Mobile Learning @ BTC

I’ve created a YouTube channel for instructional videos related to Instrumentation.  It may be found at:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/BTCInstrumentation

So far, all of these videos were shot using the Flip! video camera, with no editing.  I’ve tried to keep each video to 5 minutes or less.

YouTube offers some really cool features for content providers.  I can log into my channel and click on “InSight,” which shows me all kinds of interesting demographics on my viewers.  I can view where in the world they are, what text strings they used to find my videos, their age ranges, gender, etc.

My students and I have been using some of the small Asus (brand) “Eee” netbook computers.  They’re basically small laptop computers with built-in wireless interfaces, webcam, and audio.

These have been great as mobile lab devices for data acquisition and measurement (Fall quarter emphases) and for instrumentation networking (Spring quarter emphases).  We’ve set up a D-link (brand) wireless router in our lab which allows student laptops to wirelessly connect to our lab’s Ethernet network, into which we have several industrial instruments connected.  Because this wireless network reaches to our regular classroom area, it means I can pull up data from the lab network and perform certain demonstrations (remotely) on lab equipment, viewable in the classroom.

The low cost of the Asus netbooks also smashes the price barrier that formerly kept students from purchasing their own laptop PCs (now required for the 2nd year of Instrumentation).  A few of the students bought their own mini-laptops (neither of them Asus Eee models, but similar nonetheless), and have been quite effective using them.

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This thing rocks.  My students used one during the latter half of Fall quarter, both in the lab and in the classroom.  We got the white unit (the Transportation instructors got the black one — should work better with greasy fingers).  Originally our unit came with a Linux OS, and as much as I love the penguin I requested that WinXP be installed instead.  The simple reason for this is the prevalence of Windoze-based software in industry that my students use in the lab and need to be familiar with.

This little PC is everything the ITouch wasn’t: trouble-free, easy to use, familiar interface, powerful, versatile, etc., etc.  Not only did students use it to call up equipment datasheet PDF files in the lab (and bring the PC right next to the lab equipment where they were working), but they also used it in the classroom as a PDF reader device for class homework and textbook files, plus using Excel to do some class-related math work.

Another use we found for it was as a data acquisition device.  We’ve got some $99 data acquisition modules already that accept low-voltage DC electrical signals from sensors and turn it into numerical data for display and graphing.  The software (DAQFactory) comes with the hardware module.  Multiple student teams used this in one of the labs, where we built airspeed indicators.  We used the PC to do field-testing, and it proved to be a very handy test platform.  Its small size made it far more practical than a full-sized laptop, and battery life was never an issue.

The wireless access has been flawless.  The keyboard, albeit small, is nevertheless quite functional even for people with large fingers.  The built-in microphone and camera work very well, although we typically use the Flip! video camera for these applications instead.  It’s nice to have another way for students to record audio and video, though.

My only negative experience with the Asus Eee PC is that loading software can be a challenge without a CD/DVD drive.  We ended up borrowing a USB-based CD-ROM drive from Computer Services to install the DAQFactory software, since the installation disk used boot-sector “launching” software to load and thus could not be installed via a USB flash drive by copying files from the CD-ROM onto a flash drive.  If I get more of these tiny laptops in my class, I’m going to need to invest in a USB CD-ROM drive.

I feel like we are on the cusp of something with mobile learning devices; but I just have not found “it”. What is “it”? What am I looking for? How do I know when I have found “it”? Will I ever find “it”?

What is “it”?

“It” to me may be quite similar to the iPod “Touch”. Perhaps the Touch in future iterations will be “It”. Currently it is NOT “It”. The Touch is a fine device for listening to music, keeping a world clock with many time zones, an interesting calculator (no Log function?), something to track your stocks or maybe watch a YouTube video on. It is a frustrating web tool (Safari indeed!…humbug) that allows some limited access to mainstream websites on a miniscule screen (sure you can scroll…across a complex wiring diagram?). Here is what iTunes U states on their website.

