Publication

Abstract : Developing countries typically have large populations in rural areas with inadequate resources for quality education. Concurrently, low-cost mobile devices are becoming quite popular in rural areas. The trends in the mobile industry show that a variety of mobile devices and choices in connectivity are becoming available and affordable. Synchronous e-learning is also starting to show immense potential with expert instructors being available to train teachers in other areas. The combination of these factors is unfolding a new era in mobile e-learning where the ubiquity of connected mobile devices has provided a tremendous potential for knowledge to reach large numbers of learners in rural areas. Developing countries typically have large populations in rural areas with inadequate resources for quality education. Concurrently, low-cost mobile devices are becoming quite popular in rural areas. The trends in the mobile industry show that a variety of mobile devices and choices in connectivity are becoming available and affordable. Synchronous e-learning is also starting to show immense potential with expert instructors being available to train teachers in other areas. The combination of these factors is unfolding a new era in mobile e-learning where the ubiquity of connected mobile devices has provided a tremendous potential for knowledge to reach large numbers of learners in rural areas. In this paper, we present a case study in a large developing country like India where a major national initiative has been undertaken for providing e-learning to the masses. This program is addressing issues like nation-wide connectivity, affordable mobile devices and high-quality online content. As part of this program, we contribute a highly scalable framework called A-VIEW (Amrita Virtual Interactive E-Learning World) that provides live interaction between expert trainers and large number of learners. A-VIEW is designed to be context-aware, thus addressing the practical needs of a variety of users in various strata of society according to their available infrastructure, connectivity, bandwidth, local language and mode of learning. © 2012 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering. Notes: cited By (since 1996)0; Conference of org.apache.xalan.xsltc.dom.DOMAdapter@6c9deaec ; Conference Date: org.apache.xalan.xsltc.dom.DOMAdapter@73aa63a9 Through org.apache.xalan.xsltc.dom.DOMAdapter@37752792; Conference Code:90407