Integrating Mobile Computing Solutions into Distance Learning Environments

This paper assumes that in the near future most students
at universities are in possession of a mobile device with
the ability to access the world wide web and display multimedia
content. Observing the current development trends of mobile
hardware, this seems to be justified. Even common mobile
phones have multiple wireless communication interfaces and
colour displays. More expensive devices are equipped with a
large touch screen and are able to play videos in a reasonable
quality. It is attempted to exploit this development and enhance
the learning experience of students by gradually building
up a pervasive computing infrastructure. A design is proposed
that offers an open and extensible (distance) learning environment.
Flexible standards such as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) for communication and the Extensible Markup
Language (XML) for document transfer are used. This design
allows to access and modify learning material stored in learning
management systems (LMS), multimedia repositories and
electronic voting system (EVS) locally and remotely. The supported
technology ranges from PCs and laptops to mobile devices.