CSE

Promoting Active Learning through Just-in-time-teaching and Peer Interaction

Project Overview
Project Title	Promoting Active Learning through Just-in-time-teaching and Peer Interaction
Project Leader	Prof Rudolf Fleischer
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Aug 2002 - Jun 2004
Project Description	Students always have to learn information in class by rote and then regurgitate it in the examination. This project planned to use teaching methods which encouraged students to learn actively and deeply. Instead of going through course materials in class, students worked on their own. Class time was used to engage them in active learning by requiring students to study materials in groups in advance, which they then had to post questions on the web, spending class time to address the questions posted and running the quiz in class and having students responded using PRS handsets.
Project Outcome	A web-based course support system for COMP272 was implemented, built on top of WebCT. This enabled a more smoothly implementation of the Just-in-time Teaching paradigm which fostered active and deep learning among the students.The system could also be used for other courses.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Third \| Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

Using the Internet and Wireless Technologies to Achieve Interactive Delivery of Lectures

Project Overview
Project Title	Using the Internet and Wireless Technologies to Achieve Interactive Delivery of Lectures
Project Leader	Prof Gary Chan
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Sep 2002 - Dec 2004
Project Description	Traditionally, students interact with instructors in classroom lectures. Yet it is not convenient or cost-effective for those students who are working, have access/mobility difficulties, live in a remote area, or experience social isolation such as during the SARS outbreak. With the popularity of broadband Internet connection and wireless medium (Wi-Fi and 3G), a platform for interactive online lectures was developed. This project, "Cyberclassroom," offered a similar experience to traditional teaching but with students connected through the Internet. They may raise questions to their instructors anywhere, anytime using their PCs or laptops over the Internet or wireless medium. Real-time videos, audios and whiteboards were also streamed to the end users. The system was scalable to hundreds of students and made use of current off-the-shelf computing products and state-of-the-art networking techniques. It was cost-effective, breaking geographical limitation in attending lectures. Initial feedback from students using the system was positive and encouraging.
Project Outcome	A system termed “Cyberclassroom” for large-scale delivery for multimedia stream was developed, so that students distributed in the Internet may attend lecture interactively with the instructor and their peers. A paper entitled “ Island Multicast” was presented at the IEEE (i.e. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering) ICC (International Communication Conference) on 20-24 Jun 03. Island Multicast is a tool for global delivery of multimedia streams to a large number (~1000) of users in a scalable manner. A paper entitled “ Cyberclassroom: a large-scale interactive distance-learning platform” was presented at the Teaching and Learning Symposium organized by CELT in May 04. Island Multicast was adopted to support the Cyberclassroom project.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Third \| Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

Enhancing Learning through Online Audio Communication

Project Overview
Project Title	Enhancing Learning through Online Audio Communication
Project Leader	Prof David Rossiter
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Sept 2002 - Jun 2003
Project Description	Internet technology now allows communication to move beyond text. What may serve Internet based teaching better is to support communication through non-textual formats. Bearing this in mind, this project developed a tool supporting Internet-based audio communication. The GONG system (http://www.cs.ust.hk/gong/) being accessible by students and instructors, supported both real-time communication and immediate access to the full history of recorded communications, extendable with further recordings at any point in time. GONG was especially useful for language learning since it provided students the chance to practice language in an easy environment e.g. at home at their own pace. But it also had potential use for an online course where learners were working from different locations.
Project Outcome	Development of the Gong system by releasing an initial version, and then building additional features and fixing bugs through a series of improvements, all released through the Internet: Versions 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.1.0, 1.2.0, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.3.0, 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.3.3. Main features of the developed Gong system: i) Text/audio board inside a browser; ii) groups of people can talk to each other with text and/or audio chat; and iii) a web-based administration module provides ease in managing the system. Working with CL3, Language Center, and the Computer Science Department to try out the Gong software in real-world environments. Forthcoming - extension of the Gong system by 10 Final Year Project students from the Computer Science Department.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

Teaching a Second Programming Language Using the Emporium Model

Project Overview
Project Title	Teaching a Second Programming Language Using the Emporium Model
Project Leader	Prof David Rossiter
School / Dept	SENG / CSE
Project Duration	Jul 2011 - Jan 2014
Project Description	To facilitate transition to the 4 year-program, this project pioneered the design and creation of a suite of transition modules for teaching a second programming language using the Emporium Model. Specifically, the content of the transition module would be designed and delivered within the context of LMES with appropriate assessment methodologies.
Project Outcome	A course (now a group of courses) which teaches HKUST students who already know how to program to learn a second or third programming language, delivered using non-traditional methodology on a specially arranged platform.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Final Report Project-end Review by Project Leader
Adaptation	Full Project

