Students' beliefs about mobile devices Vs. desktop computers in South Korea and the United States

College students in the United States and in South Korea completed a 28-item multidimensional scaling (MDS) questionnaire in which they rated the similarity of 28 pairs of multimedia learning materials on a 10-point scale (e.g., narrated animation on a mobile device Vs. movie clip on a desktop computer) and a 56-item semantic differential questionnaire in which they rated their perceptions of mobile devices and desktop computers using 28 adjective pairs (e.g., active–passive) as anchors on a 7-point scale. On the MDS questionnaire students in both the USA and South Korea conceptualized multimedia learning materials in terms of a static–dynamic dimension, but they differed in terms of the second dimension in which USA students were more sensitive to whether an instructional lesson is presented on a mobile device or a desktop computer whereas South Korean students conceptualized both media as equivalent. On the semantic differential questionnaire, students in both nations viewed mobile devices as more accessible, more portable, and newer, and viewed desktop computers as more faithful, stable, concentrative, and essential. However, USA students also rated desktop computers higher than mobile devices on positive features such as being fast, sharp, meaningful, good, and realistic; whereas South Korean also rated mobile devices higher than desktop computers on positive features such as being open, attractive, changeful, stimulating, immediate, and exciting. Overall, there are cross-national differences in students' beliefs about mobile and desktop media, which may affect their learning.     

移动设备上信息展示技术综述（英文）

超小型手持移动设备日益普及。与传统桌面计算机相比,此类设备具有显示屏尺寸小,分辨率低,计算资源受限,带宽不稳,通讯时连时断等特点,对移动式人机交互提出新的挑战。本综述文章介绍了当前移动设备上多通道信息展示技术。     

The impact of paper-based,computer-based and mobile-based self-assessment on students' science motivation and achievement

The present study focuses on the implementation of a self - assessment procedure in a Physics class, extended during a seven weeks period in a European secondary level school. The researchers used three modes of assessment based on paper and pencil, computer-web and mobile devices respectively. The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of each mode of assessment on students' motivation and achievement. Analysis of pre- and post-motivation tests revealed a more positive motivational orientation of students towards computers and mobile devices as assessment delivery mediums. Also, student evaluation implemented after the phase of the experimental procedure showed a significant increase in learning achievement for low-achieving students who participated in the mobile-based and computer-based assessment. The positive effects of computers and mobile devices on students' learning motivation suggest that they can be used as a promising alternative to paper and pencil assessment procedures.     

xTask – an adaptable learning environment

Abstract  The general aim of this study was to develop a platform-adaptive learning environment (xTask) and to evaluate its use. The software environment can be accessed by PC's or mobile devices, such as PDA's or Communicator. The empirical part of the study was carried out during May 2002 with 10 students between 21 and 50 years of age participating in a course on mobile device usability. In the study the xTask interface proved functional. The working processes show clearly that there were phases when the work was efficient with mobile devices, but students also felt that mobile devices were not ready to be the only platform for learning. They preferred PC's with wired networks, but admitted that PDA's could be used to support aspects of the learning processes. Generally, mobile technologies can bring some added value for network based learning, but they cannot replace traditional computers.     

Interactive lectures: Effective teaching and learning in lectures using wireless networks

Among the severe instructional shortcomings of lectures is their lack of interactivity. To overcome these problems, the learning environment of the interactive lecture is introduced, in which students and lecturer interact by using mobile computers in a wireless network. In an experimental study, 44 students participated in interactive and in conventional lecture meetings. A quiz service that allowed question to be posted, students’ answers to be evaluated, and the results to be presented graphically, was implemented on mobile computers. The participants rated the interactive condition better, also reporting higher levels of attention, activity and perceived learning success for this condition. Objective measures indicated a slight but insignificant difference toward better learning results in the interactive condition.     

A development of learning widget on m-learning and e-learning environments

This article describes the development of learning widget on m-learning and e-learning environments. A widget is a small, simple and useful application supporting user-oriented contents. The user may select and install widgets that are convenient as well as an auto-updating application including weather or calendar. These widgets are especially more useful, because they are able to be installed on a mobile device, a website or a desktop computer. If we take advantage of widgets for education, we may use this learning tool for delivering and pulling learning contents, essences of lessons or word learning. To that end, we developed an effective learning widget and then verified its usability, usefulness and effectiveness for m-learning and e-learning. That is, we evaluated the learning widget with a heuristic evaluation method. We identified 72 interface problems by using a set of 10 usability criteria or heuristics. In addition, we considered how to design the learning widget with consideration given to devices on m-learning and e-learning. Moreover, we experimented by conducting a pilot test with 34 students, a field test with 60 teachers and technology acceptance model (TAM) analysis with 15 teachers. We verified the effectiveness and usefulness of learning with a questionnaire, a quiz and TAM, where the subjects, after using the learning widget in real learning activities, rated the widget's efficacy. The result shows that the learning widget is useful for m-learning and e-learning environments.     

