Widget and Smart Devices. A Different Approach for Remote and Virtual labs

Widget and Smart Devices. A Different Aproach for
Online Learning Scenarios
Elio Sancristobal1, Pablo Orduña 3, Mohamed Tawfik1, Félix García1, Olga Dziabenko4, Diego López-de-Ipiña3,Christophe
Salzmann5, Denis Gillet5, Javier García-Zubia4, Catalina Martinez-Mediano2, Gabriel Díaz1, Manuel Castro1
1

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (DIEEC), Spanish University for Distance Education
2
MIDE-I – Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED)
3
Deusto Institute of Technology, University of Deusto
4
University of Deusto
5
École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne

Abstract— A vast number of learning content and tools can be
found over Internet. Currently, most of them are ad-hoc
solutions which are developed for a particular learning platform
or environment. New concepts, such as Widgets, Smart
devices, Internet of Thing and learning Clouds, are ideas whose
goals is the creation of shareable online learning scenarios over
different devices and environments.
Keywords- Distance Learning, Learning Standards, Virtual and
Remote labs, Smart Devices.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Until the last decades, distance learning is based on
traditional communication means, such as mail, phone, books
cassettes and tapes. The appearance of Internet and the World
Wide Web allowed students and teacher to work with Web
pages, e-mail and electronic video and audio files through Web
browser. Normally, these Web pages were composed by static
content. The evolution of communication networks and
protocols, and the advance of programming languages made
easier the introduction of interactive content and e-learning
tools. Currently, these e-learning tools are being used in
distance learning, such as:
Open courseware a set of e-learning resources (elearning content, test, other materials) in an established
order [1].
Learning management systems or LMS are a set of
services that allow displaying theoretical content in an
organized and controlled way. Also it is able to fulfill
with e-learning standards such as Sharable Content
Object Reference Model (SCORM) [2] or IMS
Common Cartridge (IMS-CC) [3]

display educational content. Also concepts such as smart
devices [5], internet of thing [6] and cloud computing are
modifying the way of working. This paper is focused on this
issue.
As it was mentioned, it is possible to find a vast number of
e-learning tools and content over Internet. These are usually
organized to create online learning scenarios or activities [7-8].
The main problem is that these scenarios are ad-hoc solution
and their components are developed for a particular device or
e-learning system. To avoid this, e-learning standards such as:
Content e-learning standards (SCORM or IMS-CC)
provide a set of normative to pack learning content in
an organized way. This learning package can be
deployed in a learning management system.
Widgets. According to W3C World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C), widgets
are client-side
applications that are authored using Web standards
such as HTML and packaged for distribution. They are
typically downloaded and installed on a client machine
or device where they run as stand-alone
applications, but they can also be embedded into Web
pages and run in a Web browser. These can
create
complex applications that pull data from
multiple sources to be "mashed-up" and presented
interesting
and
useful
way
to a user in some
(http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/). These widgets can
be combined to create online learning scenarios and
activities which can be displayed in different
devices, such as smart phones, tables, web browser and
PCs.

Remote labs are applications that allow students to
work with real instruments. In the case of remote web
labs, students hand the instruments through Internet [34].

The Smart drive device paradigm [9-10].
Physically, the considered smart device is made of the
adjunction of a controlling computer the server
connected to physical equipment on one the
server side and connected to the Internet on the
other side. A smart device has enough intelligence
to communicate and adapt to any clients and it is also
capable of adaptation to its surrounding (Fig 1.).

Normally, all these e-learning tools were designed for Web
browser and PCs. Nowadays, this is changing; new devices
such as tablets and smart phones are important elements to

This paradigm is being considered by organization
such as IEEE that is working in IEEE1451. This is not
concept of smart objectsbut it the a step forward in the
an e-learning standard, and is future use of them in

Virtual labs are software of simulation that allows
students can carry out experiments from their home.

e-learning field. This set of standards makes it easier
for transducer manufacturers to develop smart devices
and
to
interface
those
devices
to
networks, systems, and
instruments
by
incorporating
existing
and emerging
sensorand
networking
technologies
(http://www.nist.gov/el/isd/ieee/ieee1451.cfm)

Technology,
Queensland
University
of
Technology, RMIT University, University of South
Australia,
and the
University
of
Technology, Sydney [13]. This project aims to
create a national network of shared remotely
accessible Laboratories. This mean a greater number
of
high-quality
laboratory-based
educational
experiments are available to university and high school
students from anywhere in Australia and around the
world.
The WebLab-Deusto project is an open source project
providing a web-based, experiment-agnostic, scalable
software infrastructure, which permits the University
of Deusto to offer several laboratories to its students
through the Internet [14]. Some available online
experiments are:

Figure 1. Example of Smart Devices.

