present an appropriate computati-

onal ecosystem to the support of teaching and lear-

ning process in a context that meets the set of species

included on formal educational activities on educati-

onal environments, not only to students and teachers

(Uden et al., 2007).

The recent migration to other types of computer

technologies based on mobile devices represents an

important element so that the hardware model used

by programs that also use XO structure (James, 2010)

can be reconsidered. The modern mobile devices’

price together with their increasing popularity and

ease of transportation and handling demonstrate that

this kind of device has a tendency to be more ade-

quate to the use considering one computer per stu-

dents (Hockly, 2016) instead of the laptops used by

classmates or XO.

The use of single board computers (SBC) for the

construction of prototypes and for making experi-

ments using interfaces in order to connect with exter-

nal devices can be done with ease, providing results

that help comprehending events (Vida et al., 2016;

Benevides et al., 2015). A possible solution to the

challenges found because of the necessities regarding

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

368

mobility and interaction between user and peripheral

and also between user and educational use sensors is

the use of SBC. This type of devise allows the con-

struction of equipment that are adequate to several si-

tuations related to teaching and learning process in

a model that demands a greater interaction with tea-

chers.

3 Aulacast TOOL

In this work we propose Aulacast, an SBC used as an

integration tool between the teacher’s smartphone and

the device that presents the content, such as an over-

head projector or a television. It is based on a proposal

called third technological wave. Aulacast uses Linux

operating system, Debian distribution with graphic

interface X FVWM as a window manager. We use

Omxplayer to play video ﬁles, Libreofﬁce or Evince

for presentations, and Eye of Gnome (EoG) for pre-

senting images. The programs activation is control-

led by an application developed in Python which in-

teracts with operating system by means of Popen li-

brary functionalities, responsible for the application

instantiating and management, and Xdotool to simu-

late keyboard and mouse.

The requirements of Aulacast are: offering a mo-

bility model that allows the teacher to bring the con-

tent to be shown with certain facility, not depending

on network infrastructure or other hardware devices;

ease of use in several output interfaces, low acquisi-

tion price, ease of use and software upgrade possibi-

lity. These characteristics allow the teacher to have

access to a tool that can be used in various physical

spaces and a smaller use of tools as classrooms with

computers, smart TV or multimedia projector.

The environment offered in this implementation is

an integrated tool capable of making the presentation

of content and educational objects easier, those that

were conceived to be used in traditional computers,

but mainly, it offers a resource that can expand the

potential uses of new technologies that support lear-

ning processes. The ﬁrst implemented version aims

at presenting the possibility of implementing an in-

tegrated tool using simple acquisition hardware tools

which are suitable for the multimedia content presen-

tation and also suitable for the integration with tradi-

tional mobile devices.

In this study, set boards developed by Raspberry

project were used with no alterations on the original

hardware and no input of sensors or extra interfaces.

This option allows to test in a more simple way, since

the only requirement is the use of the model and the

SBC. The software used was from the Raspbian repo-

sitory and installed by the apt package manager.

The Aulacast integration uses an application for

Android operating system installed in a smartphone

which offers an interface that interacts with the de-

vice by means of tcp/ip connection with its content

management functionalities, besides simulating a tou-

chpad and keyboard so that the user can interact with

the operating system as if they were physically con-

nected to the device. The Android application tried to

offer a friendly interface and to use the teacher’s kno-

wledge about applications in this operating system to

expand its potential use (Anshari et al., 2017).

Figure 1: The ecosystem model of Aulacast.

This solution’s implementation used a network

structure that allows the connection between a

smartphone and SBC regardless of the available in-

frastructure. The SBC itself can provide a hotspot

presented with a name, Service Set Identiﬁer (SSID)

that can be identiﬁed by other devices that implement

speciﬁcations 801.11. Having its own network infra-

structure has shown to be an adequate tool to solve

deﬁciencies identiﬁed (Moreira et al., 2013) regarding

the access to computer network infrastructure. The

device implemented on SBC is available being pre-

conﬁgured to expose its connectivity information on

video output device. By doing this, the access conﬁ-

guration between the smartphone and the device will

be easier and it will also allow users who are capa-

ble of connecting to wireless internet connection to

have previous knowledge to establish connection with

SBC, according to what it was shown on image 1.

3.1 The Use

For implementing the prototype’s solution, simplicity

during the installation was suggested and also the ap-

plication’s use by means of resources that, as soon

as energized, allow the device – constructed through

Raspberry Pi Model 3 – to provide all the necessary

functionality so that the teacher can present the con-

tent that was previously stored on their smartphone.

Aulacast: A Single Board Computer Platform to Support Teaching

369

When activated, the SBC stars to inform services and

functionalities through multicast messages, using a

tool for discovering names (Cirani et al., 2014) and

a set of techniques presented on Zero Conﬁguration

Networking. This strategy allows new devices to be

added to the educational ecosystem or replaces wit-

hout causing great impacts over the environment in

which they are included.