Browse with Safari

iPod touch, like iPhone, gives learners mobile access to the entire web. Zoom in and out to easily read and interact with any website. All with the touch of a finger.

“All with the touch of a finger.” After considerable time getting kicked out of websites, configuring wireless connections, surfing sites that would not display, grappling with the whole Apple/Windows lack of compatibility thing, wrestling with the iTunes store, Safari browser incompatibility; the ease of the interface is paled. Give me a keyboard and a mouse, Apple you can keep the finger. Figure out how to make it work for something besides music and maybe we’ll have a mobile learning “tool”. The current iteration is a toy.

What am I looking for?

It may look like this…

http://tinyurl.com/56lzts

Or it may look like this…

http://tinyurl.com/5tsggd

The screen needs to be larger than the Touch. It is too difficult to view technical information on the Touch. Now if the devices listed above had the Touch interface…NOW we’re starting to get somewhere! The browser(s) must support the required applications of different websites. Of course wireless and wireless aircard access built in goes without saying. These are connection issues that we shouldn’t really even be talking about; they are ubiquitous in every way.

Will I ever find “it”? How do I know when I have found “it”?

We may be close to finding “It”. As more and more applications gravitate towards open source and the keys to the computing code kingdom continue to be unlocked, the goal is near. The first “It” is probably a couple of years or even several years off. We will need to be vigilant and continue to search.

Professional Technical Education will continue to be a niche that does not fit the traditional academic mold. No longer can we afford to “fit” into the academic jet stream. Our needs differ from academia, and those needs will continue to accelerate at a faster pace than the traditional Humanities or Philosophy class that may be delivered online 365/24/7.

When I opened up my ITouch box today, and realized I didn’t bring my credit card to work to set up ITunes.  I tried to see how far I could get with ITunes anyway, using it on my podium computer in the classroom, but when I rebooted after installing the Apple software, the podium PC wiped off all that I had installed (I should have realized this by now, but . . .).

After doing this, I was able to access all the icons on the home screen where I was not able to before.  Maybe I won’t need my credit card after all???

Hours later I tried accessing the wireless network in my office and it worked on the first try.  Don’t know why it refused to connect in the classroom, since it seemed to pick up the wireless signal (it was just lacking all the IP address, subnet, routing address info).

Minor complaint: why did Apple choose to label their browser icon with the proprietary name “Safari” when all the other icons are labeled with generic titles (e.g. Mail, Contacts, Maps, etc.).  Took me a few minutes to realize what the heck “Safari” was.

I like the gravity-aware screen aspect ratio feature.   Turning the screen sideways (long axis horizontal) makes it much better suited for viewing web pages.

Typing with my fingertip (one at a time!) is not too bad.  A stylus would be nice to better access hyperlinks on web pages that are closely-spaced, though.

My first attempts at reading large PDF documents — which is probably the most logical use of an ITouch for my students — was fraught with difficulty.  The first few documents, numbering from 600+ pages to about 80 pages, all refused to scroll past page 6.  Subsequent re-loads of all documents were met with greater success, in that I could scroll all the way to the end of those.  However, if I hit the “New Page” button and then went back to the open PDF document, it would hang up at one of the very early pages (page 4 for the big 600+ page ebook, page 6 for the others) and refuse to go further.  Very weird, and very annoying.  Until this bug is fixed, I declare the PDF reader unsuitable for student use.

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The darn thing kept losing my library!  Since my “My Documents” folder lives on my network drive, if I am not logged into the network, iTunes makes a new library every time I open it.  Best of all it DELETED everything I had added to my Touch (music, apps, videos, pictures).  Even if I went into iTunes “preferences” and reset the location it would just ignore the new location and make its own folder in the wrong place.

This situation is a common complaint on Apple’s support site but they do not have a fix!  Finally found a post on an obscure forum that fixed it!

