San Antonio, Texas
June 10, 2012
June 10, 2012
June 13, 2012
2153-5965
Instrumentation
18
25.1003.1 - 25.1003.18
10.18260/1-2--21760
https://peer.asee.org/21760
564
Yacob Astatke completed both his doctorate of rngineering 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 Aug. 1994 and currently serves as the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies. He teaches courses in both analog and digital electronic circuit design and instrumentation. Dr. Astatke has more than 10 years of experience in the development and delivery of synchronous and asynchronous web-based ECE courses in the USA and abroad. He is the recipient of the 2012 ASEE Mid-Atlantic Section’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
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 Director of Education for the SMART LIGHTING NSF ERC.
Online Delivery of Electrical Engineering Laboratory CoursesThis paper presents our experiences and results in developing and delivering new laboratoryexperiments for the sophomore level Electric Circuits Lab, and Introduction to Digital Logicdesign courses completely online. The paper will clearly outline how we utilized a newpedagogy to re-write our laboratory experiments so that they can be completed by face-to-faceand/or online students using new portable laboratory instrumentation devices, such as the MobileStudioTM board. We also present detailed descriptions on how we used the Adobe ConnectTMsoftware to allow the students to demonstrate their design and laboratory experiment circuits tothe course instructor from a remote location.We have successfully developed and delivered over 10 laboratory experiments completely onlinefor the two sophomore level courses during the Spring 2011 semester. The laboratoryexperiments have been updated in the Fall 2011 semester with the addition of new Agilent X-Series Oscilloscopes with integrated Function Generators. The new oscilloscopes have optionalLAN connection modules that allow students to control every feature of the oscilloscopesremotely using a web browser on their personal computer (PC) through a virtual front panel thatlooks and operates the same way as the real front panel of the scopes with the same associatedkeys and knobs. This implies that students who are conducting ECE laboratory experimentsonline will have access to the same type of equipment that is used by the students enrolled in theface-to-face laboratory courses.The results have shown that the students were able to conduct most of the design and laboratoryexperiments required in the online lab courses without the need to be on campus. This newapproach represents a major paradigm shift in the way higher education institutions should thinkwhen delivering Electrical Engineering education.
Astatke, Y., & Scott, C. J., & Connor, K. A., & Ladeji-Osias, J. O. (2012, June), Online Delivery of Electrical Engineering Laboratory Courses Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21760
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