I. Abstract
This paper presents the applications of the grid technology to the initiative for mobile learning as well as added information on its uses for institutions of government and its purpose in business. The difference between e-learning and mobile learning is a given a particular view for its differentiation. Comparisons of the current grid technology are also done with web services which include the advantages and disadvantages of both fields. An assessment of the current uses and the existing scenario of the grid technology is also summarized which could pave the way for its improvement of its flaws in the future.
II. Mobile technology
Mobile technology as of today is widely used all over the word. The continuous demand of it becomes greater and greater. Its development never stops. Mobile technologies are continuous to develop and develop. Now many of us used and have mobile technology. Mobile technology changes and improves our life. We use it and help us in our many activities even thought it is easy or complicated. We used it especially in communication or getting, accessing, transferring, storing and receiving information. It’s widely use in entertainment, relaxing, job, education, emergency, security and management is cannot be denied. Mobile technology affected our daily life even without noticing it. We as the user of the mobile technology do not posses enough knowledge of how great it is and how it become very useful to us(” Enabling Mobile Learning”).
Mobile technology of today never stops changing. Its application now becomes more and more important. It makes our life so easier. It made things possible and more improve in the thought that we couldn’t imagine. Today mobile technology can use in learning. It tries to change the type the education we have. It tries to improve its characteristic and lessen the burden its produce. It makes the education more adaptable to the really need of those who wants to learn(Attewell, 2005).
Mobile technology likes GPS (Global Positioning System) help us to determined and locate places and objects, Bluetooth in creating personal area networks. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) used in inventory and supply chain management, IM (Instant Messaging) connects us to our family, friend and other people, Ipod so small but help us store large amount of information. Cellphone, PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) laptops, MP3 Players, tablets, portable games devices, are few of several products of mobile technology. This technology is now on the hand of many people, young or old. Now a days many us have different kinds (latest even it not) mobile. And still it undergo changing and improvements. Still many know mobile devices are developed and invent(Laria).
Today, beside from the e- learning, mobile learning emerges. The continuous developments of mobile technology make the mobile learning in demand and famous. Grid services in counterpart are a big for the advancement and improvement of mobile learning(A. W. David E. Millard, Feng (Barry) Tao, Hugh C. Davis).
III. Mobile Learning
Making study by the use of many mobile devices like mobile phones, digital audio players, voice scanner and others alike is how mobile learning is. Mobile learning came from E- learning. Its other name is distance learning. This is the type of education where the teacher and the students are not together in one classroom. They do it by the means of mobile devices, the product of the mobile technology.(Attewell, 2005)
Mobile learning is studying in more advanced way. Mobile learning does not require specific place or time. You can study in any place and any time. You can develop your own study habit. Mobile learning helps the individual to develop more their skills especially in literacy and numeric. It is unique because you can learn independently. You can focus more in studying because you don’t need to follow schedule and have no classmate to distract you. Mobile learning helps you to know what field of study you good. It also updated you in the newest technology and information. It does not follow the traditional way of learning that you get in your school. Mobile learning provides new methods of learning, trainings and teaching. Mobile learning is an advanced and long distance learning. It is a new break in the history of education. Ii is type of education that you can carry everywhere. Mobile learning can be used any type of mobile users (home users, children, institutional users, adult, and nomadic users). The environment of mobile learning is different from a traditional type. It is standalone classroom, internet based, collaborative, advanced nomadic networked(Attewell, 2005).
A. Mobile learning scenario
Many distributed entities and fixed devices or sever, are involve in mobile learning. The examples are laptop and PDA. Mobile learning use many different program languages like LMA, Python, Wap, C++, Java, Net framework and Html.It also used many different communication tools like IRDA, Wi-Fi, GPRS, Bluetooth and WAP(“GridCafe”).
Figure1: Use of middleware in the grid system (Laria)
IV. E-Learning
E learning is type of learning with computer enhance, sometimes some people refer it as a mobile learning because of the use of mobile technologies such as PDA. E learning uses material, which is web based, and technologies like discussion board, cd ROMs web site, in other words the hypermedia. Often times it, use software, which is collaborative like e- mails, wikis and blogs. In this type of learning, the games electronic voting systems, learning management software are simulate to create more fun and making the learning easier(“Moving mobile into the mainstream”).
