E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

This week there was an interesting article in the Chronicle about the mobile studio project. The mobile studio project is developing technology-based pedagogy and inexpensive hardware/software which, when connected to a PC (via USB), provides functionality similar to that of laboratory equipment (scope, function generator, power supplies, DMM, etc.) typically associated with an instrumented studio classroom.

Withe the current - much lower - prices for hardware a student can have his own lab instead of the very expensis lab equipment universities have invested in the past. The latest version of the Mobile Studio hardware costs about $150 per student—cheap enough that every engineering student gets his or her own board.

According to Kenneth Conner students get higher scores with a mobile studio. Because students can pursue their own ideas, build something, and then try it either just for their own satisfaction or, in my class, for more points. This style of teaching closely resembles the way engineers do their jobs and allows the students to achieve understanding based on what they do best.

I think this is a great concept that is certainly interesting for Delft. You could also use this in online education.