Showing posts with label ICCSE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICCSE. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2014
Second Call for Papers on Computer Science & Education, Canada, August 2014
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning Techniques
I will be presenting "Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques", at the 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), April 2013. In this I suggest that while a class of on-line students may not be physically present in the same place, or looking at materials at the same time, it still is useful to have checkpoints, so they progress as a group. The paper was originally prepared as an assignment for the USQ course Online Pedagogy in Practice.Citation: Worthington, T. (2013). Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques. In Proceedings of 2013 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 26 Apr - 28 Apr 2013 , Sri Lanka.
Abstract: On-line learning uses the terms synchronous and asynchronous to describe tools and learning activities. This research looks into the origins of these terms, their use today and asks if these are the correct terms to use and if the use of these terms has held up the development of better tools and techniques.
Conclusion: Current on-line educational literature uses the terms synchronous and asynchronous with meanings different from their use in everyday language and in the computing discipline. It is recommended that these terms be replaced with “real time” and “store and forward”, as used in the computing discipline. As well as improving the clarity of discussions of educational theory, this will have practical benefits for the development and use of systems and educational techniques. In particular this can aid the thinking about the development of simpler software for learning support, combining the features of the store-and-forward LMS, with real-time video conferencing. It is recommended the term synchronous be returned to its original meaning and be applied to discussing the coordination of learning activities and the role of synchronization in the learning experience be explored.
A further area for research is the use of information diffusion analysis to automatically assess when an on-line class has reached an appropriate level of understanding of a topic and can move on, without the need for an explicit test. New system designs combining what have previously been though of as separate synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning can then be merged to support a constructivist approach , where each student builds their own understanding in their own time, while also participating in the class to reach common goals.
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9556
Link to publisher version: http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/conferencedetails/index.html?Conf_ID=30408 Type: Conference paper URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9556
Appears in Collections: Open Access Research
Monday, July 23, 2012
Sustainable Professional Education
CSIRO were short a speaker for their regular "Information Retrieval and Friends" and asked if anyone had something to present from a recent conference. I am just back from presenting a paper at the the 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2012) in Melbourne, so volunteered to speak. My conference paper was "A green computing professional education course online: designing and delivering a course in ICT Sustainability using Internet and eBooks". The full text is available on-line, but the presentation notes are more readable.
About The Conference
ICCSE has been organized annually since 2006, by the National Research Council of Computer Education in Colleges and Universities of China (NRCCE). The first few conferences were held in China, then Singapore and most recently in Australia. The proceedings are published by IEEE.
While CS and engineering are international disciplines, some differences were noticeable for a conference organizes in China and held in Australia.
The standard IEEE Manuscript Templates for Conference Proceedings was used. However, the Yeedao paper submission system is primarily designed for Chinese users and I found the interface kept slipping from English into Chinese. Also the paper title and abstract were requested in both English and Chinense (I used Google Translate for the Chinese version).
Similarly, the conference arrangements were designed for traveler from China. As an example, payment of fees was by bank transfer to an Australian bank, but only the code for international, not domestic transfer was provided. I missed the welcoming lunch for the event as this assumed deligates were arriving via the international airport.
Papers were presented in English although most of the audience had this as a second language (and a Chinese to Hellish translator was required for the opening address).
I counted about two hundred delegates at the opening session, but by the last session of the second day there were about six delegates left. It may be that traditional oral presentations for such event should be abandoned and replaced with enhanced poster sessions, "un-conferecnes" and on-line sessions.
Real-time computer control as a metaphor for online education
The keynote address for ICCSE 2012 was from Professor Pedro Albertos,
Instituto Universitario de Automática e Informática Industrial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain) on "Interaction between computer control design and its implementation". He discussed the problems with the real-time computer control, arguing that real-time computing and control engineering need to be unified. Traditionally control engineering used analogue electronics with continuous measurements. Digital real-time control uses discrete time intervals. It is usually assumed that if there is a timing problem with a real time computer program, the solution is simply to speed up the processing so the time intervals are smaller. Professor Albertos argues that simply speeding up the process is not necessary, as where a feedback loop is used, most of the time the process is within parameters and no changes are required. Instead event based processing can be used, where processing is done when required.
