Cloud-based Context-aware Mobile Intelligent Tutoring System of Technical Computer Skills

Abstract

In spite of the ultimate importance of procedural technical skills for most disciplines, there is shortage in the number of corresponding Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). This paper proposes a cloud-based context-aware mobile ITS of Technical computer Skills (TS-ITS). TITS is developed as a mobile application to be ubiquitously providing a valuable learning tool. Due to the nature of technical skills, they require more complex ITSs relative to typical ones requiring, for example demonstration videos that need considerable storage space. Accordingly, TS-ITS is developed using mobile cloud computing to benefit from the cloud resources and make up for limited mobile resources. On the other hand, effective multiple choice, true and false and short-answer questions can be delivered to the mobile. This also has the advantage of facilitating maintenance of the data stores on the cloud. TS-ITS is context-aware delivering training material relevant to the topic the student is studying, the skill the student is trying to acquire or the task the student is trying to accomplish. Each skill is accompanied by a short demonstration video and to facilitate searching for a relevant one, keyword search is adopted. Personalized questions are delivered based on the skills of interest and the assessed student knowledge. TS-ITS can be adopted to other domains and extended to include advanced types of training material such as Virtual reality (VR) immersive environments and interactive questions as they become available. Empirical evaluation of a prototype implementation of TS-ITS shows its tutoring effectiveness