One of the products of the educational development and technology is e learning. Others describe it as computer- based training, online learning or purely web based learning. This e learning leads to mobile learning. Like mobile learning, it is also Distance learning. One type of it is the blended learning. It is type of e learning where you can see others face to face. Around the globe, E learning is now widely use. Now it is apply to education to earn a academic degree. E learning create virtual learning environment. Also e learning provide educational website that offers worksheets and interactive exercises for the people who wants it to learn. E learning like mobile learning adapt to the young generation.
A. Disadvantages of E learning
Others believe that e learning is not education because you do not see your teacher any you are not interact with it to her or him. However this was solve by video web based conferencing programs like blended learning. One of the feeling feel by the students is isolation even though it is often citing to discussion forums and it is computer web based communication. The cost of e learning is very expensive compare to traditional type of learning. The materials that you are going to use are also expensive. Getting materials for learning sometimes require much time. Thus it lead to mobile learning be more comfortable to use. E learning now do not adapt the type of technology we have today. Today, the using of mobile devices become ordinary and frequent(” Enabling Mobile Learning”).
B. Mobile learning vs. E learning
Almost al of us study in campus or school. We go to the boring class and following time schedule that maybe a burden to us or we just don’t like. That’s the problem solve by the e learning. Mobile learning is not only taking us away from the school. Mobile learning takes away us from static station. It is one of the major advantages of mobile learning. E- Learning is different from the traditional type of learning. It does not follow certain school rules. In this type of learning you can learn everywhere you like or wanted to be. Studying is not a difficult as it seems to be. Mobile learning is the combination of the two learning the e learning and the traditional type of learning. Mobile learning still provides connection between the learners and the teachers where they can interact to each other. Mobile learning still gives the one who needs the educational resources to the one who have it without violation his or her property rights. Learners can still interact to their teacher even they are far to them. Learners now can more motivate his or herself. He becomes more dependable to his own. He becomes independent to others. Thus he can do what his wants or the things he are comfortable with in order to improve his study. Now his improvements to his education rely to himself(“Moving mobile into the mainstream”)
Mobile learning is older than what we know e- learning today. But the advancement of technology especially the mobile technology makes the mobile learning still better than e learning of today. It makes the mobile learning more possible and more in demand. Technology of today provides many good inventions to us. It makes our life easier by producing product that can help to do or to finish our daily tasks or job. Technology of today provide us big storage of information that you can carry anytime and anywhere you like because even the information is too many it is now store on little device. In this way technology help us and make learning easy to us. It helps learning become easier. Because of technology communicating, even interacting with our family, relatives, friend and even are co- workers is possible how the distance are.
Mobile learning has many devices that that make e learning more possible and easier to handle. But still there are problems that can still be encounter (smaller screen size, decreasing of input capabilities and others)
Because mobile learning are latest technology many young age are able to adapt to this technology. More young generation is comfortable of using mobile learning that is why mobile learning more challenges are the older people or the late generation and the people who are not really know the use of mobile technology. More old people are not really aware to the promise and the advantage of the mobile learning.
v. Web Services
Web services are the interconnection of much software for interoperation between them. It is the network of machine to other machine for interaction. Exchanging, transporting, encoding, standardizing, interacting, transporting, securing, managing of information are few of several use of web services. Web technologies are service oriented for applications. Web services denote managing, organizing and distributing hardware and software components(“International Journal of Web and Grid Services (IJWGS)”).
Web services are still improving to sustain many declarative interfaces to services offered by systems that you can found in the Internet. They include messaging protocols, standard interfaces and directory services, as well as security layers, for efficient and effective business application integration. The typical application areas are, business process integration and management, and design collaboration contain management design, and business to business integration.
vi. Application of Web Services
Web services are an application of software for accessing by using internet protocol. It uses XML (Extended Markup Language) for making and transferring messages, for description and executing a discovery. XML is widely use for communication and it is a powerful syntax between the many networks. XML is a more improved HTML (mark up language of website)(“International Journal of Web and Grid Services (IJWGS)”).
