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Mobile sensors and the “Internet of Things” in learning

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Leo Gaggl

With the Internet of Things slowly becoming mainstream the potential uses of this technology can also be seen in the Education sector. This blogpost is the first installment of a series of posts that highlights practical examples that can be used in teaching and training.

Part 1 – Environmental Noise Monitoring

Noise pollution has been a serious problem in many large cities all over the world and with the help of common mobile devices (smartphones) this can be easily measured, monitored and compared with a large quantity of samples from other cities/regions.

Some of the skills taught in these projects are:

Environmental science
Citizen science (collaborative data gathering)
Measurement / sensing
Data visualisation
Data comparison

Here are two very useful pieces of software to undertake this type of project:

WideNoise

With WideNoise users can monitor the noise levels around them using an App downloadable from Android Market or Apple AppStore. It has geo-location capabilities allowing users to also check the online map to see the average sound level of the area around them.

The project has made it’s source code available via an Open Source license allowing further customisation.

http://www.widetag.com/widenoise/

NoiseTube

A project developed by Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris & VUB BrusSense group allows a user to measure the level of noise in dB(A) (with a precision a bit lower than a sound level meter), and contribute to collective noise mapping effort by annotating it (tagging, e.g. subjective level of annoyance). This information can be automatically published on this website (3G/GPRS or manual upload on any PC).

http://www.noisetube.net/

These two projects provide an excellent starting point for educators to become involved on the ‘Internet of Things.

Crossposting from gaggl.com

Posted in e-learning | 1 Comment

Alfresco plug-in for Moodle 2

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Kien Vu and Catriona Ward

First, a little background information …

What is Alfresco?

Alfresco is an open source ECM system that enables the end user to store information, collaborate on content and projects, track major and minor versions of documents, use online discussion forums to raise and discuss issues, and create virtual teams. It is relatively simple to use, making it one of the most popular open source repositories used.

What is an Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?

ECM is a system used to manage the life-cycle of information within an enterprise from the initial publication or creation of information, all the way through to its’ archival and eventual disposal. It encompasses document management, web content management, search, collaboration, records management, digital asset management (DAM), work-flow management, capture and scanning. The aim of ECM is to make the management of corporate information easier through simplifying storage, security, version control, process routing, and retention. Benefits to an organisation include improved efficiency, better control, and reduced costs.

Alfresco and Moodle

With many corporate organisations now using systems to manage their information as well as systems to deliver their training requirements, it makes sense to develop a tool so that users can work seamlessly between the different systems.

Currently Moodle 2 has a repository plug-in to connect to Alfresco. This plug-in enables users to link to or copy files from Alfresco into Moodle. It is limited in that it does not allow users to link files the other way – from Moodle into Alfresco.

After few months working with Alfresco and Moodle 2.0, Brightcookie has released two repository plug-in versions that allow Moodle users to upload, embed and manage files and documents from Moodle to Alfresco.

1. Extended Moodle 2 Alfresco repository plug-in

This plug-in extends the current Moodle 2 Repository plug-in with the “Manage” feature (see screenshot) which allows users to browse and upload files and documents to Alfresco.

In this plug-in, the Moodle administrator can set to allow users using their own Alfresco account or using Alfresco preset account. If administrator using Alfresco preset account, the system will log in to alfresco automatically when user open this plug-in.

2. Alfresco plug-in using Portlet

This is a full Alfresco plug-in in Moodle with uploading, embedding, editing, downloading, previewing files and documents, and controlling meta-data functions. Theoretically, this plug-in can be used as a single sign on (SSO) solution (e.g. CAS). In this case, users do not need to re-log in to Alfresco; the system uses the same authentication that Moodle uses to log in to Alfresco. Brightcookie is currently in the process of conducting final tests with this plug-in.

If you want to have more details or discuss about these plug-ins, please contact us.

Posted in corporate, e-learning, Moodle | Tagged Alfresco, moodle, Moodle 2.0, open source solutions, repositories | Leave a comment

Using Google Goggles in mobile learning projects

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Leo Gaggl

One of the lesser known free Google services in our experience is Google Goggles. Specially in it’s lastest release (Version 1.7) it has received a few enhancements that make it very useful for some mobile learning applications

Scanning of barcodes

Google Googles will scan most standard barcodes and provide information on the product scanned.

Here is an example from the Google Mobile Blog:

Let’s say you’re reading a magazine article you really like and want to share it with your friends. Just point Goggles at a part of the page, and instantly find a link to an online version to share immediately or read again later. You won’t even need the entire article in the frame. Goggles will also pull up more information from pages around the web where that text is mentioned, so its easier to learn about what you’re seeing.

Text recognition

You can use Google Googles to take images of printed text and have the result converted to text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Whil the results may vary our own test have shown good results on newspaper and magazines.

To download Google Goggles you can scan the QR code below

Google Goggles are currently available for both Android and iOS phones (just install via Android Market or Apple App Store. See http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/ for further details.

Posted in e-learning, google apps, mobile | Tagged elearning, goggles, goog, google, m-learning, mobile. learning | Leave a comment

Education and the Internet of Things

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Leo Gaggl

Here are the slides from a presentation for the South Australian Department of Education & Childrens’ Development – Luchtime Bytes Series.

Education and the Internet of Things

View more presentations from Leo Gaggl

For those who just want a link click here. Printable PDF here.

Posted in brightcookie.com team, e-learning, open source | Tagged BigData, Citizen Science, elearning, IOT, NBN, OpenData, Sensors, Web of Things | 1 Comment

‘Open source’ content?

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Rosalie Wodecki

an iconic image showing a pile of books with a mouse 'plugged in' After reading an article about the nature of open source software in education, I went on with the story by following a link to the Khan Academy.

While the team here at Brightcookie are not the educators, we’re always keen to find new and useful resources for the education sector. Especially if it’s interesting stuff. And it’s a bit hard to not to become intrigued with a tagline like ‘Learn almost anything for free’.

I sat down to some late afternoon coffee and tried out one of the brain teasers on offer (free and no login required) – the Alien Abduction Brain Teaser: saving Earth from becoming a mushroom farm.

Fifteen minutes later, my brain was quite well exercised, I had been entertained and my coffee had grown cold.

Some parts of the site do require a login, but if you’re a Google Apps for Education user already, you and your students are as good as sorted.

However, it appears that the vast majority of the content is up for grabs, whether you are logged in, logged out, a visiting alien, or otherwise. With over 2,400 videos, that’s a lot of content to share.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge. “

It would be great to hear from some of the educators out there. How does the content look to you? What do you think of the concept? Are there are other resources you can recommend?

Or are you too busy watching alien abduction brain teasers to stop and answer our questions?

Posted in collaborating, e-learning, open source | Tagged educational content, google apps for education, open source content | Leave a comment