The prototype was capable of reproducing videos

on several resolution settings of the output device,

such as HDMI interfaces and composite video, from

ﬁles stored on the user’s smartphone, allowing inte-

ractions like pause, advance, return, stop, by means

of the application. Presentations in PDF format and

images were also successfully performed through the

interaction with the representation of a remote cont-

rol that the application has. Web browsing with touch

pad simulation on smartphones provided a suitable in-

terface for the interaction with SBC.

The capacity to insert new peripherals by means

of USB interfaces or by using GPIO pin offers an

environment that contains a greater interaction bet-

ween user and hardware, allowing a usability expan-

sion without losing the mobility characteristics offe-

red by the device’s size. SBC allow equipment such as

televisions, screens and audio devices to have a kind

of revival through input and output interfaces which

allow them to be integrated to non-existent technolo-

gical resources when they were acquired.

Another aspect that offers a great ﬂexibility to

SBC applied to education is the use of an open source

code and relatively popular operating system as Li-

nux. There is a great amount of software available to

perform several tasks on Linux, such as XO laptop,

which used this operating system in its implementa-

tion (Kraemer et al., 2009).

The use of an open hardware decreases the ﬁnan-

cial cost related to depreciation, since it is created in

a modular way, in which some parts of the equipment

can be replaced, allowing a constant adequacy to new

tools. For example, new processors or boards can

be exchanged maintaining their video output interfa-

ces. This proposal presents a structure that represents

not only a cost reduction but also an appropriation of

technology approach, specially those that are created

for teaching and learning purpose.

The interface maintained on smartphones offers

some facilities to make the interaction with the device

easier and faster, such as the button and menu display

that corresponding to actions that are activated on the

device. Actions like return, pause in video or image

ﬁles, graphic interfaces closure, among other con-

trols can be executed directly through the smartphone

screen, no browsing need, using only touchscreen si-

mulator. This strategy has allowed the application to

present a remote control behavior and mouse simula-

tion simultaneously.

It was also implemented a board simulator mo-

del where the teacher is capable to type texts on their

smartphone and send it to the screen that is showing

the multimedia content. All application controls on

SBC have been developed using scripts in Python lan-

guage, re-evaluated with smartphone interaction, by

socket, or with functionality callback in the operating

system.

One of the aspects that deserves a highlight is the

success obtained during the integration between the

device and old televisions apparatus, called TV Pend-

rive, which are available in almost all the classrooms

on public schools in Paran

a, Brazil (Camargo et al.,

2016), and it is rarely used due to its accurate techno-

logical delay. Using SBC’s composite video output, it

was possible to adapt this old resource into a tool with

similar – or even better – capacity than smart TVs as

regards the media support and capacity of interaction.

Despite the resolution limitation in this device, it is

possible to execute videos, images and presentations

in a satisfying way using Aulacast.

The application used on the smartphone demands

a greater interaction with the user, since it is through

the user that the tasks are performed, either the acti-

vities related to management or related to the con-

tent and interaction with the SBC. It was shown, du-

ring the presentation, how to perform each one of the

functionalities available in the application and also the

connection provided by the SBC. It is important to

highlight that the application developed did not pass

through a use validation process because the purpose

of this study is related to the capacity of performing

tasks so that the validation of a proposal can be done,

in which the use possibilities from this hardware can

be considered.

3.2 Comparison with Other Tools

The Aulacast architecture has proved to be useful in

several aspects in educational use when compared to

other solutions capable of performing the tasks per-

formed by Aulacast. The 1 table presents a compari-

son between the Aulacast solution, laptops, and two

popular multimedia presentation devices Chromecast

and EZCast.

Most programs written for Linux can be compi-

led for ARM processors, allowing SBCs to be used

in a way that is similar to personal computers. The

main difference between SBCs and laptops as a tool

to support the teaching and learning process is related

to the processing and memory capacity that is usu-

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

370

Table 1: Comparision among devices.

Resource Aulacast Laptop Chromecast EZcast

Video Interfaces HDMI,

Video

Composite,

GPIO (as

LVDS)

HDMI and

LVDS

HDMI HDMI

Sensor Integra-

tion

USB, GPIO USB and

serial port

None None

Application Sup-

port

Documents

Files,

ıdeo,

Sound, etc

Documents

Files

Images,

Audio,

ıdeo,

Sound, etc

Images,

Audio,

ıdeo

OS Choices Linux

basead

Windows,

Linux,

Unix like

No No

Provider inde-

pendent

Yes Yes No No

Network inde-

pendent

Yes Yes No No

Data persistent USB, SD,

Network

HD, USB,

SD, Net-

work

256Mb

ﬂash

storage

256Mb

ﬂash

storage

Ease transport ﬁt on poc-

ket

ﬁt on bag-

pack

ﬁt on poc-

ket

ﬁt on poc-

ket

Average Weight 45 g More than

500 g

59 g 68 g

ally higher in devices based on traditional computer

architectures. However, this study used as Raspberry

Pi as prototype but there are SBC projects with per-

formance close to those of laptops that can be used

instead of Raspberry.

Unlike the multimedia devices used in the com-

parison, Aulacast allows the development of a colla-

borative ecosystem for the construction of solutions.

This architecture model favors the development of

products suited to educational needs independent of

suppliers. Unlike the other products analyzed, Aula-

cast was conceived as an educational tool focused on

the best use of educational objects in the classroom.

