THE ROLE AND ADAPTATION OF PERVASIVE COMPUTING

THE ROLE AND ADAPTATION OF PERVASIVE COMPUTINGIN TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS

ABSTRACT

            There is no doubt about the current age which is the age that is setting trends of computing in non-traditional way, termed as Pervasive Computing, aiming at omnipresent connected with embedded computing devices or the devices which are carried out by the user, portable devices.

            An advanced electronic technology particularly wireless technology with high speech internet connectivity is converted as smart spaces that provides interactive environment within user space. The devices being used as pervasive computing devices are normally termed as wearable computing devices, which are used by the user to perform daily routine tasks and the user is not forced to use the traditional computer with traditional input and output devices. These devices may be so tiny that they are invisible either mobile or embedded in almost any type of object which can be imagined like cars, home appliances, tools, clothing and other consumer goods.

            These smart devices contained information about their location, identities with the vicinity and are of context aware.  A well-defined goal of researchers and developers of that system is to provide an environment which is equipped with pervasive and unobtrusively embedded in the environment, intuitive, always connected, having portability and available all the times.

            The emerging technologies which are expected to overcome in the pervasive computing that is wearable computing, smart offices, smart work places, smart buildings and smart homes. Lots of tools are expected to support and these are ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuitry, speech recognition, gesture recognition, SOC System on a Chip, perceptive interfaces, smart matter flexible transistors, reconfigurable processors, FPLG field programming logic gates and MEMS micro electromechanical systems. In this review paper I tried present an important aspect of teaching and learning process, which is the most sensitive part.

INTRODUCTION

            In Today life smart phones, internet tablets and other portable devices are most widely used by commercial and domestic users which are the most significant aspect of ubiquitous computing. The term “ubiquitous computing” is firstly introduced and used by Mark Weiser who also emphasized that “the most profound technologies are those that disappear as they weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” that elaborated the role of normal articles available in the user’s space and they are always connected and are being utilized as smart source of input and to produce output for the persons available in the vicinity without any surprise. According to Weiser an environment in which the computer is integral to and embedded in the background of daily life.

            In this paper I reviewed few research papers about the start of the ubiquitous computing and its benefits at that time and what can be achieved in the future, keeping in view the wide usage of computing devices which may be connected all the time and can change their behavior according to the needs of the user and in accordance with the environment. They data and information required by the users may be easily accessible and portable from several types of devices.

            The process of educating the people with their desired pace and ease is very challenging, various mechanisms are proposed and are being used for the same purpose and the demand of non-traditional form of education is getting wider is scope and it has become challenge for the developers of Pervasive computing applications to develop universally acceptable environment, equally equipped with all the features. To meet the challenge in chunks, various solutions are proposed and developed as discussed earlier.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

            This paper presents an overview of the literature available in the domain of education, health care, general use of mobile and embedded computing devices. This paper also presents the architecture and applications of pervasive computing with the sharp edge of ubiquitous computing that would be deniable in near future for instance virtual class rooms, smart offices and workplaces, buildings etc.

                Alan Kay introduced the idea of the handheld notebook size computer for the users having ages between 12 to 18 years, which was name as Dynabook at that time and used for training the basic skills of interactive learning. He presented the idea that computers may be used as tools to design and prepare knowledge in various media types that can be accessed anytime and anywhere.

               Paper predicted “a massive penetration of powerful computers into people’s lives” and with the help of that paradigm shift, the process of teaching and learning will be influenced. Paper named that approach of learning as “constructionism”.

            

            Later on Gartner Group’s Sype cycle laid down the basis on which the educational use of ubiquitous computing and research on it was categorized and analyzed.

            Fenn pointed out that the hype cycle “characterizes the typical progression on an emerging technology”. Five stages of hype cycle are:

        1. The technology that triggers

        2. The peak of inflated expectations

        3. The trough of disillusionment

        4. The slope of enlightenment

        5. The plateau of productivity

As the development of technology will be attained at different levels and phases.

Working Methodology and Essentials

The environment of smart spaces/ components of pervasive computing

            The concept of traditional input /output devices has been vanished while talking about the Pervasive Computing environment. This is captioned as intelligent environment which contain devices of different types. Keeping in view the ideal pervasive environment that contains devices of every type worldwide having built in active and passive intelligence.

There are various types of Computing:

1.      Mainframe computing era: large size machines were used as computers to execute batch processing and big data processing applications; there were very few computers available in the world at that time.

2.      Desktop computing era: Single small sized computer to process data locally,  in order to process business related activities, computers connected in intranets to a massive global network.

3.      Ubiquitous computing era: tens/hundreds of computing devices in every room/person, becoming, “invisible” and part of the environment.

Pervasive Networking

            With the increasing demand and use of Pervasive Computing, the devices required and used in such an environment is rapidly increasing. There may be 300 million PDAs, more than 2 billion consumer electronic devices such as pagers, wireless phones and set top boxes and five billion additionally required routine devices like vending machines, washing machines, refrigerators connected to Pervasive Network embedded with microchips. As a result of this increasing demand, most of the technologies are required to be refurbished. A well designed and properly implemented backbone infrastructure is required to meet the required level of connectivity and resource sharing.

Pervasive Middleware

            To implement the requisite infrastructure for pervasive computing, a middleware component is required as it is required in distributed and mobile computing. This middleware shell is required to provide interface between the networking kernel and the end user applications running on pervasive devices. For neutral interactions between pervasive computing space and the Kernel specially designed for networking on behalf of user, this middleware is essentially required. This middleware suite is the combination of firmware and software, protocols which can be executed on client – server or peer to peer architecture. Another aspect of middleware is user interfaces. Web browsers, in a standardized way represent the high end interface sophistication. The use of color, graphics and controls, connectivity, portability is required by the users on pervasive devices. Micro browsers have already been introduced by Mobile computing technology.

Pervasive Applications

            As compared to mobile computing or Web based computing, the use of pervasive computing is strictly environment centric. These types of pervasive applications guide the issues regarding network connectivity to middleware. Keeping in mind heart patient, having an implanted monitor which is used to communicate with computers wirelessly, trained to detect, alarm and report any abnormal situation. An alarm is raised to indicate any critical situation detected by the monitor as this monitor is specially designed for gaining that information from the environment.