Multimodal object oriented user interfaces in mobile affective interaction

In this paper, we investigate an object oriented (OO) architecture for multimodal emotion recognition in interactive applications through mobile phones or handheld devices. Mobile phones are different from desktop computers since mobile phones are not performing any processing involving emotion recognition whereas desktop computers can perform such processing. In fact, in our approach, mobile phones have to pass all data collected to a server and then perform emotion recognition. The object oriented architecture that we have created, combines evidence from multiple modalities of interaction, namely the mobile device’s keyboard and the mobile device’s microphone, as well as data from emotion stereotypes. Moreover, the OO method classifies them into well structured objects with their own properties and methods. The resulting emotion detection server is capable of using and handling transmitted information from different mobile sources of multimodal data during human-computer interaction. As a test bed for the affective mobile interaction we have used an educational application that is incorporated into the mobile system.     

实时读取计算机名及IP地址显示在桌面的方法

在机房管理中,多种客观原因常会造成IP地址冲突或计算机重名,在标签纸污损的情况下,学生要对号入座找机器时会显得非常困难。把IP地址及计算机名直接显示在桌面上是解决此问题的有效方法。通过API函数直接实时读取IP地址及计算机名的数据,并把该数据生成图像作为桌面墙纸,从而实现IP地址及计算机名实时显示于桌面的目的。     

Mobile phone dependency and its impacts on adolescents’ social and academic behaviors

This study aimed to examine the possible intrapersonal (i.e., attention, depression) and interpersonal (i.e., social relationships with friends, social relationships with teachers) problems related to mobile phone dependency and their impacts on academic achievement in adolescents in South Korea using a national sample of 2159 middle and high school students (1074 male and 1085 female). A structural equation modeling approach with mediation analysis was employed to test the seven hypotheses drawn from conceptual and empirical bases. Results showed that mobile phone dependency negatively predicted attention and positively predicted depression, which in turn, affect social relationships with friends and both Korean language arts and mathematics achievement. Also, the mediating roles of attention, depression, and relationships with friends were found between mobile phone dependency and the academic achievement of middle and high school students in S. Korea. Based on the findings, implications of the current study and future directions for research were discussed.     

Visualizing information on mobile devices

Visualization can make a wide range of mobile applications more intuitive and productive. The mobility context and technical limitations such as small screen size make it impossible to simply port visualization applications from desktop computers to mobile devices, but researchers are starting to address these challenges. From a purely technical point of view, building more sophisticated mobile visualizations become easier due to new, possibly standard, software APIs such as OpenGLES and increasingly powerful devices. Although ongoing improvements would not eliminate most device limitations or alter the mobility context, they make it easier to create and experiment with alternative approaches.     

Evaluation of a mobile learning organiser for university students

This paper describes a 10-month trial of a mobile learning organiser, developed for use by university students. Implemented on a wireless-enabled Pocket PC hand-held computer, the organiser makes use of existing mobile applications as well as tools designed specifically for students to manage their learning. The trial set out to identify the most-used tools for such a learning device and their patterns and problems of usage. The primary uses of the organiser were communication, time-management and access to content. No single application took precedence. The results from an analysis of questionnaire surveys and focus groups indicate that there was a demand for institutional support of mobile learning, in particular to provide course content and timetabling information. Wireless connectivity was crucial to the usefulness of the organiser. Usability issues relating to the hardware and software had considerable impact on the students' usage and satisfaction with the system.     

