A case study of Mobile Learning in a Strength of Materials course

Editor's Notes

• #2: Good Morning, my name is Luis Celorrio. I come from University of La Rioja, in Spain. I am going to talk about mobile learning. The title of my presentation is A case study of Mobile learning in a Strength of Materials course. This one subject that I teach in the University. It is a real experience during the year 2015.
• #3: The index of my presentation is outlined in the slide. INTRODUCTION OBJECTIVES OF Mobile Learning ACTIVITIES The CONTEXT of the learning activities is a course of higher education, the subject is strength of materials. APPS FOR LEARNING STRENGTH OF MATERIALS ACTIVITY BASED ON MECHANICS OF MATERIALS (MoM) Mechanics of materials is equivalent to Strength of materials. ACTIVITY BASED ON FRAME DESIGN 2D (two di) Apps RESULTS OF THE LEARNING ACTIVITIES CONCLUSIONS
• #4: Smartphones have become an omnipresent object in daily life. Same statistics from: La Sociedad de la Información en España 2015 from Telefonica company say that Smartphone has overtaken Computer as device used to access to Internet. Instant messaging has become completely universal among young people. Therefore, every young person has got a smartphone in Spain. In my opinion a smartphone is a good teaching and learning resource.
• #5: Three most important aspects have contributed in incorporating smartphones as a learning resource: 1.- The First one is the installation of Free Wi-Fi networks in Universities. 2.- The second is the initiative Bring Your Own Device. Students “need” a device to read email, to connect to Blackboard or Moodle. 3.- Finally, New learning-oriented apps have been developed. For example: Apps for Learning Virtual Environments, like Blackboard and Moodle, apps for Instant Messaging like whatsapp, et cetera.
• #6: Main objective: Students learn the concepts and procedural contents of the course in a faster and more enjoyable manner. Ultimate objective: improving students’ academic results. Secondary objectives: To improve social and digital competences. Use of mobile technology: install and uninstall apps, locate a file in the memory, check phone’s status,.. Use of cloud storage tools: Dropbox, Google Drive. Use of instant message apps: WhatsApp for group members.
• #7: The context of this mobile learning experience is the Course of Strength of Materials It is a Compulsory course in the second year, fourth semester. There are three Industrial Engineering Grades at University of La Rioja: Mechanical Engineering Electrical Engineering Industrial Electronics and Control Engineering Strength of materials is a subject with 6 ECTS credits. 180 students were enrolled in two groups for lectures and six small groups for problem-solving classes and computer labs.
• #8: There are a lot of free apps useful to learn strength of materials: Mechanics of Materials (MoM), by All Edu Apps Strength of Materials (SOM), by Engineering Apps Easy Beam Analysis, by Wildebeastmedia Steel Sections by SilverFernSolutions Frame Design 2D by LetsConstruct. And a lot of apps… Only free versions are used It is important to select apps available for both Operating Systems: Android and iOS. However Android is the most popular Operating Systems because 83% of smartphones sold in the world use android. Two learning activities were carried out with apps: one based on Mechanics of Materials and one based on Frame Design.
• #9: This app was developed to help Indian students to prepare a national exam named GATE. GATE is the acronym for Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering. Students, after finish the Grade must take this test if they want to continue studying a Master degree or wish to work for a public entity in India. The GATE exam consists of sixty questions. The time is three hours : Theoretical or short questions stated in multiple choice format have a value of one point Applied exercises with numerical answer have a value of two points Every year, 900000 nine hundred thousand students take the GATE examination. We can compare with Selectivity in Spain, “only” two hundred thousand Spanish students take this exam.
• #10: “Mock Test” option contains questions about Strength of Materials that were included in GATE exams over the last 20 years. Questions are grouped by exam or by topic: Simple Stress Simple Strain Complex Stress Complex Strain SFD & BMD Pure Bending Shear Stress in Beams Torsion Deflection on Beams Thin Cylinder Columns Energy & Virtual Work MoM app controls the time used to answer the test and provides marks and statistics. Rest of Icons contains theoretical resources about these topics
• #11: THE ACTIVITY BASED ON MECHANICS OF MATERIALS CONSISTS OF THESE STEPS: Students have to solve all the test questions in Mock Test in MoM. These questions are divided in sets and are assigned to the students. Students solve questions and exercises and upload their detailed answers to the Virtual Learning Environment. The professor verifies these answers and opens all these works uploaded to all the students. Student must take a test exam with similar structure to GATE: The exam contains 20 questions and the time limit is 60 min. Questions are similar or equal to MoM questions.
• #12: Frame Design 2D is a powerful software for analysing and designing plane trusses, beams and frames. These figures show some structures that can be solved with FrameDesign 2D. Frame Design 2D is very similar to educational software for PC like CESPLA, MdSolids and others
• #13: During Weeks twelve to fourteen of the semester, I teach statically indeterminate beams in the subject Strength of materials The activity that students have to carry out is to solve a continuous beam with three spans. Firstly, each student have to solve the continuous beam with symbolic data using analytical methods. Finally, symbolic data were replaced with numerical data and students were asked to verify their results with software. Students have two options: to use a computer software named MdSolids or to use the app named Frame Design 2D.
• #14: This slide shows the continuous beam modelled with two options Continuous beam modelled with MdSolids (PC software) Continuous beam modelled with Frame Design and Bending Moment Diagram I think that the model in MdSolids is more clear and friendly than with frame design.
• #15: For the Activity based in MoM app: 70% of the students passed the theoretical test exam with 20 questions. The marks improved notably with respect to past years. Also, students solved problems in a more elaborate and detailed manner: Equations and procedures used were justified. For the Activity based in FrameDesign 2D app: 30% students used the Frame Design app for the verification of the beam and 70% used MdSolids for PC.
• #16: A survey was conducted to know the students’ opinion. Main conclusions were: 90% of students installed both apps in their mobile phone. 60% of students ran these apps 10 o more times to consult questions or to solve structures. Only 20% of student ran these apps just once or twice. More than 70% used the MoM app and the resources uploaded to Blackboard (VLE) to prepare the theoretical exam. 95% considered the experience of using their smartphones to be very beneficial because it accelerated the learning process. Also students who passed the subject “Strength of Materials” increased in 20% as compared to last year’s results.
• #17: Finally, the conclusions of this work are: An experience with mobile learning in a course of Strength of Materials in engineering degree programs has been explained. These learning activities were received enthusiastically by students. Students enjoyed using their mobile phones as a learning tool. Academic results improved as compared to the mean marks recorded in the past. In the near future: questions from GATE exams will be uploaded to a web page, for example Socrative or Kahoot, to create tests in Spanish.