Mobile application to enhance writing skills for tenth graders of Unidad Educativa Alfa y Omega, la Libertad, province of Santa Elena, school year 2018-2019.

The present work is an investigation which objective was to establish the use of WhatsApp as a teaching tool to enhance the writing skills on 23 students of tenth basic year at Unidad Educativa Alfa y Omega, in Santa Elena Province, Ecuador. The investigational group was allowed to use WhatsApp messenger Application in a smart device, whose principal characteristics are the usefulness of groups chatting, personal chatting sharing that allowed enhancing the writing skills on students through the practice of interactive activities, lectures and podcast. For the development of this research it was required to apply the qualitative method by implementing techniques such as: Focus group, observation and interviews. The results of these analysis demonstrated that the application of mobile learning technique in a smart device (WhatsApp), generate significant effects on writing skills of students such as the improvement of writing skill. These outcomes suggest that teachers should start changing traditional ways of teaching English specifically in the writing training sessions and explore new methods to improve production on students

Smart device application as teaching tool for improving listening skill to students of second bachillerato bgu at unidad educativa Liceo Cristiano Peninsular. La libertad, province of Santa Elena, school year 2015 - 2016.

The present work is an investigation which objective was to establish the use of whatsApp as a teaching tool to improve the listening skills on 15 students from second bachillerato BGU at unidad educativa Liceo Cristiano Peninsular, in Santa Elena province, Ecuador. The investigational group was allowed to use whatsApp cross mobile application in a smart device, whose principal characteristics are the usefulness of audio message sending and video sharing that allowed enhancing the listening skills on students through the practice of songs, video clips, lectures and podcast. For the development of this research it was required to apply the qualitative method by implementing techniques such as: Focus group, observation and interviews. The results of these analysis demonstrated that the application of mobile learning technique in a smart device (whatsApp), generate significant effects on listening skills of students such as the improvement of listening skill among 12% and 20% where students passed from A2.1 to A2.2 level in listening skills according to common european framework reference since the encouragement and confidence that scholars feel while they use a social network properly. These outcomes suggest that teachers should start changing traditional ways of teaching English specifically in the listening training sessions and explore new methods to improve production on students

Usability Enhancement of SMS Interface for Illiterate Users

This article analyzes several User Interface (UI) designs and puts forward some more general design principles for interfaces designed for low-literate users. The results of this study highlight the importance of text-free interfaces compared to text-based interfaces for the illiterate and low-literate population. The study developed a Short Message Service (SMS) interface consisting of many design elements, including graphical icons, voice, and text reduction. The participants were more satisfied with the designed SMS interface as compared to the traditional text-based interface of SMS. We believe that if the user interface is appropriately designed, users will not need formal literacy, computer skills, or any external help to operate the application. It has been shown that an interface with minimal or no text but one or more graphics, audio, and digital components is helpful for users with low literacy rates

Near Field Communication

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology that enables a device to communicate with another at a maximum distance of around 20cm or less. Currently, mobile phone manufacturers, banking institutions and mobile network providers are attempting to apply this technology to Smartphones and other handheld devices because of the opportunity to enable the consumer to use commercial services more easily. This paper discusses the expected increase in mobile payments using Near Field Communication, possible uses and the risks associated with carrying out transactions over a wireless network. We also discuss a real world implementation of an NFC based loyalty card system for retail.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v2i3.23

Integrating cell phones as technology in the high school English classroom

Educators are beginning to work with students whose lives have been immersed in the 22st century media culture. Many of these tools include cell phones, game consoles, laptops, iPads, handheld game devices and television, just to indicate a few. This growing technology has been used mainly for enteltainment purposes by the 21st century student and seen by others, especially educators, as a detriment to education and the intellectual abilities of these students. This paper describes the potential uses of Short Message Service otherwise known as text messaging in the high school English classroom, particularly how it might encourage interactions and increase engagement in the classroom. Since Short Message Service SMS requires reading and writing, exploration and further research in the ways this technology can assist adolescents in the development of literacy abilities is critical to truly reach the 21st century student

A Preventive Medicine Framework for Wearable Abiotic Glucose Detection System

In this work, we present a novel abiotic glucose fuel cell with battery-less remote access. In the presence of a glucose analyte, we characterized the power generation and biosensing capabilities. This system is developed on a flexible substrate in bacterial nanocellulose with gold nanoparticles used as a conductive ink for piezoelectric deposition based printing. The abiotic glucose fuel cell is constructed using colloidal platinum on gold (Au-co-Pt) and a composite of silver oxide nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes as the anodic and cathodic materials. At a concentration of 20 mM glucose, the glucose fuel cell produced a maximum open circuit voltage of 0.57 V and supplied a maximum short circuit current density of 0.581 mA/cm2 with a peak power density of 0.087 mW/cm2 . The system was characterized by testing its performance using electrochemical techniques like linear sweep voltammetry, cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry in the presence of various glucose level at the physiological temperatures. An open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.43 V, short circuit current density (Isc) of 0.405 mA/cm2 , and maximum power density (Pmax) of 0.055 mW/cm2 at 0.23 V were achieved in the presence of 5 mM physiologic glucose. The results indicate that glucose fuel cells can be employed for the development of a self-powered glucose sensor. The glucose monitoring device demonstrated sensitivity of 1.87 uA/mMcm2 and a linear dynamic range of 1 mM to 45 mM with a correlation coefficient of 0.989 when utilized as a self-powered glucose sensor. For wireless communication, the incoming voltage from the abiotic fuel cell was fed to a low power microcontroller that enables battery less communication using NFC technology. The voltage translates to the NFC module as the digital signals, which are displayed on a custom-built android application. The digital signals are converted to respective glucose concentration using a correlation algorithm that allows data to be processed and recorded for further analysis. The android application is designed to record the time, date stamp, and other independent features (e.g. age, height, weight) with the glucose measurement to allow the end-user to keep track of their glucose levels regularly. Analytics based on in-vitro testing were conducted to build a machine learning model that enables future glucose prediction for 15, 30 or 60 minutes

