TEDU-Tamil Educational Cloud for anytime anywhere Tamil Learning

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1 TEDU-Tamil Educational Cloud for anytime anywhere Tamil Learning G.Malini, Research scholar, Dr.T.Mala, Assitant professor[s.g], AnnaUniversity, Chennai, TamilNadu, India Keywords: Cloud Computing- E learning services- Educational cloud. Cloud computing is a computing model based on networks and on the Internet, which is highly scalable and creates virtualized resources that can be made available to users. Cloud also provides various services to users which can be accessed by them anytime and anywhere with high availability. With the advent of cloud based E-learning services an entire world of knowledge can now be made available to teachers and students that can be accessed anytime, anywhere, from any device. An educational cloud thereby helps an institution to make students learn their lessons and to access the services provided by the cloud. Therefore in this paper Tamil Education Cloud [TEDU-cloud] has been proposed and implemented for easy any time any where Tamil learning for students. TEDU-cloud brings learning and teaching Tamil together in single environment. It gives tools needed for the teacher to teach and also provide the students the resources for learning in a virtualized environment. It is the combination of education and cloud technology with ultimate twenty first century tools combined to support teaching and learning to the next level. The various services offered by TEDU-cloud are: EaaS (Education as a Service)-Using this service students can learn their lessons, submit assignments and write online tests in a shared environment. SaaS (Software as a Service) Using this service students can access various software tools and compilers that are deployed in the cloud from anywhere and at anytime to run their applications. StaaS (Storage as a Service) Students can use this service to personalize their contents and store them on the cloud. The TEDU-cloud comprises of Tamil e-content materials such as online e-books, learning materials, assignments, lecture videos, online assignments and tests which are placed as e-learning resources and they can be accessed online anytime anywhere using any output device. Students are also allowed to submit their assignments and they can also store their e- materials on TEDU-cloud. Students can also use the tools that are available in TEDU-cloud to develop their own application and to personalize their materials. TEDU -cloud can be accessible even by the mobile devices, tablets, smart phones etc. Since cloud has the capability of high availability and fault tolerance with replicated content management TEDU-cloud uses the above capabilities to provide Tamil content immediately to the students with less delay and no loss. Scalability and elasticity features of TEDU-cloud helps in storing huge amount of Tamil E-content materials on the cloud and any number of students can simultaneously access TEDU-cloud. Thereby TEDU-cloud acts as anytime any where any device accessible Tamil e learning cloud for students and staff. 1. INTRODUCTION The popularity of learning on the internet, the construction of perfect web-based learning environment has become one of the hot points on researching remote education. The massive proliferation of Internet broadband connectivity and rich education content[4] has created a global phenomenon in which information and communication technology is being used to transform education. Therefore, there is a need to redesign the educational system to meet the needs better. It is envisioned that, in the near future, cloud computing [2]will have a significant impact on the educational and learning environment, enabling their own users (i.e., learners, instructors, and administrators) to perform their tasks effectively with less cost by utilizing the available cloud-based applications offered by the cloud based educational service providers. The development of cloud based e-learning system allows the implementation of scalable, versatile, and customized e- Learning[6] systems, constructed on-demand. This allows more efficient use of computing resources, improving the revenue of the system and enhancing the Quality of Service (QoS) received by users while minimizing the power consumption of the machines.some of the advantage of e-learning on cloud are discussed below: 415

