"CmL-plus": a recent Romanian opportunities for engineers tutoring using m-learning platforms.

Hutanu, Constantin ; Risteiu, Mircea ; Rotar, Corina 等

1. INTRODUCTION

The learning experts from all around the word (Holmberg, 2003) countries learning experts are engaged in a controversy about the nature of learning and about the problem of which reform are necessary in learning and engineering tutoring. During recent years Otto Peters has elucidated his approaches to learning in virtual space (distance education) from comprehensive point of view and reflected the latest developments of its theory and practice (Peters, 2003). Electronic file courses and tutorials derived from carefully developed distance education materials are new, as are the "guided tour" through hypertext and hypermedia, in which the "guide" not only determines the path, but also the type and number of "objects" that are to be "visited" (Holmberg, 2003). If we consider the combination and integration of presentation methods in a digital learning environment we continue to be amazed by the new possibilities which are relevant in particular to virtual learning space. If we analyse this form of mainly presentation teaching, four new possibilities spring to mind which are specifically and pedagogically relevant for virtual learning space:

* heterogeneous presentation methods can be combined and integrated,

* multi-sensory instruction can be considerably strengthened,

* interactivity can be extended quantitatively and qualitatively,

* the support system can be extended and continuously improved.

The multi-sensory impression can be used for presenting, recognising, understanding, processing, testing and experimenting, or simply for repeating.

In first-generation distance education (DE), interactivity is aimed at by making efforts to activate students or hi level researchers by means of assignments, problems, stimulating them to reflection and self-tests. Second and 3th generation DE intensify this interactivity even more.

Programmed "guided tours" in digital learning environments aim among other things at the following interactions:

* answering questions and reacting to feedback as in programmed teaching,

* selecting and working through prescribed links and participating in a simulated tutorial dialogue,

* opening a notes window for writing margin notes,

* opening a comments window and placing "bookmarks" to mark defined pages,

* working with a search menu which can be opened by means of central terms in the text,

* working with several indices, each of which enables access to different abstraction levels of theoretical dimensions,

* amending teaching texts in accordance with own points of view: placing sections or searching for sections of texts containing the same term,

* completing recommended "drill and practice" programmes and replacing a standard teaching text by a scalable-featured teaching texts,

* exploring with simulations of engineering models, electronic circuits, etc.

* conducting virtual experiments

One of the most impressive practical advantage of the digital learning environment using learning method in virtual space is the speeding up of communication between tutors/researchers and correctors/supervisors as well as between researchers and researchers.

Integrated with Learning Management System (LMS) and supplemented by criteria of adaptation our topic map is employed to influence and control the learning process and the way of presenting learning material.

2. NETWORKED ENGINEERING LEARNING

Considering the dynamic character of Web instruction systems development, we can identify at least two classes of alternative approach types by analyzing the technologies promoted by important software companies:

* e-Learning technologies;

* m-Learning technologies.

One of the main lifelong learning tools in DE system is represented by m-Learning platforms (Zawacki-Richter et al., 2008). This means that we must create a DE system supported by information communication technologies (ICT) and accessible for all virtual students of Transylvania county. At the beginning of the development cycle of this application, several design guides this kind of learning environment have to comply to were followed, such as: the modular architecture, for superior scalability and performance; enabling single-site implementations, in order to support tens of thousands of users and thousands of tutorials or courses; an open architecture that supports third-party learning applications interfaces; and the easiness to use by all the users, through a familiar and consistent graphical user interface. The technical solution (Grindei et al., 2007) chosen was to try out the use of Pocket PC or PDA in combination with mobile phone for distribution of learning content and communication between tutor and students, between students and for students' communication with the learning material (Figure 1).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Quality assurance and enhancement of any educational provisions take many forms and are secured by a variety of means: educational development is one of them. In many situations DE has been developed in a tradition of system thinking and educational technology. An important aspect for the use of the m-learning platform is its evidence-based reflective practice (Zondiros, 2008).

