Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Graves, Corey Dr.

Abstract

There is a dire need for more STEM degrees in America. Recent studies have shown that there is a surge in motivating the youth in STEM areas of research. One key motivator is the use of pervasive computing concepts such as SMS/MMS messaging and social networking. Teens of today send text messages more than ever; in fact research shows that teens (ages 13 to 19) use cell phones to text far more than to actually make phone calls. Thus SMS/MMS messaging presents itself as an excellent segue into STEM motivation and education. Computational/visualization engines, with their broad application development capabilities, can be used as an excellent teaching tool at all levels simply by modifying applications to fit specific course material. Thus the UMSEE system was created. UMSEE (Ubiquitous Mobile Systems for Educational Enhancement) is a system conceived by Dr. Corey A. Graves that interfaces computational/visualization engines, and SMS/MMS messages. The system allows users to send processing request to a computational/visual engine toolbox (e.g. MATLAB, Octave) via SMS or MMS and receive the processed data back via SMS or MMS (e.g. in the form of JPEG graphs). The use of an SMS/MMS-based social networking service, versus a dedicated email account, was chosen as the interface between SMS/MMS and the computational/visualization ix engine due to its ease of application development, social relevance, popularity, user-friendliness, and security. In addition to the aforementioned reasons, SMS/MMS-based social networking sites have the potential to ultimately draw the attention of younger people toward STEM learning because of their familiarity with the social networking site. The development of the UMSEE system using the social networking site managed better versus using a dedicated email account. This was primarily due to the open source development environment of the social networking site. Overall, the social networking site based system was far more robust in terms of security, speed, development, and SMS/MMS messaging. Furthermore future UMSEE users can easily tailor the computational/visual engine toolbox for specific courses or demonstrations. Based on the increase in pervasive computing in education, the UMSEE has potential to be a major part of education.

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