It is possible to adapt an operating system to pro-

mote facilities in the use of computers as an educati-

onal tool, but the smartphones popularization shows

a better acceptance of this type of computers by tea-

chers and students. Aulacast offers an integrative tool

in which you can use the skills in the use of new mo-

bile technologies interacting with the facilities of lap-

tops using a tool of low energy consumption and of

reduced size and weight.

4 SBC POSSIBILITIES IN AN

EDUCATIONAL

ENVIRONMENT

Data given by Brazilian basic education census, in

2016, discuss the access to communication techno-

logy and computing in Brazilian schools (INEP/MEC,

2017). Although the number of schools without in-

ternet access is reduced, there is no information rela-

ted to the wireless network infrastructure availability.

Due to the large population in Brazil and to the great

quantity of learning institutions, the low percentage

of people without access to technology, although it is

low, it still represents a great number.

An educational ecosystem that uses SBC has not

a great dependence on great device producers. It also

offers equipment with longer life, since they can be

designed in a modular way, offering the replacement

of some parts instead of having to replace the whole

equipment. This external devices’ capacity of use al-

low the existence of a suitable tool for both the con-

sumption and the content production, giving mobility

and ﬂexibility to the equipment’s use. School ma-

nagement activities can also be answered using this

kind of computers, since they are capable of executing

those systems that are developed to personal compu-

ters, besides being capable of supporting integration

to sensors that allow the automation of several proces-

ses related to management activities, such as access

control, environmental aspects control, integration to

printers, among others.

In order to make SBC based technologies use

hypothesis authentic, the construction of a foundation

capable of providing a tool to assist the teacher in the

content delivery was proposed, reducing new equip-

ment acquisition cost by reusing apparatus such as

monitors and old or new televisions. The prototype

was built with a web base, but it did not depend on

internet connection or any available local web, so-

mething common in low development (Moreira et al.,

2013) index regions. It also allows the use of ﬁles

persistence in Android devices and of SBC as content

exhibitor.

In the school environment, specially in class-

rooms, the teacher has a key role as a promoter of

technologies that encourage innovative solutions (Ve-

nancio et al., 2013). Accordingly, the resistance to-

wards innovations can be teared down if the teacher

presents solutions obtained through certain tool with

adequate functionalities.

This device offers an environment which allows

simpliﬁcation in additional content delivery, supple-

mentary to the traditional instruments used by tea-

chers, according to the pronouncements of cognitive

learning theories. However, it is the teacher’s duty

to select and organize the content so there is not an

unproductive cognitive load. In an educational ecosy-

stem model, the integration between the device and

the educational web portals, which offer specialists

content, grants reduced risks of information overload.

Aulacast: A Single Board Computer Platform to Support Teaching

371

5 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE

RESEARCH

Single Board Computers (SBC) provides a model

with devices that support the teaching process. It ena-

bles to replace general purpose computers adequacy

to a process in which the devices are adapted to their

use as an educational tool. These devices are propo-

sed uphold the majority of the tasks accomplished by

tablets and personal computers and may be easily ad-

justed to suit distinct age ranges speciﬁc needs.

The implementation and use of a prototype allo-

wed to identify a great potential of use of technology

based on the interaction between the SBC and an An-

droid smartphone. It was possible to identify the im-

portance of an ecosystem with access to the content,

but with no dependence on the internet connection.

This is especially important in classrooms in countries

with low development rates. In the particular case of

schools in the state of Paran

a, where there is a reuse of

equipment such as ﬂash drive compatible televisions

purchased in 2008, the use of SBC represents a grea-

ter longevity for the equipment, promoting a smarter

use of public resources.

During the development of the prototype, some

weaknesses were identiﬁed. One of them was the ne-

cessity of security mechanisms, which should be im-

plemented in the device. Because it was not predicted

in the beginning of this study, these mechanisms were

not considered until this moment. Also, the video

uploading from the smartphone to the SBC happened

via http server. Although it was not a problem, a UTP

socket would probably look nicer.

This work indicates the availability of ICT’s im-

plementation on the scholar environment, as an inte-

grated, low cost, innovative model, which would in-

crease the use of new technologies as supporting tools

for teaching and learning. As shown by the concep-

tion of equipment adequacy to the users needs, spe-

cially the users who play important roles in educatio-

nal settings, it is possible to obtain available techno-

logy at low cost. These conceptions also present

opportunities to insert an interactive use of compu-

ters, not being necessary for the teachers to be in a

speciﬁc place, breaking up with the traditional tea-

ching practice, which only occurs in the formal school

space.

This work provides concepts and information to

propose the use of SBC as a meaningful tool in the

construction of an educational ecosystem. In order to

continue this process, new research concerning an in-

tegrated informational environment should be started,

allowing bigger accessibility to content. A new step

in the implementation of data transfer to students’

smartphones is recommended.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Alexandre Direne (in memorian) for his

support in the original project design, C3SL (Cen-

ter for Scientiﬁc Computing and Free Software), and

Serpro (Federal Data Processing Service), Brazil, for

which they provided resources to the project.

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