If you hold down the shift key while opening iTunes, it will give you a pop-up window with the option to move the default library location.  Even Apple seems unaware of this fix!  AMAZING

Things like this could cause a very frustrated student and who would be there for tech support?

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Getting the Touch initialized and linked to iTunes was seamless, thanks in part to my teenager.  I was able to browse to most web sites with great speed.  I did have it lock up on me a few times requiring it to be powered down and back up.  I was able to open and clearly view doc, pdf and xls files but cannot do anything with/to them.

I had a bigger challenge the next time I used it at home when my iTunes could not find my library and could not sync the Touch.  It was because I was logged into the network when I set it up and then not when I reopened it.  When I set it up it put all of the iTunes files on my network drive without asking me.  This took quite a bit of trickery to get it up and running again.

Unfortunately, I am unable to access EVERY single automotive repair reference site I have tried including Ondemand5 - www.ondemand5.com, Honda’s factory site – in.honda.com, Toyota’s technical repair site - https://techinfo.toyota.com/ and Hyundai Service - www.hmaservice.com.

Also found it will not play the videos on BTC’s website.  Why don’t we have a YouTube Channel?  It would sure make those videos more universal.  http://tinyurl.com/46djc6

I have looked at hundreds of apps trying to find a reason why this would be a useful tool for my students.  There are many cool things; if I were a Math or English teacher, it could be really cool.  For Automotive Technology, the jury is out.

RUTRO

Originally uploaded by jcurtis4082

This would be a problem with this tool…can IE6 be loaded to the iPod?

Little Things

Little things…to enable the iPod you need an Apple iTunes account.  I have a personal account, but wanted this one to be a BTC Diesel account.  So I signed up and gave the school “P” card as the source of any charges.

iTunes runs a $1 “test charge” on accounts to be sure that they are good.  This happens to be one of the red flags at the purchasing card gatekeepers house.  At 6:20 AM this morning I recieved a message that the “P” card account had been frozen because of a “suspect” charge.

I called when I got in at 7:15 AM and talked to a nice man from another country (he was really quite nice) and we worked through the fact that I DID authorize this charge and all was well…well almost.  There was a followup e-mail from purchasing here on campus regarding my “frozen” account.  We worked through that one too; discussing details that we might have in the future with other accounts.  This was fruitful too.

On the tool itself

I was able to get on a couple of wireless networks and get Google up and running fairly soon.  I tried to use web access to login to my BTC e-mail account.  I was able to get my username entered, but stumbled on the password.  Quick (don’t look now) what is the symbol above the number 7 on your keyboard?  The onscreen keyboard on the iTouch does not indicate this…and this is not one of those things I have ever memorized; I suspect that my students have not either.

Time.  I have a couple of hours of personal time and maybe an hour of college time so far in the first 24 hours.

Next

Well now I will start exploring the user interface in depth.  Maybe even look at a manual.

From October 15 through October 17 (2008) I had to go to Houston, Texas for an industry conference, leaving my students to work in the lab without me to check off their labwork.  Other instructors were here to watch out for their safety, but they were not prepped to certify my students’ successful completion of labs.  I thought I would use this opportunity to experiment with using the Flip! video camera to document their calibration of some pneumatic water-level measurement devices, with me playing their videos upon my return instead of having to see it live with my own eyes.

The experiment was a success, with students successfully checking off five of their required lab activities, all documented using the Flip! video camera.  I was able to grade their performance in just a few minutes after watching their videos, and they got to do useful labwork while I was away.

My next step is to make use of the Flip! video camera as a regular part of labwork, even when I’m there in the lab to help and observe.  The idea is that if I ever find myself busy helping another student team with something, a student who is ready to check off their calibration can just grab the Flip! camera and film away.  When they’re done (and I am done with the other team), they simply hand the camera to me so that I can replay their video and check them off as having done the calibration.

I’m having trouble uploading one of the video files, so please bear with me as I learn to navigate the Wordpress blog editor!