Web services have many uses. It is use for communication, getting the information you needed, transferring it, and use to explore and to learn more service that you can found. Web services application is helpful to many of us, because of it we can know what the weather is, by knowing the weather reports provide by the web services. In business, web services can tell us the stock quotes. Most of all helps us to update our information and access to other website.
vii. Disadvantages of Web services
Although web services are very helpful to us still it has disadvantages and criticisms. It is unfair to those who are not the vendor of software and not integrator because it more favor to the software vendor and integrator. The ability and capability of web services using XML must also need to put into the consideration(“International Journal of Web and Grid Services (IJWGS)”).
viii. Grid Services
Grid services came from the name of the electrical grid with its standard plugs and sockets that sustain a layer of infrastructure that runs above the network layer, even it is below the application layer. It composes and set up a common set of interfaces. It gives you the standard access network-based resources such as computers, data repositories, collaboration and visualization facilities and online instruments. Examples include the Globus toolkit (computing), SRB (data), and the Access (collaboration). In effect it is providing web-like access to a global set of infrastructure(Ian Foster).
Besides the resource-specific services, such as how to provide access to a set of supercomputers across the network, there are also technologies that provide more fundamental services. These are often called ‘middleware’, and include services such as; authentication, authorization, signaling of network, security, accounting and discovery of resource.
Grid services are business growing, centralized and focused on energy and information deployment in an increasingly decentralized environment. In the future, IT will play an important role for the advancement and development of more technology, communication an interaction. Grid services will result in an every evolving business. Many business entities who want to join in the business industry must know how to use and the important of it(Ian Foster).
A. History of Grid Technology
Computing is one of the reasons why grid technologies were born. Back from the past where computation sharing is very important to many people, it was done by the use of a mainframe computer. Today many people have personal computers to use for computation for their own purposes. That is why computation sharing is not now necessary. By 1965 someone produce an operating system that gives you to ability to access some people for able you to get computing resources. This leads to the birth of Grid. Now a days where many things are still improving for example the communication technology like mobile technology. This improvement leads to the possibility of grid. Today application of grid becomes ordinary and useful to our daily activities. Even the government, military, education and business institution use grid(“GridCafe”).
Improvements of Grid
Many institutions used grid and still improving the grid. The Condor project of Wisconsin use for pooling the computing resources of all computers is now using for Globus toolkit. CODINE (computing for Distributed Network Environments) by Genias software is like condor. It is use for simple graphical interface to view all available resources. It is now call Sun Grid Engine. Legion, the project of University of Virginia is use metacomputing (where everything like files and other data are store in one big virtual machine. Nimrod invented by the Monash University in Australia use for calculations aircrafts wings and angles of attack. Unicore, was invented by German use as center of super computation in their country. Today grid still evolves and develops. Many institutions never stop improving it and make it as an ordinary tool into our ordinary activities. The institutions now become more dependable to the grid systems because of its great ability(“GridCafe”)
B. Web Services vs. Grid Services
It current view, Grid Services in our daily use be just a sub-class of Web Services. Even though web services can updated to us the weather report and tell the stock exchange, the grid services can be more helpful by analyzing and interpreting of it. First we may think that we used web services but in the end we are going to know that we are using grid services. Grid services compare to the web services help you more to get to what is in today in term of accessing and using information. It helps you to be more competitive especially in businesses industry. Grid service offer more advanced way of distributing, applying and processing of data that they needed. Grid services often to transition for more development and improving service oriented applications.(“International Journal of Web and Grid Services (IJWGS)”)
C. Advantage of Grid Services
Grid services are sharing resources all over the world. In Grid services it provides us many site or source where we can share resources. It provides us many options and choice. In it finding sources is not now difficult.
While sharing, we must consider the security and the trust between the provider and the users of resources even though they do not know each other and having no information between them. Sharing resources must do securely for protection of two parties and for most effective and efficient use of it. Thus however the security must not effect the speed of the transactions or does not require long period of time even it is long distance sharing. Grid services are also helpful to the party having the resource. It gives protection and security to it(“GridCafe”).
Grid service also helps you to where you share your resources without knowing the party. It gives you connection also to the other owner. It gives the both parties the advantages that they can enjoy. By grid you can specify your conditions and their limitations.
