Improving ECE Education in Sub-Saharan African Countries  Using the Mobile Studio Technology and Pedagogy

Yacob Astatke; Craig J. Scott; Jumoke Oluwakemi Ladeji-Osias; Kenneth A Connor; Salessawi Ferede Yitbarek; Albert Edward Sweets; Farzad Moazzami

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Conference: 2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Publication Date: June 23, 2013
Start Date: June 23, 2013
End Date: June 26, 2013
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Engineering Education in the Middle East and Technology Exploration in Africa and Developing Countries
Tagged Division: International
Page Count: 12
Page Numbers: 23.713.1 - 23.713.12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--19727
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/19727
Download Count: 408

Paper Authors

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Yacob Astatke Morgan State University

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Dr. Yacob Astatke completed both his Doctor of Engineering and B.S.E.E. degrees from Morgan State University (MSU) and his M.S.E.E. from Johns Hopkins University. He has been a full time faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at MSU since August 1994 and currently serves as the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies. Dr. Astatke is the winner of the 2012-2013 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Mid-Atlantic Region Distinguished Teacher Award. He teaches courses in both analog and digital electronic circuit design and instrumentation, with a focus on wireless communication. He has more than 15 years experience in the development and delivery of synchronous and asynchronous web-based course supplements for electrical engineering courses. He has published over 35 papers and presented his research work at regional, national and international conferences. He also runs several exciting summer camps geared towards middle school, high school, and community college students to expose and increase their interest in pursuing Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Dr. Astatke travels to Ethiopia every summer to provide training and guest lectures related to the use of the mobile laboratory technology and pedagogy to enhance the ECE curriculum at five different universities.

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Craig J. Scott Morgan State University

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Jumoke Oluwakemi Ladeji-Osias Morgan State University orcid.org/0000-0002-8645-696X

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Dr. Jumoke Ladeji-Osias is Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Morgan State University. She earned in B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She coordinates the departmental graduate program and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in computer engineering, primarily in designing digital systems for hardware. She is the PI for Scholars in Engineering (SiE), an NSF S-STEMS scholarship for undergraduate and Master’s students. She is a member of the Morgan team that is developing online laboratory courses for undergraduate students. Her research expertise is in algorithm optimization for FPGA implementation and her research group has developed a novel biologically inspired image fusion algorithm. She has over 35 journal and conference publications combined.

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Kenneth A Connor Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

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Kenneth Connor is a professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering, where he teaches courses on plasma physics, electromagnetics, electronics and instrumentation, electric power, and general engineering. His research involves plasma physics, electromagnetics, photonics, engineering education, diversity in the engineering workforce, and technology enhanced learning. Since joining the Rensselaer faculty in 1974, he has been continuously involved in research programs at such places as Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Universities of Texas and Wisconsin in the U.S., Kyoto and Nagoya Universities in Japan, the Ioffe Institute in Russia, and Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology in Ukraine. He was ECSE Department Head from 2001-2008 and served on the board of the ECE Department Heads Association from 2003-2008. He is presently the Education Director for the SMART LIGHTING NSF ERC.

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Dr. Farzad Moazzami completed both his Doctor of Engineering (2011) and M.Eng (2009) degrees from Morgan State University (MSU) and his B.S.E.E. from Azad University of Tabriz in Iran. He has been a full time faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at MSU since September 2011. He is experienced in the development and delivery of hybrid and online electrical engineering courses. Dr. Farzad Moazzami currently oversees activities of WiNetS lab in Morgan State University and works with undergrad and graduate students on cyber security, RF communications and digital signal processing topics under various research programs.