2 Cost of Materials Because the cloud allows all sorts of streamlining options, many educators and students could spend less on various materials[1]. A course instructor could upload all readings to the cloud, which would thus negate the need for an expensive textbook or for excessive printing costs. Students would only have to worry about the cost of a computer monitor, which they could use across all courses. The long term return on a computer is much better than on a set of textbooks or course packets that they ll only use once. Resource free Devices with minimal hardware requirements (mobile phones, for example) could be successfully used as cloud clients. There is no need of heavy processing capabilities at the client side. Therefore the client is a thin client with minimal resources. Scalability and elasticity Dynamic[5] "on-demand" provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis in real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads, thus paving way for availability. Device and location independence Enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile phone). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere. This paper implement an TEDU-cloud. TEDU-cloud brings learning and teaching together in single environment. It gives tools needed for the teacher to teach and also provides the students the resources for learning purposes in a virtualized environment. It is the combination of educators, cloud technology and the ultimate twenty first century tools combined to support teaching and learning to the next level. The features of our TEDU-cloud comprise of online e-books, learning materials, assignments, lecture videos, online assignments and tests. The concept of cloud plays an important role here because of its significance in security and reliability.tedu-cloud providing the following services. EaaS (Education as a service)-using this service students can learn their lessons, submit assignments and write online tests in a shared environment. SaaS (Software a Service) Using this service students can access various software tools and compilers that are deployed in the cloud from anywhere and at anytime. StaaS (Storage as a Service) Students can use this cloud by personalizing their contents and storing them. 2. RELATED WORKS Bo Dong et al describes E-Learning ecosystem[3] is facing challenges an optimizing resource allocations, dealing with dynamic concurrency demands, handling rapid storage growth requirements and cost controlling that due to huge growth of users, services education contents and resources[9]. The best solution for this is using new technologies such as integration between cloud computing and web 2.0. Chun-C hia Wang et al describes a independent Learning Management System embedded in different E-Learning standards[7] to share the learning objects. Huge amount of learning objects can be accessed reliably, flexibly over the Internet by means of Cloud computing technology. Luis M. Vaquero et al describes an Assessment Management System (AMS) which handles the student's testing process in order to evaluate their knowledge capabilities. It has Item Classification Module (ICM) which consists of the item classification algorithm and decision tree. This module accesses the item bank on the cloud database and then it generates the item-set pattern. The ICM module is also developed as a service thus it is called Question-as-a-Service (QaaS).In the next session detailed architecture of the TEdu cloud system has been described. 416

3 3. System Architecture The architecture of the system is described in terms of its components and their functionalities. Figure 1 shows the overall system architecture of Educational cloud Figure1 The system consists of various modules namely setting of TEducloud, creating educational content and hosting &accessing applications on TEducloud, With various application functionalities. The various modules of the implemented system are explained in the following sessions. 3.1 Creating Tamil Educational content The various educational contents needed for the system is collected. This ranges from txt, rtf, pdf, ppt, to html files. Various audio and video files are also included which make the learning experience effective and interactive. These are in various formats such as mp3, wav, mp4 and so on. This system is aimed at catering the needs of students for basic computer sciences courses. Hence the educational contents are also collected for the same. Educational contents are stored in database. The content that have been collected is then stored inside the mysql database. This storage supports for large variety of files in the binary form. For easy retrieval purposes, the audio and video lectures are stored inside the cloud itself. Various operations such as insertion, deletion, updation of content can be performed on the database through SQL queries by starting mysql service. Figure2 Mysql database Figure2 shows the educational contents are effectively stored mysql database. cloud setup discussed next session. 3.2 Tedu Cloud setup Tedu setup consists of three setup :step1 Hosting $Accessing application on eucalyptus cloud, STEP2 Instantiation of virtual machine of the machine of the image, STEP 3 Remote access to e-learning content database. 417

4 3.2.1 Hosting &Accessing application on eucalyptus cloud The eucalyptus private cloud is installed in the system, which consists of the cloud controller, cluster controller and the node controller. Xen is also installed in the system for creating the root filesystem and image of the guest OS. A Eucalyptus image bundled with the necessary software such as apache software (PHP framework), JAVA JDK etc. is created. The PHP files and the video lectures are uploaded into the image. It is then uploaded and registered into eucalyptus cloud. Figure3 shows VM (Virtual Machine) for the image can be created using the euca-commands. Figure3 Euca -commands Instantiation of virtual machine of the machine of the image Figure 4 shows the VM is instantiated as follows: Figure 4 Instantiation of VM from image The IP address of the Virtual Machine is obtained, using which we ssh into the image by providing the security key. Figure5 provide security key. Figure 5 Login into the virtual machine 418

5 Figure 6 shows the Apache service is then started on the cloud as follows: Figure 6 Apache Service start 3.4 Remote access to e-learning content database MySQL database which is running on the system should be accessible by the Virtual machine of the E-learning system image on the cloud. This requirement arises inorder to access the educational content stored in the database. By using the following command, the VM would be able to gain access over the tables of the database. Figure 7 MySQL Remote Connection Various application functionalities are explained the next session 3.5 Services provided on the cloud The various services provided on the cloud as a result is as follows Education as a service (EaaS) TEducloud provides education as a service to alternative classroom teaching and aids virtualized and distant learning Upload Assignment topics The assignments that need to be completed for each course can be uploaded by the staff members, which can be accessed by the students. These are stored as files in the database. Figure8 Upload Assignments 419