Having resources is different from getting the resources. With the grid service it helps you to allocate your resources more effectively and efficiently. It gives you information and an option on how you will use your resources for better. With it you know how to maximize of using resources without wasting it.
With grid services, nothing is too far and everything can be reach. Even if transacting business between the different parties are too far, the transactions still can be fast. Grid services make it possible. However, the data is large enough and too far to deliver still it can go to its destination not only fast but also safe.
IX. Grid Components
Underling hardware one of the components of the Grid, it do all kinds of calculations that will make the grid to work. It is composed of computers and communication networks.
Middleware is other components of grid services. It is not operating systems, which make the computers to work. It is not also different from applications software that gives solution to the problem of the user; it is the combination of the two types. Middleware is the one who get the application and run it to the right computers. In addition, the one organize and integrate the computational resources.
The Globus Toolkit is a community-based, open-architecture, open-source set of services and software libraries that support Grids and Grid applications. The toolkit addresses issues of security, information discovery, resource management, data management, communication, fault detection, and portability. Globus Toolkit mechanisms are in use at hundreds of sites and by dozens of major Grid projects worldwide(“GridCafe”).
Testbeds are dedicated Grids, which are implemented and enter to test middleware and applications developments. They are “real Grids”, whose limit is mainly the restricted access, limited to small groups of developers and scientists during limited periods of time(“GridCafe”).
Testbeds are compost of many nodes. Nodes are computer centers contributing resources to the testbed. Each node contains a certain number of computers that may play different kind of roles(“GridCafe”).
X. Ability of Grid Services
Whatever you can do to your personal computer, whatever the task, you can do it to the grid service. Beside, grid is just like a large computer.
Grid has a great ability that is very helpful to different professions or job. Many user of the grid do hard and complex works that you cannot do in just one computer. That is why grid services is a very helpful to many user(“GridCafe”).
Computation of problem can be categorized in the depending on the point of views. You can look it by its nature of the general computational or categorize the problem according to the centric (data or community)
XI. Application of Grid Services
A. Corporate Applications
The current business climate can be dramatically changed using grids. With the use of grid applications and architectures, not only do the individual processes involved businesses are transformed but the whole industry as a whole. This is done through the integration of the front offices to the back offices thus creating further work harmony among all industry components.
In addition, in a corporate world, businessmen and clients alike live through standards. These standards also apply with the operating environment they are in. An in demand business would have to have in demand technology capable of meeting the demands rendered to and from the business. Grids like the Storage Resource Broker (SRB) application provide this same thing to both parties in order for them to transact more efficiently. The SRB grid has a large capacity for data storage. In addition, sharing and reuse of metadata is efficiently met. Further advantages of this application as well as other similar grids include the ease in accessibility of business resources in any time convenient for the users. For instance, the company could make proposals with their laptops with Wi-Fi connections even from outside of the office while clients could approve these proposals with their PDAs even if they are not in the conventional conference room. The grid structure is also capable of adjusting itself to, say, a sudden surge in usage and to disasters like floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires in order to guarantee continuous operation. These relieved standards ensure interoperability with the certain company’s software and hardware components. With this convenience, interoperability is assured, work is relatively simplified, and costs are reduced for the part of the company using grids, specifically SRB, leading to further profitability by gaining access capabilities to responsive computing strategies(Ian Foster).
Considering this, grid services could give the consumers the right solutions in settling accounts or choosing the services that they need. This is the same as empowering them to choose between the most practical options that they could have. This would give a dramatic change in the demand cycle and would change consumer behavior as shown in figure 4.
Figure 2: Applications of grid services to business (Karigiannis, 2004)
Yet, making this scenario realistic, would take a lot of plans although there are already some promising initiatives on the works, it is still a long way before we could utilize the full potentials of this technology. First, the framework for alternatives on how firms could acquire and pay for the technology must be prepared. On the inside note, the key concept here is to disseminate the awareness about the technology and how business firms could reap profits from its use.
However, with the increasing awareness of industries of the value and convenience of using grids, several grids with varying purposes eventually exist; such existence creates confusion among users and could pose threats to the security of data stored in the grid. This leads to a need to further innovate or eventually standardize and unify grids with the aim of improving the current standards. Doing this would incur further costs that not all companies could afford. Research for the development of the technology capable enough of meeting the demands of data transfers and storage should be done without sacrificing the grids services’ capability to convert data from one certain language to the other, i.e. from Open Grid Service Infrastructure (OGSI) to the Web Service-Resource Framework (WSRF) format. In general, grid-computing technologies for the new platform in providing conducive on demand computing environment(“The information grid, Part 1: The infrastructure”).
