Teaching Computer Programming Through Hands-on Labs on Cognitive Computing

In this work we report the experience of a long-lasting educational project that we have been carrying since a couple of years. In particular, we summarize the results achieved by students in the last year, when they were put to work on the collaborative development of small, yet full featured, software projects. At the same time, based on more recent findings, we seek to lay the foundations to build a pragmatic model to teach cognitive computing programming. The experience was carried on in a Programming course at the Universities of Naples “Federico II” and Genoa, in Italy, and fostered the use of a PaaS (Platform as a Service) environment for a cooperative learning activity, used to disseminate theoretical concepts acquired within the course, also by means of cognitive computing tools. The project, from its inception, has involved a relevant number of students. Initially, the experiment had to be concluded in one year but, instead, has continued evolving with new projects, as new tools and services were made available, carrying new opportunities. The evolution has led, in the most recent release, to using the IBM Bluemix platform with its wide range of components, including Watson. This work goes in the direction of developing the smart university model, by using innovative and intelligent services to help develop a new generation of applications, but also to promote and disseminate a new way for designing and building them

Cognitive computing in education

Cognitive computing is the new wave of Artificial Intelligence (AI), relying on traditional techniques based on expert systems and also exploiting statistics and mathematical model. In particular, cognitive computing systems can be regarded as a "more human" artificial intelligence. In fact, they mimic human reasoning methodologies, showing special capabilities in dealing with uncertainties and in solving problems that typically entail computation consuming processes. Moreover, they can evolve, exploiting the accumulated experience to learn from the past, both from errors and from successful findings. From a theoretical point of view, cognitive computing could replace existing calculators in many fields of application but hardware requirements are still high, even if the cloud infrastructure, which is expected to uphold its rapid growth in the very next future, can support their diffusion and ease the penetration of such a novel variety of systems, fostering new services as well as changes in many settled paradigms. In this paper, we focus on benefits that this technology can bring when applied in the education field and we make a short review of relevant experiences

Intelligenza artificiale nella didattica universitaria: lo studio di un caso per la rilevazione delle discariche abusive nelle zone urbane di Genova

Il cognitive computing sta rivoluzionando le competenze e le conoscenze che devono essere acquisite dagli allievi universitari che si devono cimen-tare con la risoluzione dei problemi complessi, ciò è dovuto alla irruzione “dirompente” delle tecnologie quali: cloud, Big Data, IoT, dispositivi mobi-li e social network. Il cognitive computing, in particolare, rappresenta la tecnologia più dirompente che le integra tutte. In questo lavoro gli autori presentano lo studio di un caso, la rilevazione delle discariche abusive nelle zone urbane della città di Genova. Il lavoro è stato svolto con la collaborazione di IBM-Italia e l’assessorato all’ambiente del comune di Genova. L’algoritmo sviluppato consente la rilevazione e la segnalazione di ogni tipo di rifiuto in real time attraverso metodi di intelli-genza artificiale adoperando Watson-IBM. L’algoritmo è stato insignito come il miglior algoritmo italiano di IA mai sviluppato per questo dominio applicativo ed è stato premiato da IBM alla presenza dell’assessore all’ambiente del comune di Genova e del vicepresidente IBM Cloud Italia Alessandro la Volpe, durante la convention Party Cloud per Genova tenu-tasi a Milano nei giorni 11-12 Novembre 2018. Il premio è andato al giova-ne studente Vincenzo De Francesco il quale ha continuato su questa temati-ca nella sua tesi triennale. Questo lavoro, oltre a discutere lo studio di un caso, vuole riflettere su alcune implicazioni che questa tecnologia dirom-pente sta causando sulla didattica universitaria (e non solo) e su come alcu-ni skill, richiesti dalle aziende, ma non disponibili ancora nei nostri corsi di studio universitari, possono essere costruiti in corsi specifici come quel-lo di Cognitive Computing Systems impartito presso il Dipartimento di In-gegneria Elettrica e Tecnologie dell’Informazione dell’Università di Napoli Federico II

An experience of collaboration using a PaaS for the smarter university model

In this paper we continue our previous research on the development of the current model of higher education, which pointed out that the labor market is looking for people with competencies and skills reflecting a T-shape model. As a consequence, universities should include a wider mix of disciplines in the curricula of their courses. Hence, to overcome existing criticisms and to provide some suggestions on how to enhance universities' performances, we thought of education as a process with inputs, outputs, and relevant dependencies. We called such a university a “smarter university” in which knowledge is a common heritage of teachers and students. In our research the smarter university model is based on a smart-city-like model, due to the fact that next generation networks and relevant services are going to be more and more integrated with existing infrastructure and information management systems. Thus, it is mandatory that smart solutions are the most prominent assets of modern university environments to improve the effectiveness of higher education. In this paper, we report the experimental results from a specific case study of collaboration between industry and university, which could be used as a refer- ence for the definition of patterns to be applied in the redesign of the current education systems, even though the experiment refers to a technological application scenario