2.1 Engineering m--learning architecture analysis

The application is structured into three modules: a communication by e-mail, a database for tutorials and a chat module (Figure 2). These three modules represent layers of the same application and the architecture used to develop this application was created in HTML (for the graphic interface and sending the data from one page to another), PHP (for receiving, modifying and displaying data, as well as for working with databases--read/write/delete/replace) and sajax (for creating the chat module).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The best option to ensure a non-disturbing automatic refresh was the utilization of Java Scripts. Each module was created using a specific programming language: the tutorial is written 100% in HTML; the chat module is based on Java Scripts dealing with reading data and especially with refresh and displaying data, while the e-mail module uses PHP scripts for reading the database, deleting, modifying and displaying.

2.2 Engineering m-learning application design

The project is based on a client/server configuration. It is absolutely necessary to create a MySQL data-base with adequate tables and values. The client uses the internet connection and a web browser (which has the last version of Java installed) to connect to the application. The project has a main login interface that verifies the input data for validation in the database, and either displays an error message if the user doesn't exist, or sends the data to the next page and displays the content of the links on which this project is based. Every page reads and sends further the user data and password sent by the main login page. If the data doesn't exist on a page, a message is displayed, denying access to that page. Thus, data is sent form one page to another.

The database is divided into several functional blocks: the user section, which stores the information about user's accounts (tutor, student), the tutorial section, containing information about the tutorials structure and about the links with other physical educational resource locations and the chat section, containing all the received messages (e.g., online messages). In present time, because the CORBA's inconvenient, many and many programmers and vendors live de CORBA concept for other software solutions. In this general trend, the Internet Communications Engine (Ice) is a better choice.

2.3 Engineering m-learning implementation and testing

The main requirement of such implementation is the quality of services related. A MySQL database is used to store the information. The mail module is a script designed to be used by the user to send mail-type messages. The script reads/writes /deletes/modifies the information in the database, as the information regarding sent messages, message content and whether the messages have been read or not. The mail module offers a graphic interface similar to the e-mail interface offered, for example, by Yahoo, that is created only to send and receive messages and not to support any other functions. "CmL-plus" m-Learning platform provides the essential needs of the researchers with respect to communication and studying the tutorial content.

3. CONCLUSION

The engineering m-learning implementation comes to compensate the lack of face-to face contact between students and tutor, or between professor, tutor and supervisor, being a very useful tool for Distance Learning. The architecture of "CmL-plus" is very flexible and, the most important, the students/researchers can ask questions and send comments to the tutor or to the professor and can receive the feedback via email or chat, in synchronous or/and asynchronous mode.

This timed--and spaced structuring activity, i.e. finding relationships between data, information structure, pieces of knowledge, and so forth, is the core of learning. In this sense the role of the teacher/tutor/ supervisor is similar to the role of the leader of a research group.

4. REFERENCES

Grindei, L; Vlaicu, A., Orza, B., Topa, V. & Munteanu, C. (2007). On line web course for engineering, Proceedings of the 6th Conference on WSEAS International Conference on Applied Computer Science--Volume 6, pp 65-70, ISBN 978-960-8457-61-4, Hangzhou, China, April 2007, WSEAS, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA

Holmberg, B. (2003). Distance Education in Essence, Bibliotheks-und Informationssystem der Carl von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg (BIS)-Verlag, ISBN 3-8142-0875-7, Carl von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg, Center for Distance Education, Germany

Peters, O. (2003). Distance Education in Transition, Bibliotheks-und Informationssystem der Carl von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg (BIS)-Verlag, ISBN 3-8142-0876-5, Carl von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg, Center for Distance Education, Germany

Zawacki-Richter, O.; Brown T. & Delport R. (2009). Mobile Learning: From single project status into the mainstream?, Available from: http://www.eurodl.org/ Accessed: 2009-0517

Zondiros, D. (2008). Online, distance education and globalisation: Its impact on educational access, inequality and exclusion, Available from: http://www.eurodl.org/? p=archives&year=2008&halfyear=1 Accessed: 2008-11-23