Furthermore, companies engaged in the mobile learning services could deem grids useful the same way that companies from other industries do. Since grids are naturally service-oriented in nature, using grids or grid architectures for mobile learning services could be considered as a promising way for the further improvement, integration, and operation of these service-oriented applications. This could be done through the grids’ utilization for outsourcing of resources that are not readily available in the workplace.
B. Government Applications
There are already grids that are modeled after other grids, with various purposes that cater to specific needs of specific groups. Government institutions are no stranger in this form of technology. Grids services in the government started with the use of the earliest of web services: the Ethernet in the military. This included the coordinated sharing of classified data, applications, and processes. With this, highly confidential data are protected with enough security, i.e. intelligence reports, criminal profiles, etc. The Ethernet evolved through the years with the advent of new technologies funded and developed through funding from both the public and private sectors ending up with grids that we know today.
In considering using grids in institutions for their information structure, four vital concerns are taken into consideration, these include: the distributed data, network bandwidth, storage, and data security.
Distributed data concerns mainly the virtualization of data so as to easily disseminate it in a closed protected system to meet the challenge of securing delicate information as well as locating both internal and external data are easily done. When the information environment of an institution, say, is virtualized, the system administrators become more productive. It also helps increase the use of storage assets. These were the principles how the Open Grid Services Architecture Data Access and Integration (OGSA-DAI) standards were established(Chun Yan, 2004)
Figure 3: Schematics of Grid Services (Arouna Woukeu)
Both OGSA and the other standards suggest that the virtualization of data would make grid services as transparent as possible in the management of data. This also includes the following which could also be useful if utilized by the government: First, heterogeneity solves some of the government units’ dilemma of accessing data stored in different formats. It is known as the “federated access” to the data wherein the data would appear to come from a certain source although it is kept in various formats and is distributed or simply, heterogenized. The urgency in the need for data access becomes evident and would pose as a challenge if kept in several formats. For instance, the technology must be able to cope up with doing various I/O requests to obtain the data, wherein such a requirement further slows down the accomplishment of certain jobs. The government could benefit from this by saving the time sorting or converting data stored in a different format from other units. They become more productive and better work efficiency is achieved. Second, there is a requirement where every data object will have a sole name or domicile such as to allow grid applications the right to access data even if the origin is unknown. This is same as with the government grids. Technologies can gain access to data through consistent areas, or global names for that matter, so that the grid application would need only to indicate the characteristics of the data objects to inquire and update the data itself. Third, government data can also be cached or imitated in various locations for two reasons: for presentation and availability. A grid application accessing data obtains the benefit of these replicas even without necessarily knowing it(A. W. David E. Millard, Feng (Barry) Tao, Hugh C. Davis).
Storage management is a complex and arduous task, and doing it alone could prove to be critical to their daily operations and affect daily goals. And with governments having problems with storage managements of all sorts, never has it been more in need of a centralized yet accessible storage of its resources.
However, the storage facilities being used in governments are increasingly becoming sophisticated, particularly after the utilization of the Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) applications. These have replaced several direct-attached storages in previous grid environments. Furthermore, each storage system will have its own unique set of tool for the organization of the data. There are still other considerations taken in a SAN technology setting, which includes detection of inaccuracies and the ability to retrieve data. It serves both functions of protecting data without sacrificing the quality of data it provides to different applications it serves(“Access to Knowledge through the Grid in a Mobile Word”).
On the other side, the possibility of these storage resources to be overutilized is highly possible due to the prevention of the management of these storage resources as one logical unit with the existence of several unique storage management tools. This occurs while other storage unit applications remain underutilized. This situation leads to over-spending of the government resources and causes the acquisition of more unnecessary resources to address unequal distribution. With this, inefficient utilization of human resources happens through the management of separate environments instead of unifying it.
Above all, storage needs to still conceive a transparent access to files, reservation of space for more important data, notification of file status, and lifetime management.
