Developing mobile learning applications for electrical engineering courses

With the shift from desktop/laptop computers to multi-touch mobile devices (e.g. iPad, Smartphone, Tablet handheld), these mobile devices have become a part of everyday life and have potentials to promote in-class activities between teachers and students. In this paper, we have developed mobile learning applications for the Google's Android and Apple's iOS platforms to be used in electrical engineering courses at the University of Tennessee at Martin and have investigated their effects on student performance. These applications are quiz-style and touch based applications that ask students questions relevant to electrical engineering subjects. There are several different problems to choose from, including digital logic gate analysis, discrete signal convolution, and digital filter design. Once students complete the work, the score results can be sent to the instructor's email automatically. While students play with this mobile software, they are actually learning the subjects and getting to compete with classmates. Students also can learn anytime or anywhere, in or outside of the classroom.