iCampus: Innovating Education,
Sharing Technology
Phil Long and Paul Oka
Dir. of Learning Outreach;
Program Mgr
MIT and Microsoft Corporation
MIT/Microsoft iCampus
iCampus is an MIT research program to
enhance university education through
information technology
Established in 1999 through a 6-year, $25
million collaboration with Microsoft Research
Has achieved broad impact at MIT
Sponsored 40 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
Is now turning towards spreading our
innovations beyond MIT
Outreach
Tactical approach
Institutional process
Tactical Approach
Adoption And Dissemination
Faculty peer networks
Rapid, quick introduction classroom
emphemeral (non-systemic), more susceptible
to funding constraints
Institutional outreach
multi-level connection
senior leadership for “permission” and funds,
peer faculty for commitment, technical support
for sustainability
slow to develop (years vs. months), multi-level
commitment, strongly influenced by
institutional context
Practicalities - Scale
Broadcasting from MIT
doesn’t scale
S/N ratio too low
doesn’t build community
Hub - spoke model
Leverage partners to filter interaction
Enable partners to elevate visibilty
Encourage development of regional
communities (“all politics is local”)
iCampus
Hubs
MCCD - Maricopa Community College District
ITESM - Tecnologico de Monterrey
URI - University of Rhode Island
Unicamp - Universidade del Estado do Saul
Paulo
University of Cambridge
BITS- Pilani
CORE - China Open resources for
Education
NTNU - National Technological Normal
University
CCU - Cheng Chang University
University of Queensland
African iLabs Institutions
iLab: Statement Of The Problem
There is enormous educational value in
hands-on laboratory experiences, but…
… conventional laboratories are expensive
and have complex logistics:
Scheduling, equipment cost, lab space, lab
staffing, training, safety
… conventional labs don’t scale well and
can’t easily be shared
All institutions must own all labs
iLab: The Vision
Students will perform a broad range of
educationally meaningful experiments online in
real time
Online laboratories will be embedded inside rich
educational platforms that include visualization
tools, simulations, data processing,
collaboration, etc.
Online laboratories and their educational content
will be broadly shared across many institutions all
over the world
Goals Of iLab Project At MIT
To demonstrate the pedagogical potential
of iLabs in science & engineering
education
To develop a scalable framework to:
Ease the development of new iLabs
Facilitate iLab management
Enable worldwide sharing of iLabs
iLabs At MIT
Dynamic signal analyzer
(EECS, deployed 2004)
Shake table (Civil Eng.,
deployed 2004)
Polymer crystallization
(Chem. E., deployed
2003)
Microelectronics device
characterization (EECS,
deployed 1998)
Heat exchanger (Chem. E.,
deployed 2001)
University Of Queensland
iLabs At UQ
Ported an existing experiment to
iLabs Architecture
1 Student, 4 Months development
New iLab Projects
Microprocessor Lab (microprocessor development
board, dynamic wiring by FPGA; a platform for
embedded systems)
Electronic Experiments (2 undergrads)
NetPhone Experiment
Computer Peripherals Experiments
Dynamometer Experiment
Micro-mirror Device Experiment
Chemical Pilot Plant (Murdoch University)
iLabs In China
Workshop @ Tsinghua University
June 2006
Dalian University
Used OpeniLabs for the past 2 years for
course credit
iCampus Student team (MISTI) to move
HVAC experiment to iLabs Architecture
iLabs In China
Zhejiang University
50 Net Labs today (Electronic, Power and
Automation/Controls)
Strong interest in adopting iLabs
triple-tank system
electromotor system
elevator system
iLabs
Get iLabs from
http://icampus.mit.edu/ilabs/
or email icampus@mit.edu
Cross-media Annotation System
xMAS
Problem
engage students to author multi-media
documents, quoting DVD video content,
along with other media & text resources
Challenge
commercial DVDs cannot be ‘excerpted’,
----- no clips allowed! -----
xMAS
Solution -- Magic....
xMAS
Making your clips
xMAS
Making your clips
xMAS
Making your clips
xMAS
Making your clips
xMAS
x`
Start an essay
xMAS
Drag clip into your
essay
xMAS
Saving your clips
xMAS
Document, links,
images,
everything but the
video is stored as
an XML
document on
the server
video is called
from the
document but
played form
the DVD
xMAS
Original use - theatrical and cinematic
“close study” beginning from MIT
Shakespeare Archive
Obvious use in contemporary cinematic
criticism
But then ...
faculty portfolios for P&T
Education
Criminal Justice Law
Lectures
teacher education practicuum
assessment
Sciences ?
xMAS
Get xMAS from
http://icampus.mit.edu/xmas
or email icampus@mit.edu
Web Based Lecture Browser
Effectively dissemination of
audio/video recordings
Uses Automated speech recognition and
language processing
Generates summarized material to
help navigation
Web Based Lecture Browser
University of Queensland, ITEE
Other Projects
Classroom Learning Partner
http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/CLP.shtml
iDAT:
Web-Based Wireless Sensors for Education
http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/iDAT.shtml
iMOAT: MIT Online Assessment Tool
http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/iMOAT.shtml
xTutor:
Online lectures and interactive homework
http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/XTutor.shtml
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