Network bandwidths usually come into discussion when we talk about the architecture of the network that the government typically depends on depending on its intended function. Network architecture issues include the data flow between computers within the government’s network grid, i.e. from employee to server vs. peer-to-peer vs. mainframe. Usually the problems come in when glitches happen in between the intended processes in the application. The grid architecture can minimize this if not eliminate it completely so as to obtain a smooth data flow. Another is the communication involved between computers. Speed usually depends on the bandwidth and this could affect the data low once the bandwidth falls below the sustaining level of efficiency. This happens because of the fact that the amount of data being transferred depends on the restriction defined by the bandwidth.
Reduced bandwidths involve steady revisions and careful planning is required so as to cope up with data traffic within a grid at an instant. Grid programmers also take into consideration the geographic layout of the network would eventually look like, so they could assess the probabilities of problems occurring before they actually happen. This would involve the ability of the government to give response to disasters such as earthquakes, terrorist attacks, and other natural calamities. The way the network attaches itself to other networks is also taken into account such as when it comes to MAN vs. LAN vs. WAN applications. Network bandwidth can also be significantly affected by such interference if this occurs. Decompression and compression techniques are usually employed to solve this problem in order to lessen the amount of data to be handled over the network not to mention the jamming that may occur. On the other note, it poses the dilemma of consistency in all the involved techniques in the nodes. This happens generally in the absence of an effective grid since there are no agreed standards available to date(“The 21st Century Energy and Information Grid”).
All of these are taken into consideration because of the high need of the grid system for a reliable and steady connection through ultra-low latency. However, the nature of handling of data within the grid system needs certain deliberation to be given the proper assignment and data management within the grid and therefore must still be able to handle large amounts of data.
With the sensitive nature of data kept by government institutions, especially those of the military, data security is a major issue that needs to be addressed. The encompassing background of this grid computing system poses a demanding security issue that requires new techniques. Particularly, the government must be able to deal with the diversity of local mechanisms, the ability to support dynamic service creation and trust domains. The clarity of the virtualization of data addresses such problems.
The government could greatly benefit from the use of grids in providing social services among others aside from military and administrative purposes. Grid applications such as the Akogrimo healthcare testbed can be used in providing e-Health services to its citizens. This grid technology originated from a priority research and developing program done in Germany. The targets of the program are European citizens that are in need of mobile persistent healthcare services such as emergencies, and institutions that provide healthcare services like stationary or mobile professionals, healthcare advisors, pharmacies, nursing services, hospitals, and emergency service devices.
Given that this grid program would be successful in its implementation, it will have a significant effect in the current modernization efforts of governments in the healthcare system and would serve new grid architecture models for grid-based healthcare services.
High costs of implementation remain an apparent limitation in this issue. Governments, especially those from the Third World, could not easily have the resources or are completely incapable of developing such a sophisticated grid service without help from the First World governments. Only governments with financial capacities are able to afford the actual utilization of the application. Implementation and development of the grid service application is limited on a case-to-case basis. Such is the situation for the EleGI project that aims to build a common European grid infrastructure wherein it is funded by the European Union(“Manchester Computing NGS Data- Node Local Support”).
However, by the services that the technology provides, these high costs will be compensated by the long-term savings that it would eventually give to the government. This savings could in turn be reused to invest in further providing more public goods.
Grid technologies, in the simplest words, is useful for the distributed management of the government resources a bar higher than in the past. The creation of a homogenous system in order to support a large array of system resources that includes software, networks, servers, and storage, sharing various options of resources be in simple up to the most sophisticated and powerful managing virtual computer.
C. Academic Applications
The current use for grid applications for academic purposes is seen as an innovative approach to meet the demands of educational institutions for a reliable source of information which, at the same, time without the fuss of high costs. Its wide use has become a new paradigm in mobile learning nowadays. In terms of accessibility, it can be accessed through devices that are capable to support grid applications such as laptops, PDAs, and mobile phones. The ease of using grids for coordinated sharing of distributed data applications and processes has also started to level up academic services to define the new standards of outsourcing models for mobile learning which is in demand nowadays. The orientation of service of the grid for academic purposes makes it a promising way in delivering knowledge, be it as simple as playing a knowledge game up to video streaming lectures of an associate professor from a top university at the other side of the world, to locations that are deemed impossible to reach in the past(Karagiannis, 2004).