The application of these e-learning standards allow the
reuse of e-learning content and activities over Internet and
provide teachers a new approach to create learning scenarios
which can be implemented on different devices and platforms.
II.

DESCRIPTION AND INITIATIVES TO REUSE REMOTE LABS
IN LEARNING ENVIROMENTS

Currently it is possible to find a vast number of universities
and institutions which are developing remote labs [11]. These
are usually a set of instruments physically linked one of each
other through buses or USB connectors (Fig. 2) that display
over Internet a set of experiment which can be carried out by
students out of traditional classrooms.

The iLab Shared Architecture (ISA) implemented by
the MIT to facilitate the rapid development of new web
laboratories and to provide a mechanism for students
from one university to use the experiments and the
hardware instruments of another university [15].
VISIR is an open source laboratory dedicated to
remote experimentations on analog electronics [16].
Some of the online experiments provided are: function
generator and oscilloscope use, DC circuits, AC
circuits or MOS transistor characterization.
OCELOT (Open and Collaborative Environment for
the Leverage of Online insTrumentation) is an open
source and collaborative Online Laboratory framework
and middleware. It is based on mixed reality and
interactive multimedia. One of its core features is the
multimodality of the W3C Widgets-based Graphic
User Interface delivered to the learner. It is currently
being implemented by Télécom Saint-Etienne (France)
under LGPL (http://ocelot.ow2.org) [17].
LiLa (stands for Library of Labs), a European
eContentPlus project that promotes a portal of Online
Labs resources and fosters exchanges on experiments
among institutions [18]. To do this the using an elearning standard named SCORM. To do this, LiLa
packs the remote laboratory in SCORM and use
JavaScript to launch the experiments. Although this
solution is able to use the laboratory, its main problem
is that the exchange and storing of information
between the SCORM package and of Lab is limited by
the Javascript and the version of SCORM data model.

Figure 2. Remote lab architecture

According to Hardward [12] “we learned that developing
new labs from scratch required considerable effort and that the
domain specialist, only under rare circumstances a software
engineer, had to play a key role”. To make easier the
development and reuse of remote labs several initiatives
emerged in the last two decades:
LabShare is led by the University of
Technology, Sydney, and is a joint initiative of
Technology Network:
Curtin
University
of
the Australian

Slab project Integration of open services for remote
and virtual laboratories distributed, reusable and safe
[7] [19-20]. It was developed by Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department from UNED. The
main goals were the use of remote labs in learning
management systems, mobiles and the application of
biometrics method focused on the
All these projects werewith remote labs.use of “traditional”
remote labs (Fig. 2) where each remote lab is shown as an
indivisible e-learning component which provides a set of online
experiments. The next section will describe a new way to

understand remote labs and make easier the creation of elearning scenarios into different learning scenarios and
environments.
III.

LEARNING SCENARIOS, SMART OBJECTS AND WIDGETS

According to Klebl [21], “a learning scenario is a social
setting dedicated to learning, education or training. It is a
process of interaction between people in a specific learning
situation using resources for learning within a designed
environment. People in role of learners perform activities
directed towards learning objectives using resources for
learning. Learners may work won their own or in a group of
learners. They may be supported by teaching staff”.
Normally, these learning scenarios are composed of set
of
learning resources
and
activities,
such
as
assessments,
web pages, electronic files, forums, and
remote labs. Moreover they are usually displayed in
webpages or learning management systems [22].
Currently learning management systems are not the only
way of displaying learning scenarios. Internet browser, mobile
devices, tablets or social environments provide a software
learning framework to design and create learning scenarios.
For instance, google chrome provides a set of web applications
which can be included and run from every device which
supports Chrome (Fig. 3). These application are called App and
they are miniature application views that can be embedded in
other applications and receive periodic updates. Also, mobiles
operating system such as android works in a similar way (Fig.
4). Therefore a learning scenario could be a set of app focused
on a determined learning goal.