Multimedia access to mobile environments using indoor semantic maps

In this paper, we present a semantic map model in order to represent multimedia environments using mobile devices. Our approach makes it possible defining indoor maps and locating the objects of interest. This model is based on an Ontology, which defines both semantic qualities and graphic forms of the objects that exist in the multimedia environment (rooms, doors, cameras, ...). The semantic of the maps enables to query and to reason the map content automatically. For example, in this work, we solve the indoor routing adding a heuristic that exploits the topology of the interior spaces, which has been evaluated by obtaining a significant improvement in indoor spaces. In addition, the proposed Ontology includes the location and the remote services of the multimedia resources, such as ambient cameras and microphones. Thus, users can access in real time to multimedia resources through the maps displayed on mobile devices. The mobile applications have been developed, tested and measured both in light devices and hand-held computers.     

Nonparametric item analysis and confirmatory factorial validity of the computer attitude scale for secondary students

The use of computers in secondary schools allows a better preparation of students for their future careers and offers opportunities for refining critical thinking skills. Thus, the development of a valid attitude scale towards computers for students is very important because it could lead to the development or modification of computer fluency curricula. The aim of the study was (a) to examine the factorial structure (affect, behavior, and cognition) of the Computer Attitude Scale for Secondary Students (CASSS) through confirmatory factor analysis, and (b) to determine how well the test and its items discriminate among individuals differing in the strength of their attitude toward computers through nonparametric item analyses. The analyses were conducted on two samples of high school students (n₁=421; n₂=422) who completed the CASSS, a 40-item questionnaire. Results showed that (a) the option characteristic curves (OCC) and item characteristic curve (ICC) of each item revealed certains problems for some items, (b) the reliability of the CASSS is excellent at all levels of the attitude scale, being around 0.96 for students having the least favorable attitude toward computer and 0.88 for students having a more favorable attitude toward computers, and (c) a higher-order or hierarchical model underlies the theoretical structure of the CASSS.     

Context-driven encrypted multimedia traffic classification on mobile devices

The Internet has been experiencing immense growth in multimedia traffic from mobile devices. The increase in traffic presents many challenges to user-centric networks, network operators, and service providers. Foremost among these challenges is the inability of networks to determine the types of encrypted traffic and thus the level of network service the traffic needs to maintain an acceptable quality of experience. Therefore, end devices are a natural fit for performing traffic classification since end devices have more contextual information about device usage and traffic. This paper proposes a novel approach that classifies multimedia traffic types produced and consumed on mobile devices. The technique relies on a mobile device’s detection of its multimedia context characterized by its utilization of different media input/output (I/O) components, e.g., camera, microphone, and speaker. We develop an algorithm, MediaSense, which senses the states of multiple I/O components and identifies the specific multimedia context of a mobile device in real-time. We demonstrate that MediaSense classifies encrypted multimedia traffic in real-time as accurately as deep learning approaches and with even better generalizability.     

Reducing the spatial distance between printed and online information sources by means of mobile technology enhances learning: Using 2D barcodes

Online information sources, such as pictures and animations on web pages are frequently used for complementing printed course material in educational contexts. The concurrent use of online and printed information sources by students, however, requires going back and forth between physically separated course material, such as a course book and a computer screen, thus leading to suboptimal learning outcomes. Compatible with the principles identified by the recent theoretical frameworks for multimedia learning, mobile technology provides learners with the opportunity to bring online and printed course material close together. Mobile phones make online information available within a small desktop space, in close proximity to printed course material. The challenges that are relevant to text input methods can be overcome by the 2D barcode technology. This study investigates the use of camera-equipped mobile phone and 2D barcode technology as an alternative to the use of computer screen for complementing printed course material. The results of the experimental investigation suggest that, by facilitating the access to online information sources by 2D barcode tags on course books, mobile phones have the potential to enhance learning.     

Interactive multimedia and concrete three-dimensional modelling

A multimedia package for teaching about the phases of the moon to Year 8 (12-year-old) students was compared with a conventional three-dimensional modelling approach. Both methods were highly and equally effective in terms of student learning, and the effectiveness of the multimedia package did not depend on a student's experience of computers or attitude towards computers. The package was also equally effective for male and female students.     

一种基于USB接口的移动机器人运动控制系统

由于基于PCI或ISA接口的传统运动伺服板必须配合台式计算机使用,其占用空间和功耗较大,不适合应用于小型移动设备。因此,本文提出了一种新型的基于通用串行总线通讯的运动控制系统。并以其在“机器人世界杯(RoboCup)”中型组轮式移动机器人上的应用为例,介绍了该系统的硬件实现和软件结构。实验证明该系统体积小,功耗低,运行可靠稳定,通讯速率高,适用性强,不仅可用于移动机器人,还可用在一般的工业伺服控制中。