The promising approaches presented by the use of grid applications are most applicable for those who want to gain access to information in unconventional locations while doing conventional things. With the widespread use of hand-held devices, equipped with the latest grid technologies such as Bluetooth, Java, Wi-Fi, GPS, GPRS, WAP, etc, the ability of the users to access certain data are even made more easier. For instance, one can now take IQ tests in their mobile phones after their basketball practice and lecturers can prepare their speeches in their PDAs while having a cup of coffee in their favorite coffee shop. Thing is, the convenience of having access to grid applications are not only confined to students who needs their share of data for their assignments but is also proven beneficial for adult professionals whenever they need it or wherever they may be.
The availability of devices that support grid applications are readily available in the market and are more than what most people think that grid applications are. In the past couple of years, PDA phones integrate applications that support grids like Java that is being utilized for data access. The device is also the preferred device purchased by most financially capable educational institutions who deem it as a convenient alternative to laptops and desktop computers. Although it is less capable of in terms of power, the convenience it gives is highly preferred. With the use of these grid applications, training seminars could be done through such devices with out necessarily being in the venue. There are other models that are being developed but are currently expensive for users that are not financially capable enough.
The technology also seemingly targets the young market with which would be the potential consumers of the service in the near future. This is because of the nature of the youth as tech-savvy and curious of new things. This provides a platform for them to be educated with the promising possibilities that the technology has.
Current devices now also has page builder tools with which users could build their own web pages with a variety of elements, animations, videos, movies, blogs to be specific, for viewing on mobile devices like laptops and mobile phones, only difference with desktops is the fact that it is inside a password protected environment. All of these are being laid out and is left as options for the learner to choose.
Figure 4: Organization of mobile learning services using grid technologies (Chun Yan, 2004)
The grid technology could also enhance the educational experience of field trips through a highly sophisticated learning management system, or the Intelligent Web Tutor (IWT) which includes a library for learning materials and the functions for learner tracking. It also enables the students to do simulations of the actual places that they may or may have not gone to. Everything else is controlled by the grid device. For example, instead of actually going to a rain forest, a mobile device with grid application may simulate an actual rain forest complete with the certain type of vegetation, amount of rainfall, diversity of plant and animal species, etc. This system also includes a tutor system which selects the right modules based on the preferences of the learner as well as according to the progress the learner has made. There is also a Knowledge Representation (A. W. David E. Millard, Feng (Barry) Tao, Hugh C. Davis)Tool (KRT) that allows tutors to create as well as import and export courses and modules.
There have also been existing quiz engines that are based on mobile phone SMS whose themes are used for other learning material or complement the use of others. This approach involves a circulating leaflet with references to information on one side and the questions on the other. Then the user could send their answers through text and are sent a reply-confirming message. This gives opportunity to those who don’t have sophisticated phones to take part with the experience for e-learning.
Figure 5: Objectives of mobile learning (Arouna Woukeu)
Furthermore, the technology encourages collaborative learning between peers with not just only students involved but also with the academe. Discussions done within the grid could allow the sharing of resources that other students from other places have integrated with the ones on the other end. This practice more often than not produces better results than just working alone. All these made possible with using just a single grid. It may also involve just one unit of desktop with the rest of other devices connected to it by grid applications. Some even say that there may come a day that the world may only need a handful of computers with the rest would be mobile devices depending on those core computers and would only require a small fraction of memory that most of us use today(A. W. David E. Millard, Feng Tao, Hugh C. Davis).
It is now projected that in the future, the typical classroom will be extended into a learner’s environment wherein one would not only see the lessons in the pages of a book but instead see the pictures in the pages literally fly with colors through simulation. Real environments could be captured adding to the fun and efficiency of learning.
However, a major obstacle for the integration of the grid technology with m- learning is the inadequacy of further development of mobile learning applications itself as well as the dilemma of coping up to the demand and expansion of types of e-learning activities made available into the mobile industry for that added value rather than just stalling in on a technologically reduced device(Chun Yan, 2004).
