ARM Community: How Tablets in a Teacher-Controlled Environment Can Advance Education - ARM Community

A PC or laptop for every student has been the driving motivation for many Philanthropists. Technology innovations have certainly made this possible as the cost of such products have dropped from $1000 of dollars to $100s of dollars with the introduction of tablet computing. Tablets linked to a portable server with storage, internet access, and Wifi capability can empower educators who embrace technology into the learning process. This technology is functional, practical and affordable. It can be deployed more rapidly especially in areas that cannot afford the large investments for infrastructure.

At Pactron we focus on developing customized solutions for specific market needs and saw a great opportunity in the education market to create a Server and Touchpad combination that is functional, practical and affordable.

Tablets in the classroom? But how do teachers keep the students focused on the lesson and not the Internet? Provide tablets where teachers control the material that students can view. Gain the advantages of ease of sharing lecture notes, quick note taking for the students and even get feedback on how the students are doing on the lesson without worrying about the students surfing the Internet. New technology from Pactron is enabling a teacher-controlled cloud-based server solution to enable the best of education and mobile technology.

Use a stable proxy server that allows multiple students to access streaming content
Teachers have been looking for an affordable, easy to use, fully self-contained micro cloud computing experience for some time. Issues that crop up include QoS with multiple students accessing rich content including streaming video.

Using Birchwood as a proxy server allows the teacher to multicast video solving latency and bandwidth problems. Birchwood allows teachers to exercise control over the class/ curriculum by streaming content to student tablet devices. Analytics, Monitoring and Management features even can be incorporated to provide instant feedback. Birchwood also provides VPN Security so that privacy can be maintained.

The Birchwood System is a low power development/evaluation platform based on the high performance Marvell’s 88F6282 ARMv5TE compliant core with integrated 16 KB L1 Cache and 256 KB L2 cache that can run up to 2.0 GHz.

Pactron End to End Birchwood Demo at ESC
The Pactron’s Birchwood Server using a 2 GHz ARM processor with an 802.11N wireless interface communicating with 3 ea. Pactron Touchpads based on 1Ghz ARM processors was recently demoed at ESC. This demo highlighted video content being moved seamlessly between the server & the Touchpads and featured an education application.



Here’s a typical demo sequence:

• Teacher loads content on Birchwood via USB
• Teacher starts class
• Students join class
• Teacher sends content
• Sync App enables Student to content download via 802.11N
• Students watch video

Birchwood Server: Details:

• Based on Marvell 88F6282
• 2 GHzARM processor
• Linux-2.6.31-rc8 ARM Linux Kernel
• Debian Lenny stable version 5.0 files system
• 16 bit DDR3 SDRAM
• 8-bit 512 MB NAND flash boot support
• Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000 Mbps) ports
• DVI Video Interface
• SD Card Interface
• SATA HDD
• 2ea. PCIe
• 802.11N (optional)
• 3G wireless (optional)
• USB 3.0 (optional)

Elko Touchpad : Details:

• Based on Marvell’s 168 (Aspen)
• 1Ghz PJ1 ARM v5
• 512KB DDR3 (recommended)
• Supports 2D graphics
• Supports up to Flash Lite 3.1.7
• Supports Android OS 2.2 Froyo
• video formats supported (decode):
  • H.264,
  • Mpeg4, D1
• 2MP camera

By focusing on a Server and Touchpad solution that is both functional and affordable, Pactron can enable education to flourish in areas that cannot afford the large investments for infrastructure or where internet access is not readily available.

These types of “end to end” robust solutions can be adapted to a variety of markets and applications beyond education such as Surveillance, Signage, Hospitality Communications, Robotics and Healthcare.

How will education and these markets change with this type of technology?

Guest Partner Blogger:

Gerry Connolly, Director Business Development at Pactron. Gerry has an extensive background developing and capitalizing on both strategic and tactical business opportunities in Embedded Systems, Storage, Networking, Digital Video, Software and Services. Prior to joining Pactron he has held senior management positions at Marvell, Network Appliance, Cirrus Logic and Adaptec. Gerry has a Master’s Degree and BSEE from Trinity College Dublin. Ireland.

ARM welcomes its wealth of Partners in the ARM Connected Community (CC) to submit guest blogs to be published on our multiple community blogs. If interested in participating please submit email inquiries to Tell.Us@arm.com.

The ARM Connected Community (CC) is an extensive ecosystem covering all aspects of ARM processor-based design, from chip implementation through to system and device design. The CC provides a platform for collaborative innovation, with multiple types of forums for members to work with one another, and with customers, to solve industry challenges, all with the purpose of enabling designers to focus on differentiating features and an accelerated time-to-market for ARM powered solutions.