Adaption of Podcasting Techniques for a Postgraduate Computer Science Course

Project Overview
Project Title	Adaption of Podcasting Techniques for a Postgraduate Computer Science Course
Project Leader	Prof David Rossiter
School / Dept	SENG / CSE
Project Duration	Feb 2007 - Dec 2007
Project Description	The project provided students (who often cannot attend lectures for legitimate reasons) access to the lecture material via a podcast.
Project Outcome	A new feature of the GONG system was developed and able to support import of any podcast and export any voice board in the system as a podcast. An add-on podcasting feature of GONG system was designed in Java environment which was applicable to all platforms. RSS subscription function was added. Any audio recordings can be simultaneously published as a podcast. Newly added or edited messages in the Gong voice board will automatically reflected in the Gong podcast by any podcast reading system. The system was implemented in a course.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Final Report
Adaptation	Adaptation from Lecture POD casting: enhancing course materials through recorded MP3 audio of lectures for portable MP3 players

Extending GONG to Enable Audio Podcasting for Teacher/Learner Communication

Project Overview
Project Title	Extending GONG to Enable Audio Podcasting for Teacher/Learner Communication
Project Leader	Prof Jogesh K. Muppala
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Jan 2007 - May 2008
Project Description	The project adapted the GONG tool, which was developed in a previous project, to enable bi-directional audio communication between the student and the teacher. Students were enabled to keep up with the audio conversations by subscribing to the audio podcasts of the various threads of discussion on the GONG boards; and was provided a convenient interface for generating audio content for podcast.
Project Outcome	The technology of audio communication with podcast is ready and available. The GONG system was modified and able to support import of any podcast and export any voice board in the system as a podcast. It also enabled bidirectional audio communication between the students and the teacher with the content available as podcast. The GONG audio discussion board with podcast support was adopted in three courses.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Third \| Final Report
Adaptation	Adaptation from Enhancing learning through online audio communication

Automatic Indexing of Lecture Recordings

Project Overview
Project Title	Automatic Indexing of Lecture Recordings
Project Leader	Prof Cindy Li
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Sept 2006 - Feb 2007
Project Description	The project extended the GONG system, which was developed in a preiovus project, to automatically index the recorded lectures, and the lecture material in order to facilitate the learning of students who had diverse learning pace. In this way, students could easily and efficiently playback the relevant parts at a pace according to their needs.
Project Outcome	The audio-indexing feature was coped inside the GONG software, and demos were put online. The system was implemented in two courses. The responses from the students were pretty good. Parts of the work are presented in international conferences.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Final Report
Adaptation	Adaptation from Gong - Enhancing Learning through Online Audio Communication

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HILOCS – Highly Interactive Learning Objects for Computer Science

Project Overview
Project Title	HILOCS – Highly Interactive Learning Objects for Computer Science
Project Leader	Prof David Rossiter
School / Dept	SENG / COMP
Project Duration	Nov 2005 - Feb 2008
Project Description	The project team worked closely with the computer science faculty to identify problematic areas where traditional teaching methods did not effectively transfer relevant knowledge to students. After identifying these targets, highly interactive learning objects were developed which may be used by the teacher to effectively demonstrate the concept to students, and thereafter by individual student to interactively strengthen his/her understanding of the algorithm/concept.
Project Outcome	A unique system - Spider and Search System for Learning Objects (SASSLO) Search Engine for Resources was developed to assemble a collection of learning objects into a database with functions of interactive download, categorisation, and storage (http://www.cse.ust.hk/sasslo/). A central repository assembled more than 500 high quality interactive learning objects was developed, in which learning objects are easily searched and accessed by interested staff and/or students to support teaching and learning specifically for courses in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering New learning objects were developed to fill the areas not supported by currently existing learning objects (http://www.cse.ust.hk/learning_objects/). The learning objects were used in two courses in three sequence semesters.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Third \| Forth \| Fifth \| Final Report
Adaptation	Full Project

Lecture PODcasting: Enhancing course materials through recorded MP3 audio of lectures for portable MP3 players

Project Overview
Project Title	Lecture PODcasting: Enhancing course materials through recorded MP3 audio of lectures for portable MP3 players
Project Leader	Prof Jogesh K Muppala
School / Dept	SENG / CSE
Project Duration	Jan 2006 - Mar 2007
Project Description	The project explored the feasibility, technical and pedagogical issues of supplementing course materials through recorded MP3 audio of lectures that students could download and listen (offline) on their portable MP3 players like Apple IPod.
Project Outcome	It was found that podcasting digital audio of lecture presentations was a welcome addition to the traditional classroom teaching, and welcomed by students. Students also preferred indexed audio so that interesting parts can be easily located within the lecture audio. Several advantages of the approach and some shortcomings were identified. Findings were published in three conference papers.
Status	Completed
Project Documents (Only accessible by HKUST users)	Project Plan Progress Report: First \| Second \| Third \| Final Report Project-end Review by Project Leader
Adaptation	Full Project

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