US Ignite: Collaborative Research: Cloud Computing and Software-Defined Networking Enhancements to Support Collaborative, Problem-based STEM Education

需要创新的想法来提高STEM教育和学生参与度的相关性。众所周知，通过用开放式的、现实世界的问题来挑战学生，并让他们在多学科团队中工作，可以提高学生的动机和参与度。拟议的研究将实现这些目标，并通过将课程内容和评估与深入的STEM学习和现实世界的工程问题解决联系起来，传授STEM知识和21世纪的技能。使用基于云的软件基础设施，学生可以使用建议的C3STEM环境与同行协作处理知识密集型任务，进行联合实验，并通过将复杂问题分解为更小、更易于管理的任务来解决这些问题。这种方法将提高学生的技术能力，帮助他们发展成为全球领导者。该项目将研究、设计和验证能够实现无处不在和协作的STEM教育的新技术。该团队将通过将Cloudlet和Locavore模式与云计算相结合来设计新的软件系统。将设计和验证软件定义网络(SDN)的新技术，以动态创建和管理网络带宽，以支持设想的应用。资源分配、可伸缩性和服务质量问题将在SDN与Cloudlet混合的综合环境中解决。调查将涉及洞察力和科学基础，为应用于协作工程问题解决的云计算和网络虚拟化提供新的方向。该团队将使用现实世界的应用程序来设计STEM课程单元，例如城市街道上的交通流量和针对高中生和本科生的离散制造系统。调查人员将使用多个移动设备和计算平台来设计、测量和验证用于远程访问的下一代测试台，以便由远程团队执行实验和解决问题。例如，田纳西州纳什维尔的高中学生团队将能够与范德比尔特大学的研究生和本科生合作，并使用位于阿克伦大学的制造试验台与俄亥俄州阿克伦的学生互动。分布式团队将能够通过移动设备协作从试验台收集实时数据，对新行为进行编程，验证其设计，并参与解决具有现实意义的复杂问题。

Innovative ideas are needed to improve the relevance of STEM education and student engagement. It is known that student motivation and engagement can be improved by challenging them with open-ended, real-world problems and having them work in multi-disciplinary teams. The proposed research will achieve these objectives and impart STEM knowledge and 21st century skills by connecting course content and assessments to deep STEM learning and real-world engineering problem solving. Using cloud-based software infrastuctures, students can use the proposed C3STEM environment to collaborate with their peers on knowledge intensive tasks, conduct joint experiments, and solve complex problems by decomposing them into smaller, more manageable tasks. This approach will improve the technological competence of students and help them to develop into global leaders. The project will research, design and validate new technologies that will enable ubiquitous and collaborative STEM education. The team will design new software systems by exploiting the Cloudlet and Locavore patterns in conjunction with Cloud Computing. New techniques for Software Defined Networking (SDN) will be designed and validated to dynamically create and manage network bandwidth in support of the envisioned applications. Resource allocation, scalability and Quality of Service issues will be addressed in the integrated context of SDN blended with Cloudlets. The investigation will address insights and scientific foundations that inform new directions in Cloud Computing and Network Virtualization as applied to collaborative engineering problem solving. The team will design STEM curricular units using real-world applications, such as traffic flow in city streets and discrete manufacturing systems that are directed at high school and undergraduate students. The investigators will design, instrument, and validate next-generation test beds for remote access using multiple mobile devices and computing platforms for performing experiments and problem-solving by remote teams. For example, high school student teams in Nashville, TN will be able to collaborate with graduate and undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University and interact with students in Akron, OH while using a manufacturing test bed located at the University of Akron. The distributed team will be able to collaboratively collect real-time data from the test beds via mobile devices, program new behaviors, validate their designs and engage in solving complex problems of real-world significance.