It occurred to me that Professor Albertos' analysis might be a useful metaphor for online education. Face-to-face education, like control engineering assumes the tutor can see the class at all times and provide feedback. "Asynchronous" online education does not have all the students in the same place at the same time. The usually proposed solution to problems with online education is to provide quicker feedback, and ideally to use "synchronous" mode, where the student and tutor are online at the same time. However, this is inconvenient for the student and tutor (just as speeding up real-time computer processes wastes resources). Instead it might be better to have the online education event based, with time limited, so the student and tutor can be confident they will get a response when needed. Control theory has concepts such as "control effort", "open loop" and "closed loop", which could be applied to education.
Melbourne Model of Professional Education
Professor Iven Mareels, Dean of Engineering at University of Melbourne gave an overview of the changes to engineering and computer science programs brought about by the "Melbourne University Model". With this system, students choose from one of only six undergraduate degrees (engineering and computer sciecne students would normally undertake a Bachelor of Science).
Unlike undergraduate degrees from other Australian universities, the Melbourne degrees do not meet the requirements of professional bodies for entry. Students are expected to undertake a further 18 months study for CS or two years for Engineering to complete a masters.
Professor Mareels commented that this program was intended to meet the needs of international students. Many international students were undertaking the undergraduate degree in their own country and then coming to Melbourne University for the masters.
The courses are part student directed problem based learning. However, Professor Mareels commented that traditional lecture based courses have to be used in part, due to their lower cost. I though this a curious comment, as it is possible to design cost effective student directed problem based-courses by using on-line techniques.
Professor Mareels commented that University of Melbourne had invested in new learning faciltiies for the new teraching techniques. It happened that I also attended a "Climate Services Think Tank" while in Melbourne. This was at the Melbourne Business School (MBS), and so I was able to experience the new facilities firsthand. UoM appears to be following the same model of learning facility as used by other Australian universities.
About The Conference
ICCSE has been organized annually since 2006, by the National Research Council of Computer Education in Colleges and Universities of China (NRCCE). The first few conferences were held in China, then Singapore and most recently in Australia. The proceedings are published by IEEE.
While CS and engineering are international disciplines, some differences were noticeable for a conference organizes in China and held in Australia.
The standard IEEE Manuscript Templates for Conference Proceedings was used. However, the Yeedao paper submission system is primarily designed for Chinese users and I found the interface kept slipping from English into Chinese. Also the paper title and abstract were requested in both English and Chinense (I used Google Translate for the Chinese version).
Similarly, the conference arrangements were designed for traveler from China. As an example, payment of fees was by bank transfer to an Australian bank, but only the code for international, not domestic transfer was provided. I missed the welcoming lunch for the event as this assumed deligates were arriving via the international airport.
Papers were presented in English although most of the audience had this as a second language (and a Chinese to Hellish translator was required for the opening address).
I counted about two hundred delegates at the opening session, but by the last session of the second day there were about six delegates left. It may be that traditional oral presentations for such event should be abandoned and replaced with enhanced poster sessions, "un-conferecnes" and on-line sessions.
Real-time computer control as a metaphor for online education
The keynote address for ICCSE 2012 was from Professor Pedro Albertos,Instituto Universitario de Automática e Informática Industrial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain) on "Interaction between computer control design and its implementation". He discussed the problems with the real-time computer control, arguing that real-time computing and control engineering need to be unified. Traditionally control engineering used analogue electronics with continuous measurements. Digital real-time control uses discrete time intervals. It is usually assumed that if there is a timing problem with a real time computer program, the solution is simply to speed up the processing so the time intervals are smaller. Professor Albertos argues that simply speeding up the process is not necessary, as where a feedback loop is used, most of the time the process is within parameters and no changes are required. Instead event based processing can be used, where processing is done when required.