To Develop and Implement Text-To-Speech Wireless Communication System Using Raspberry-Pi

This project is based on the text to speech conversion using the concept of IOT (internet of things) in which we can transmit the message or text in efficient manner. We will achieve an efficient and distortion free communication using internet as a medium, so that there is no restriction on the distance. The system will convert the text data into speech from anywhere. We are using the Raspberry Pi module to decode the data as well as convert it into the speech signal. The Raspberry Pi 2b module is a latest Embedded module, which having ARM 64 bit processor. This will make the operation faster. This text to speech conversions system makes the information/data transmission easier. The system will have the transmitter which can be any electronic device like Computer or laptop. We can also use an Android phone also. The message / text will be transmitted via E-mail ID to the raspberry pi module at the receiver side. This project can be applicable for the various organization as well as highly restricted areas. We can implement this project using IOT with GSM module

"Tap it again, Sam": Harmonizing the frontiers between digital and real worlds in education

Lifelong leaners are intrinsically motivated to embed learning activities into daily life activities. Finding a suitable combination of the two is not trivial since lifelong learners have to face conflicts of time and location. Hence, lifelong learners normally build personal learning ecologies in those moments they set aside to learn making use of their available resources. On the other hand, the advent of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology facilitates the harmonization in the interactions between the digital world and daily physical spaces. Likewise, NFC enabled phones are becoming more and more popular. The contribution of this manuscript is threefold: first, scientific literature where NFC has been used with a direct or indirect purpose to learn is reviewed, and potential uses for lifelong learners are identified; based on these findings the Ecology of Resources for Lifelong Learning is presented as suitable setup for the scaffolding of learning activities with NFC augmented physical spaces; finally, this ecology is piloted and different learning scenarios are proposed for further extension

Enhancing Mobile Data Collection Applications with Sensing Capabilities

Over the past years, using smart mobile devices for data collection purposes has become ubiquitous in many application domains, replacing traditional pen-and-paper based data collection approaches. However, in many cases, modern approaches only aim to replicate traditional data collection instruments (e.g., paper-based questionnaires) in a digital from (e.g., smartphone surveys). Thereby, the full potential of smart mobile devices is often not fully exploited. Most modern smart mobile devices comprise a variety of sensing capabilities, which may provide valuable data, and thus insights. In addition, external sensors and devices may be easily connected to become part of the overall data collection process. In order to integrate sensing functionality into existing data collection applications, one has to address each desired sensor manually from within the application, which may cause severe development effort. Alternatively one can fall back on dedicated sensing frameworks to perform sensing operations. However, the latter are often targeted towards one specific mobile platform (e.g., iOS or Android) or lack required functionality, which may also lead to unnecessary development overhead when implementing mobile data collection applications. To cope with these issues, a cross-platform mobile sensing framework that can be used within large-scale mobile data collection scenarios was developed in the context of this thesis. Thereby, an in-depth look at existing mobile sensing frameworks as well as common use case scenarios is taken. Further, requirements derived from the latter are explicitly stated and were taken into consideration in the course of the overall development process. The latter is documented and discussed in detail in the course of this thesis, including the design of a framework architecture, implementation details and the integration of the framework into mobile data collection applications

Secure Bitcoin Wallet

Virtuaalvaluutad ja mobiilne pangandus on tehnoloogilised uuendused, mis on rah- vusvahelises kogukonnas saamas kasvavat tähelepanu oma kättesaadavuse, mugavuse ja kiiruse tõttu. Populaarsuse kasv on kahjuks kaasa toonud ka suurenenud turvariski iden- titeedivarguste näol, tekitades ohu kasutajate anonüümsusele. Riske on võimalik vältida, kasutades krüptograafilisi meetmeid Bitcoini ja teiste hajutatud digitaalsete valuutade vastaste rünnete vähendamiseks sideliinil ning hoiustamisel. See ülevaade koondab erine- vad meetodid ja lahendused selliste rünnete vastu ning uurib nende tõhusust. Lisaks kir- jeldatakse turvalist Bitcoini rahakotti (Secure Bitcoin Wallet), mis on standardne Bitcoini ülekannete klient koos tõhustatud turvaomaduste ja -teenustega.Virtual currencies and mobile banking are technology advancements that are receiving increased attention in the global community because of their accessibility, convenience and speed. However, this popularity comes with growing security concerns, like increasing frequency of identity theft, leading to bigger problems which put user anonymity at risk. One possible solution for these problems is using cryptography to enhance security of Bitcoin or other decentralised digital currency systems and to decrease frequency of attacks on either communication channels or system storage. This report outlines various methods and solutions targeting these issues and aims to understand their effectiveness. It also describes Secure Bitcoin Wallet, standard Bitcoin transactions client, enhanced with various security features and services