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Title:
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A GUIDE TO REMOTE TEACHING WITH INEXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGY: NOTES ON A MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT COURSE |
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Author(s):
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Caroline King, Chris Manford |
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ISBN:
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978-972-8939-32-8 |
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Editors:
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Heling Huai, Piet Kommers and Pedro Isaías |
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Year:
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2010 |
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Edition:
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Single |
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Keywords:
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Remote teaching inexpensive technology |
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Type:
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Full Paper |
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First Page:
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27 |
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Last Page:
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33 |
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Language:
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English |
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Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload 
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Paper Abstract:
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To enable our students to have a competitive edge when entering the job market, our department makes every attempt to offer state-of-the-art courses. One problem with this strategy is that often our available lecturers lack commercial expertise in the new areas. To address this problem, we often run these courses outside normal working hours, and employ industry personnel to deliver or assist in the delivery of these courses. This semester, in a programming course for mobile phone applications, the industry expert lived and worked 650 kms from the campus, so remote teaching was required. Without access to video conferencing facilities and having only our standard teaching lab facilities with a minimal budget, we explored various technologies for running this course. The system needed to allow the delivery of the lecture, code demonstration from both the students and the lecturer's ends, code sharing, and discussions of the code and design with the lecturer. After experimenting with various technologies, we settled on Skype with a Singstar set of two cordless microphones for the audio requirements, and GoToMeeting for sharing the desktop and other visual requirements. Both the Mac and the tutor PC at each end were connected to the GoToMeeting. We did not use the cameras that we purchased, because of the limitation in bandwidth, yet the sessions were still successfully interactive. This was an effective and economical solution, with minor functional inconveniences, such as occasional fade out and delay in speech. By making use of the standard equipment in the lab, the total outlay on equipment was kept to less than US$75for the microphones and US$40/month for connection fees. |
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