It occurred to me that Professor Albertos' analysis might be a useful metaphor for online education. Face-to-face education, like control engineering assumes the tutor can see the class at all times and provide feedback. "Asynchronous" online education does not have all the students in the same place at the same time. The usually proposed solution to problems with online education is to provide quicker feedback, and ideally to use "synchronous" mode, where the student and tutor are online at the same time. However, this is inconvenient for the student and tutor (just as speeding up real-time computer processes wastes resources). Instead it might be better to have the online education event based, with time limited, so the student and tutor can be confident they will get a response when needed. Control theory has concepts such as "control effort", "open loop" and "closed loop", which could be applied to education.
Melbourne Model of Professional Education
Professor Iven Mareels, Dean of Engineering at University of Melbourne gave an overview of the changes to engineering and computer science programs brought about by the "Melbourne University Model". With this system, students choose from one of only six undergraduate degrees (engineering and computer sciecne students would normally undertake a Bachelor of Science).
Unlike undergraduate degrees from other Australian universities, the Melbourne degrees do not meet the requirements of professional bodies for entry. Students are expected to undertake a further 18 months study for CS or two years for Engineering to complete a masters.
Professor Mareels commented that this program was intended to meet the needs of international students. Many international students were undertaking the undergraduate degree in their own country and then coming to Melbourne University for the masters.
The courses are part student directed problem based learning. However, Professor Mareels commented that traditional lecture based courses have to be used in part, due to their lower cost. I though this a curious comment, as it is possible to design cost effective student directed problem based-courses by using on-line techniques.
Professor Mareels commented that University of Melbourne had invested in new learning faciltiies for the new teraching techniques. It happened that I also attended a "Climate Services Think Tank" while in Melbourne. This was at the Melbourne Business School (MBS), and so I was able to experience the new facilities firsthand. UoM appears to be following the same model of learning facility as used by other Australian universities.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
E-learning insights from real-time computer control theory
Greetings from the 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2011) in Melbourne. There are about 200 delegates at the opening, mostly from Chinese university engineering departments. The conference is about how to educate engineering and computer science students. I will be presenting "A Green Computing Professional Education Course Online" (and slides), tomorrow morning. Andre Oboler, from IEEE Computer Society is here to discuss having more local IEEE-CS activities. The 8th ICCSE 2013 will be in April 2012 in Sri Lanka.
Real-time computer control as a metaphor for online education
The keynote address was from Professor Pedro Albertos,
Instituto Universitario de Automática e Informática Industrial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain) on "Interaction between computer control design and its implementation". He discussed the problems with the real-time computer control, arguing that real-time computing and control engineering need to be unified. Traditionally control engineering used analogue electronics with continuous measurements. Digital real-time control uses discrete time intervals. It is usually assumed that if there is a timing problem with a real time computer program, the solution is simply to speed up the processing so the time intervals are smaller. Professor Albertos argues that simply speeding up the process is not necessary, as where a feedback loop is used, most of the time the process is within parameters and no changes are required. Instead event based processing can be used, where processing is done when required.
It occurs to me that Professor Albertos' analysis might be a useful metaphor for online education. Face-to-face educaiton, like control engineering assumes the tutor can see the class at all times and provide feedback. "Asynchronous" online education does not have all the students in the same place at the same time. The usually proposed solution to problems with online education is to provide quicker feedback, and ideally to use "synchronous" mode, where the student and tutor are online at the same time. However, this is inconvenient for the student and tutor (just as speeding up real-time computer processes wastes resources). Instead it might be better to have the online education event based, with time limited, so the student and tutor can be confident they will get a response when needed. Control theory has concepts such as "control effort", "open loop" and "closed loop", which could be applied to education.
Real-time computer control as a metaphor for online education
The keynote address was from Professor Pedro Albertos,Instituto Universitario de Automática e Informática Industrial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain) on "Interaction between computer control design and its implementation". He discussed the problems with the real-time computer control, arguing that real-time computing and control engineering need to be unified. Traditionally control engineering used analogue electronics with continuous measurements. Digital real-time control uses discrete time intervals. It is usually assumed that if there is a timing problem with a real time computer program, the solution is simply to speed up the processing so the time intervals are smaller. Professor Albertos argues that simply speeding up the process is not necessary, as where a feedback loop is used, most of the time the process is within parameters and no changes are required. Instead event based processing can be used, where processing is done when required.
