MIT iCampus Innovating Education through Sharing

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MIT iCampusInnovating Education through Sharing

• Phillip D. Long, Ph.D.

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Sharing educationalinnovation

• OpenCourseWare makes all MIT course content free
  to everyone
• OCW is a pure publication model No significant
  interaction with MIT faculty
• Effective sharing of technology requires deeper
  interaction
• MIT iCampus complements OpenCourseWare by sharing
  
• technology,
• tools, as well as
• providing implementation assistance for these new
  pedagogies

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• iCampus is an MIT research program to enhance
  university education through information
  technology
• Established in 1999 with funding from Microsoft
  Research
• 2000 2004 Focus on impact at MIT
• Sponsored projects involving over 400 MIT
  faculty, staff, and researchers
• Has affected nearly 100 subjects with a combined
  enrollment of over 5,000 students per year
• 2004-2006 Focus on global dissemination

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MIT iCampus Affiliates

• Beginning 2005
• Hub and spoke model for dissemination
• Affiliates get access to iCampus materials and
  support via hub institutions
• Hubs work closely with MIT in development,
  support, and dissemination

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Six initial projects

• iCampus is initially preparing six projects for
  dissemination
• Remote access to laboratory equipment
• On-line lectures and exercises in computer
  science
• Visualizations in electromagnetism
• Collaborative design in mechanical engineering
• Web-administered writing examinations
• Domain specific gesture recognition in Tablet PCs

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iLabs Worldwide shared access to laboratory
equipment

• Remote access to one or two MIT labs
• Toolkit for creating and sharing your own labs

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Uniqueness of iLabs

• Pedagogy
• iLabs create laboratory experiences in subjects
  that didnt have them before.
• iLabs enable laboratory experiments at most
  opportune moment in curriculum.
• iLabs allow students to perform experiments in
  pleasant environments at times of their choice
• iLabs minimize frustrations with hardware

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Uniqueness of iLabs

• Logistics
• iLabs can be located in places inaccessible to
  students
• iLabs hold unique scaling characteristics
• round the clock usage
• from anywhere in the world
• Economics
• iLabs can be broadly shared ? fundamental change
  in economics of the lab experience

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Revolutionary consequences

• Order-of-magnitude more laboratory experiences
  available to students
• Can afford sophisticated labs involving
• advanced instrumentation
• rare materials
• unreachable locations
• iLabs embedded inside rich educational platforms
  containing
• visualization tools, simulations, data processing
  
• remote collaboration and tutoring.

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Revolutionary consequences

• iLabs will spawn communities of learners to
  share
• hardware
• educational content
• Institutions around the world can support
  educational needs of each other.

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Microelectronics lab hardware
Semiconductor Parameter Analyzer, Switching Matrix
Device under test
Device test fixtures
server
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Web-Based LaboratoryMicroelectronics
Characterization Lab

• Lab can be accessed from anywhere at anytime
• Single set-up leveraged among many users
• Minimum staffing requirements
• Minimum training
• No user safety concerns

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Local Service Broker
Lab Servers
Clients
Local databases
iLabs Shared Architecture
Campus service broker
Campus network
Internet
Clients
Local labs
Lab equipment and servers
Local databases
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Batched Experiment Network Topology

• In the batched experiment architecture, the
  client and the lab server communicate only
  through the Service Broker

No Direct Communication
X
Interactive Experiment
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Preliminary Interactive Topology
Labside Campus
Clientside Campus
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iLabs _at_ MIT
Place holder for picture from Kent
Dynamic signal analyzer (EECS, to be deployed
2004)
Shake table (Civil Eng., to be deployed 2004)
Polymer crystallization (Chem. E., deployed 2003)
Microelectronics device characterization (EECS,
deployed 1998)
Heat exchanger (Chem. E., deployed 2001)
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Microelectronics web-based laboratory

• Used at MIT since 1998.
• Also used for classes in Singapore, Sweden,
  England, Greece
• Lab project materials available on OCW

Try it out at http//openilabs.mit.edu
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Weblab Microelectronics Experiment User Interface
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iLabs Workshops

• iLabs implementation and development workshops
  are supported by iCampus through hub affiliates
• The first iLabs software workshop presentation
  materials are available at
• http//stellar.mit.edu/S/project/ilabs

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How you can use iLabs with iCampus and OCW
http//icampus.mit.edu/ilabs
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MIT Online Assessment Tool
Test students like this
Not like this
iMOAT

• Web-based service for administering writing
  examinations
• Used for MIT writing placement exams for entering
  students since 1998
• Enables academic institutions to collaborate in
  administering and evaluating online essay
  examinations

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Why iMOAT?

• Existing modes of assessment inadequate
• Timed impromptu
• Portfolio
• Increasing demands for reliable and valid writing
  assessments
• Students write on computers not paper
• Need for standard system on standard platform

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The Common Practice

• Student walks into large room and writes with pen
  and paper on small desk
• Student reads, at most, a two or three paragraph
  text for each essay
• Student writes one or two essays on specific
  questions
• Handwritten essays are graded (usually by two
  readers)
• Results are sent on paper to student and / or
  advisor

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A student logs into thesystem for the first time
iMOAT
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Essays are graded with comments

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Test Students
This Way
Not This Way

• Allows student to know placement decision well in
  advance
• Student is less stressed during orientation
• Writing tasks are more interesting

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iMOAT built for writing assessment

• Its fundamentally workflow engine
• Where else might it be useful?

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Writing assessment Materials with iCampus
http//icampus.mit.edu/imoat
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Thank You

• Phillip D. Long longpd_at_mit.edu

Innovating education, sharing technology