Experiences In Collaborative Learning

Cooperative learning is a paradigm of collaboration aimed to reach a common goal. The trend of using social networks and social media to deliver and exchange knowledge leads us to believe that collaboration skills must be strongly promoted to empower users to learn with and from each other to support the educational challenges of this century. In this paper we discuss the primary needs of a modern educational system and we present the ETCplus project, a model of cooperation that has as its primary focus students’ cooperation in an academic environment. Two distinct experiments involving cooperative learning with two international universities are discussed. The first describes a system in an environment that is left to evolve autonomously. The second presents a system in a controlled environment that uses an accelerator to speed the learning process. The process of collaboration was built on a shared platform. Students’ feedback shows that cooperative learning produces better results when consonance and resonance are reached. The paper discusses the pros and cons of the ETCplus project

Dermoscopic evaluation of nodular melanoma

Importance: Nodular melanoma (NM) is a rapidly progressing potentially lethal skin tumor for which early diagnosis is critical

Teaching Computer Programming Through Hands-on Labs on Cognitive Computing

In this work we report more recent results of a long- lasting educational project that we have been carrying on for several years and is evolving continuously. The objective of the mentioned project is making students work on the production of small, yet full featured, software prototypes with a collaborative approach, in a dedicated development environment with suited tools and facilities. At the same time, we seek to lay the foundations to build a pragmatic model to teach cognitive computing programming. We conducted such experience in a programming course at the University of Naples \u201cFederico II\u201d exploiting a software development environment based on the Platform as a Service (PaaS). This made possible to perform a set of cooperative learning activities that we used to demonstrate practically some theoretical concepts, also stressing the use of cognitive computing tools, which introduce a new way of thinking the software design process. From its inception, this educational project has involved a relevant number of students, which has been growing continuously, year after year. At our first attempts, students were assigned a specific activity, which was expected to be concluded within one year. Then, as new classes arrived, we have seen that it was possible to start new activities starting from the precedent achievements, thus requiring further evolutions of the available prototypes. This allowed creating more complex and complete projects, as new tools and services were made available, carrying new opportunities. In the present release, such evolutionary path has led to using the IBM Bluemix platform with its wide range of components, including Watson that is devoted to cognitive computing. This work goes in the direction of developing the smart university model, by using innovative and intelligent services to help raising a new generation of software engineers but also to promote and disseminate a new way for designing and building innovative applications

The Role of Big Data and Cognitive Computing in the Learning Process

In this paper, we investigate how the raise of big data and cognitive computing systems is going to redesign the labor market, also impacting on the learning processes. In this respect, we make reference to higher education and we depict a model of a smart university, which relies on the concepts that are at the basis of the novel smart-cities\u2019 development trends. Thus, we regard education as a process so that we can find specific issues to solve to overcome existing criticisms, and provide some suggestions on how to enhance universities\u2019 performances. We highlight inputs, outputs, and dependencies in a block diagram, and we propose a solution built on a new paradigm called smarter-university, in which knowledge grows rapidly, is easy to share, and is regarded as a common heritage of both teachers and students. Among the others, a paramount consequence is that there is a growing demand for competences and skills that recall the so called T-shape model and we observe that this is pushing the education system to include a blend of disciplines in the curriculums of their courses. In this overview, among the wide variety of recent innovations, we focus our attention on cognitive computing systems and on the exploitation of big data, that we expect to further accelerate the refurbishment process of the key components of the knowledge society and universities as well

Smarter Universities: a Vision for the Fast Changing Digital Era

In this paper we analyze the current situation of education in universities, with particular reference to the European scenario. Specifically, we observe that recent evolutions, such as pervasive networking and other enabling technologies, have been dramatically changing human life, knowledge acquisition, and the way works are performed and people learn. In this societal change, universities must maintain their leading role. Historically, they set trends primarily in education but now they are called to drive the change in other aspects too, such as management, safety, and environment protection. The availability of newer and newer technology reflects on how the relevant processes should be performed in the current fast changing digital era. This leads to the adoption of a variety of smart solutions in university environments to enhance the quality of life and to improve the performances of both teachers and students. Nevertheless, we argue that being smart is not enough for a modern university. In fact, universities should better become smarter. By \u201csmarter university\u201d we mean a place where knowledge is shared between employees, teachers, students, and all stakeholders in a seamless way. In this paper we propose, and discuss a smarter university model, derived from the one designed for the development of smart cities

Smarter universities. A vision for the fast changing digital era

In this paper we analyze the current situation of education in universities, with particular reference to the European scenario. Specifically, we observe that recent evolutions, such as pervasive networking and other enabling technologies, have been dramatically changing human life, knowledge acquisition, and the way works are performed and people learn. In this societal change, universities must maintain their leading role. Historically, they set trends primarily in education but now they are called to drive the change in other aspects too, such as management, safety, and environment protection. The availability of newer and newer technology reflects on how the relevant processes should be performed in the current fast changing digital era. This leads to the adoption of a variety of smart solutions in university environments to enhance the quality of life and to improve the performances of both teachers and students. Nevertheless, we argue that being smart is not enough for a modern university. In fact, universities should better become smarter. By \u201csmarter university\u201d we mean a place where knowledge is shared between employees, teachers, students, and all stakeholders in a seamless way. In this paper we propose, and discuss a smarter university model, derived from the one designed for the development of smart cities