It occurs to me that Professor Albertos' analysis might be a useful metaphor for online education. Face-to-face educaiton, like control engineering assumes the tutor can see the class at all times and provide feedback. "Asynchronous" online education does not have all the students in the same place at the same time. The usually proposed solution to problems with online education is to provide quicker feedback, and ideally to use "synchronous" mode, where the student and tutor are online at the same time. However, this is inconvenient for the student and tutor (just as speeding up real-time computer processes wastes resources). Instead it might be better to have the online education event based, with time limited, so the student and tutor can be confident they will get a response when needed. Control theory has concepts such as "control effort", "open loop" and "closed loop", which could be applied to education.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Learning to Reduce Carbon Emissions in Melbourne
The draft notes are available for my presentation "A Green Computing Professional Education Course Online" (and slides), for the 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2011), 10:45am, 16 July 2012 in Melbourne. I would welcome corrections and additions.
Also any suggestions on what else to do in Melbourne would be useful. The City of Melbourne was to hold a Digital City Unconference in July, but this has been postponed. Also the Victorian government has announced work on a Whole of Government ICT Strategy.
Also any suggestions on what else to do in Melbourne would be useful. The City of Melbourne was to hold a Digital City Unconference in July, but this has been postponed. Also the Victorian government has announced work on a Whole of Government ICT Strategy.
Description: Sustainable ICT Courses are being introduced at the vocational training level and more rarely at undergraduate and graduate levels. This paper reports on a graduate level Sustainable ICT Course run for the first time in 2009, as part of a global professional training program. The same course has been run at an Australian university and later adapted for North America by a Canadian university. The course had enrolments from industry based participants from both private and public sector organisation, as well as full time university students, with corporate Green ICT strategies being produced as course assignments. This paper discusses the student population and presents the course structure and assessment. An empirical evaluation of student responses, conducted at the end of the course, has yet to be completed, but some impressions of the differences in responses from graduate students and external participants is presented.
Keywords: sustainable ICT education, postgraduate studies, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, e-learning, work integrated learning.
Reference as:
WORTHINGTON, T. 2012. A green computing professional education course online: designing and delivering a course in ICT Sustainability using Internet and eBooks. [Preprint]. 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education. Melbourne, Australia: IEEE.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Green IT eLearning Course with eBooks
The IEEE 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2011) is being held in Melbourne (Australia), 14 to 17 July 2012. I will be presenting "A green computing professional education course online: designing and delivering a course in ICT Sustainability using Internet and eBooks". This is about the ICT Sustainability course I run over the Internet for the Australian National University and the Australian Computer Society.Title: A green computing professional education course online: designing and delivering a course in ICT Sustainability using Internet and eBooksReference as:Author(s): Worthington, Tom
Keywords: sustainable ICT education, postgraduate studies, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, e-learning, work integrated learning
Publisher: IEEE
Description: Sustainable ICT Courses are being introduced at the vocational training level and more rarely at undergraduate and graduate levels. This paper reports on a graduate level Sustainable ICT Course run for the first time in 2009, as part of a global professional training program. The same course has been run at an Australian university and later adapted for North America by a Canadian university. The course had enrollments from industry based participants from both private and public sector organizations, as well as full time university students, with corporate Green ICT strategies being produced as course assignments. This paper discusses the student population and presents the course structure and assessment. An empirical evaluation of student responses, conducted at the end of the course, has yet to be completed, but some impressions of the differences in responses from graduate students and external participants is presented.
Type: Conference paper
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9013
ISBN: 978-1-4673-0242-5 (Compliant PDF Files)
978-1-4673-0240-1 (CD-ROM Version)
978-1-4673-0239-5 (Print Version)
WORTHINGTON, T. 2012. A green computing professional education course online: designing and delivering a course in ICT Sustainability using Internet and eBooks. [Preprint]. 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education. Melbourne, Australia: IEEE. <
http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9013>
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