6 Review Students Assignments The assignments that are submitted online by the students can be reviewed by the instructors and awarded marks for the same. In this way the student-instructor interaction can be made more effective through this e-learning framework Figure9 Review assignments Upload and Manage Study Materials The instructor can upload the study materials which can be in the form of text, rich text format, pdf, power point presentations files. Audio and video files can also be uploaded to make e-learning experience more friendly, interactive and personalized Online tests for students The Instructors are given a provision to upload test questions of a given course and the topic. The students can take online tests of a particular topic of a course. The answers are then evaluated and they are awarded marks for the same. Figure 10 Online tests Thus the above comprises of the functionalities of the instructors and the students of the e-learning environment which also helps in distance learning. It provides a complete package for effective e-learning Storage as a Service (StaaS) The educational content and video lectures are stored in the image of the cloud, thus providing storage as a service on the cloud Student login A level of personalization has been achieved by providing a separate login for each student. Accounts can be deleted and created as per the requirement the e-learning application is running successfully at the IP address of the Virtual Machine. Hence the instructors and students will be able to access the e-learning environment using the IP address of the VM. Figure 11&Figure12 provide separate student login. 420

7 Figure11 Student login Here, two case studies have been considered. One is the Micromax Funbook tablet and other is Samsung Galaxy Android phone.the mobile devices are made to be in the same network as that of the cloud machine such that each one is accessible by another.the e-learning framework is made available in the devices using the IP address of the VM of the image in the browsers. Figure 12 Student login Access Study Materials The students can view and download the study materials uploaded by the instructors. This makes learning experience more effective and interactive.the video lectures can be played in the browsers of the students in the e-learning environment through PHP framework Software as a Service (SaaS) The JDK for JAVA installed in the image of the cloud helps a student to use a compiler to compile java programs though it may not be available in his/her own system, thus providing software as a service. The various conclusions and observations of this system and further areas of research and extensions are discussed in the next session. 4.Conclusion and future work Thus a prototype of the educational cloud for the entire university has been successfully developed, thus enabling a virtualized e-learning environment which is an alternative cost-effective method to the conventional method. Various services such as Infrastructure, Education, Storage and Platform as Services have been made available with the help of the cloud. Support for mobile devices has also been established. The resources available in the cloud are thus sufficient to cater the educational needs of a thin client available.the system can further be enhanced by adding more features such as creation of learning objects for reusability. Walrus in Eucalyptus cloud can be used for storage of the learning objects. Faster retrieval of educational content by efficient search of the database can be made possible. One could also make the system fully efficient by providing all possible services which can be availed through the technology of virtualization and cloud computing. 421

8 REFERENCES [1] Manop Phankokkruad, Implementation of Cloud Computing for e-leaming System, Proceedings of International Conference on Computer & Information Science (ICCIS), [2] Guang Li, Guisheng Chen, A Novel Enhanced Education Application Of Cloud Computing, Proceedings of IEEE CCIS2011. [3] Mohssen M. Alabbadi, Cloud Computing for Education and Learning:Education and Learning as a Service (ELaaS), 14th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2011). [4] Mohammed Al-Zoube, E-Learning on the Cloud, International Arab Journal of e-technology, Vol. 1, No. 2, June [5] Hui Ma, Zhongmei Zheng et al, The Applied Research of Cloud Computing in the Construction of Collaborative Learning Platform under E-learning Environment, International Conference on System Science, Engineering Design and Manufacturing Informatization, [6] Luis M. Vaquero, EduCloud: PaaS versus IaaS Cloud Usage for an Advanced Computer Science Course, IEEE Transactions On Education, Vol. 54, No. 4, November [7] Benjamin Hirsch, Jason W.P. Ng, Education Beyond the Cloud: Anytime-anywhere learning in a smart campus environment, 6 th International Conference on Internet Technology and Secured Transactions, December [8] Shinichiro Kibe, Minoru Uehara, Motori Yamagiwa, Evaluation of Bottlenecks in an Educational Cloud Environment, Third International Conference on Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems, [9] Malini.G, Mala.T, Semantic based for e-learning content storage on cloud, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Computer Communication advanced network,