Chrome and android use native Apps, these can be
converted to standardized format called W3C Widget [23-24].
A. W3C widgets
According to W3C “Widgets are full-fledged client-side
applications that are authored using Web standards such as
[HTML] and packaged for distribution. They are typically
downloaded and installed on a client machine or device where
they run as stand-alone applications, but they can also be
embedded into Web pages and run in a Web browser” [25].
Widgets are packing in a valid Zip archive that contains the
following:
One configuration file called config.xml (casesensitive). This contains vital information about the
widget,
such
as
the
name, author, description, license, and more.
One or more start files, located at the root of the widget
package and/or at the root of locale folders or
referenced by a content element's src attribute. There
are two kinds of start file: custom start file and default
start file.
o

A custom start file is a processable file inside
the widget package identified by a content
element's src attribute.

o

A default start file is a reserved start file at the
root of the widget package or at the root of a
locale folder whose file name is index (casesensitively).

Zero or more icons, either located at the root of the
widget package and/or at the root of locale folders or
referenced by the icon element's src attribute.
Zero or more arbitrary files located either at the root of
the widget package and/or in arbitrary folders or in
locale folders.
Zero or more digital signatures located at the root of
the widget package.
An example of the structure of a widget package is shown
in the figure 5.

Figure 3. Web applications for Chrome web storage.

Figure 5. Widget package.
Figure 4. App Widgets for Android.

These widgets can be stored and deployed through a widget
engine such as google chrome or android (Fig. 3 and 4).
B. Internet of things, Smart devices, remote labs and Widgets
According to IEEE time machine “the Internet of Things
(IoT) refers to the vision that in the next 20 years, a revolution
in device-to-device communication will take place that will be
comparable to the revolution in person-to-person
communication that erupted in the last two decades with the
Internet and World Wide Web.” [26].
Therefore,
apart
from
e-learning content
and
applications, Internet is composed by a large range of
hardware. This hardware will be directly connected to Internet
and will be able to manage itself and communicate with other
hardware. Also it can be embedded in widgets and
displayed on World Wide Web. This hardware is called smart
devices or objects.
As it was mentioned, remote labs are usually web
applications which allow students to carry out online
experiments
and
hand
physical
instruments.
Therefore, Concepts such as smart devices and widgets
should
be considered on the design, development and
implementation of remote labs (Fig 6).

3.

The teachers use the toolkit editor to create
experiments and learning scenarios through a set of
widgets (smart devices, application, curricula
material, etc.).

4.

These learning scenarios are deployed in the World
Wide Web through a widget engine.

5.

Students can access to these learning scenarios through
different devices.

A key factor in this process is the design software and
implementation of widgets (communication API between
widgets and hardware, among widgets, etc.).
IV.
CONCLUSION
Concepts such as internet of things, smart devices and
widgets are concepts which allow the reuse of hardware, elearning content and activities over Internet. Also it provides
teachers with a new framework to create learning scenarios
which can be implemented on different devices and platforms.
In the next decade many of the instruments of remote
laboratories will be smart devices and object over internet.
Even so, a long way must be walked. The use of e-learning
standards, the split of functionalities between teachers and
technical persons (software engineers) are challenges that have
to be solved.
V.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Authors would like to acknowledge the support of the
following projects: e-Madrid (S2009/TIC-1650), RIPLECS
(517836-LLP-1-2011-1-ES-ERASMUSPAC
ESMO), (517742-LLP-1-2011-1-BGEMTM
(2011-1-PL1-LEO05-19883), MUREE (530332-TEMPUS-1ERASMUS-ECUE),
2012-1-JO-TEMPUS-JPCR), and Go-Lab (FP7-ICT-20118/317601).
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Figure 6. Creating remote labs through Widgets and smart devices.

The hardward s phrase (section 2), about software engineer
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remote lab in learning scenarios can be described in the next
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1.

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