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Abstract

Improving ECE Education in Sub-Saharan African Countries Using the Mobile Studio Technology and PedagogyAbstractFour choices for session topics : 1. Engineering Education in Sub-Saharan Africa 2. U.S./Africa Engineering Education Partnership 3. Needs, Opportunities, and Challenges for Global Engineering Education 4. Techniques in Web-based and Technology Enhanced Education around the Globe Developing nations, especially those located in Sub-Saharan Africa have realized thathigher education is critical for their future economic development. For the past 5 years, theUniversity Capacity Building Program (UCBP) of Ethiopia has undertaken a large-scale capacitydevelopment and construction project of 13 universities at 15 different sites throughout thecountry, mostly in rural locations. Expanding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM) education in colleges and universities is very challenging because it requires additionallaboratories and specialized equipment that are very expensive to purchase and maintain. STEMeducation is also minimized and sometimes compromised when the ratio between the availableequipment and the number of students becomes high. The solution to such a problem is to eitherdecrease the studio/laboratory equipment ratio, or increase the number of laboratory equipment.Although achieving both goals seems unattainable, the development and availability of new stateof the art teaching/training laboratory equipment has started making this vision a reality. The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department of Morgan State University(MSU), in collaboration with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and other partner institutionshas been testing a new state of the art ECE laboratory equipment called the Mobile Studio I/OBoardTM to conduct and teach ECE laboratory experiments from anywhere at any time. It is asmall and inexpensive ($150) hardware platform that duplicates a large amount of ECElaboratory hardware valued at around $5,000 when coupled with a laptop that runs the MobileStudio DesktopTM software. This paper will discuss the results of a three year internationalcollaboration between MSU and two universities in Ethiopia that used the Mobile Studio I/OBoardTM technology and pedagogy to enhance their ECE curriculum. Initial results indicate thatthe use of the new technology has allowed the students of the two participating Ethiopianuniversities to finally be able to conduct more hands-on laboratory experiments and design moreadvanced circuits for their senior projects. The use of inexpensive and portable ECE laboratoryequipment such as the Mobile Studio I/O BoardTM , or Analog DiscoveryTM has the potential torevolutionize ECE education in developing countries world-wide.

Citation
Format

Astatke, Y., & Scott, C. J., & Ladeji-Osias, J. O., & Connor, K. A., & Yitbarek, S. F., & Sweets, A. E., & Moazzami, F. (2013, June), Improving ECE Education in Sub-Saharan African Countries Using the Mobile Studio Technology and Pedagogy Paper presented at 2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--19727

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -              Improving ECE Education in Sub-Saharan African Countries                 Using the Mobile Studio Technology and PedagogyAbstractFour choices for session topics :   1. Engineering Education in Sub-Saharan Africa   2. U.S./Africa Engineering Education Partnership   3. Needs, Opportunities, and Challenges for Global Engineering Education   4. Techniques in Web-based and Technology Enhanced Education around the Globe        Developing nations, especially those located in Sub-Saharan Africa have realized thathigher education is critical for their future economic development. For the past 5 years, theUniversity Capacity Building Program (UCBP) of Ethiopia has undertaken a large-scale capacitydevelopment and construction project of 13 universities at 15 different sites throughout thecountry, mostly in rural locations. Expanding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM) education in colleges and universities is very challenging because it requires additionallaboratories and specialized equipment that are very expensive to purchase and maintain. STEMeducation is also minimized and sometimes compromised when the ratio between the availableequipment and the number of students becomes high. The solution to such a problem is to eitherdecrease the studio/laboratory equipment ratio, or increase the number of laboratory equipment.Although achieving both goals seems unattainable, the development and availability of new stateof the art teaching/training laboratory equipment has started making this vision a reality.        The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department of Morgan State University(MSU), in collaboration with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and other partner institutionshas been testing a new state of the art ECE laboratory equipment called the Mobile Studio I/OBoardTM to conduct and teach ECE laboratory experiments from anywhere at any time. It is asmall and inexpensive ($150) hardware platform that duplicates a large amount of ECElaboratory hardware valued at around $5,000 when coupled with a laptop that runs the MobileStudio DesktopTM software. This paper will discuss the results of a three year internationalcollaboration between MSU and two universities in Ethiopia that used the Mobile Studio I/OBoardTM technology and pedagogy to enhance their ECE curriculum. Initial results indicate thatthe use of the new technology has allowed the students of the two participating Ethiopianuniversities to finally be able to conduct more hands-on laboratory experiments and design moreadvanced circuits for their senior projects. The use of inexpensive and portable ECE laboratoryequipment such as the Mobile Studio I/O BoardTM , or Analog DiscoveryTM has the potential torevolutionize ECE education in developing countries world-wide.
AU  - Yacob Astatke
AU  - Craig J. Scott
AU  - Jumoke  Oluwakemi Ladeji-Osias
AU  - Kenneth A Connor
AU  - Salessawi Ferede Yitbarek
AU  - Albert Edward Sweets Jr.
AU  - Farzad Moazzami
CY  - Atlanta, Georgia
DA  - 2013/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Improving ECE Education in Sub-Saharan African Countries  Using the Mobile Studio Technology and Pedagogy 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/19727
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--19727
ER  -