The need therefore for technologies that could ensure the further development of handy, secured, and easy-to-be-distributed learning resources and services for learners who are not capable of availing these in educational institutions. The current technologies that help achieve this goal include the grid and with the use of the Semantic Web, is then made interoperable with one another. The impact then of having these technologies on learning is initially used for lifelong learning. In most cases, m-learning is seen as something that takes place via the use of mobile and wireless devices. Others may see it as any form of learning done while on the go. These definitions may be integrated to form a single definition that satisfies both major definitions(“Access to Knowledge through the Grid in a Mobile Word”).
Mobile learning promotes an enveloping approach to contemporary learning by giving the options to do it outside of the classroom. Much of this concept coincides with the fact that we can actually learn from anywhere.
There still is the problem of how to further distribute grid services to locations that deserve to have it. However, with this shift coming in on a sudden note, the current mode of content-based and teacher-centered teaching styles are moving towards a more constructive and cognitive approach in teaching to address the possible downturn in the future. This is the same approach that is being adopted in the ELeGI project with the use of collaborative yet experimental-based learning delivered in a more personalized manner.
Learning has always been a social activity within the norms of society. Only it is with individual or collaborative group work and knowledge sharing that we could be able to contextualize it. The primary objective of learning is to become a part of our daily life that for most is not learning at all. But it is through this that we define the real context of learning.
The dimensions of mobile learning should explore three main areas in order to be deemed successful in providing a contextualized learning experience. First is the accessibility, although there is already a great deal of accessibility of grid technologies, m-learning applications still lack the required number of distribution to areas for it to be considered as really successful. Although on the other note, it already is a great leap ahead, in providing data whose content exists on the go. Second is the field, the applications that support these technologies should be further develop to provide a decent amount of technology in case of a surge in demand in the near future given that this technology is distribute beyond the classroom. Last, programs that support or implement academic activities that are inseparable with technology should be redeveloping to make it more realistic in its approach. Maybe then, learning of it, through a mobile or conventional approach, would remain its nature of being fun, informative and motivating(A. W. David E. Millard, Feng Tao, Hugh C. Davis).
XII. Conclusion
Both grid services and mobile learning are now become famous because of their great feature. They are both adapting to the type of need the many of us really today. It suits to our life we have now; the type of life where accessing, getting and using information is very important and the life where everything become fast and instant
Information now become every important resources of every people, whoever has it may have great advantage to anyone. He can use information to get more information and to have great benefit.
Acquiring information is a great challenge to everybody. Getting it is not so easy. Technology now solves this problem by making many devices that can be use in communication or getting information. Mobile technology is one of type of technology that can do this challenge. Thus mobile learning is very important.
Mobile learning is the type of the learning that suits the kind of environment that we have today. It suits to the need of the people. Mobile learning is the advancement of educational learning
Mobile learning provides learning that is different from the traditional learning and e learning. It makes the education more accessible and easy. It brings the education more closely to us. It is the type of learning that adapt to the type of environment we have today. It makes two far places close.
Grid services provide us services that can help us a lot. It gives service that is necessary to our daily job or activities. Grid services offer many advantages that we can have in many fields (entertainment, education, government, military, politics, statistics and other)
Grid services are great help to mobile learning. Application of the grid services to mobile learning can be very useful to many of us. It gives more the mobile learning great advantage that favor to us. Grid learning makes the mobile learning more possible and improves. It makes the mobile learning more adaptable to anyone who wants to learn it.
Grid services still now are improving. Thus maybe in the future it can make more great things that are very beneficial to us Thus in the future it can make the way to complete and more improve the characteristic of the mobile learning. The use of grid services makes more mobile learning very useful to everybody, whatever their positions, whatever the type of job and what ever the task they needed to fulfill.
Everything now is changing. The societies we have today are still developing. The culture of now becomes different from the past; for example the communications now are different from the communication from the past.
The job that we are doing become more and more complicated. It becomes so complex that we need something that can make easier. That is why grid services were born. Computing now becomes so easier. Analyzing the data and interpreting it is not now difficult to do. The challenges of great math and calculations can now easily face. Processing the data is easily do now.
Grid services offer great doors to us. Business of today can be great advantage if they know to use the grid services. Thus application of it to mobile learning is very useful. It can improve more the mobile learning.
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