Technology-enhanced learning (tel) of number systems

• Main Author: Zhang, Yue Jun
• Other Authors: Jong Ching Chuen
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Computer hardware, software and systems
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/71700
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) is a new way to learn NTU’s full qualification programme courses without the constraints of place and time. For this project, the focus is on the specific area Number Systems from the module EE2004 Digital Electronics of the School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. The application developed for TEL is reported in this work, including realisation of the application functions, Graphic-User Interface (GUI) design, testing and debugging. The application has three main functions: conversion, arithmetic operations and exercise generation. Firstly, the conversions between various Number Systems such as Decimal, Binary, Octal, Hexadecimal, Two’s complement, Binary-Coded Decimal (BCD) and Sign and Magnitude are implemented. These conversions are realised by the use of both built-in methods from the software to develop the application and self- invented methods. Secondly, the arithmetic operations including addition and subtraction are both implemented in this application, and overflow conditions of binary representation are well taken care of. Thirdly, the exercise generation is to provide unlimited conversion questions and solutions to both students and professors on different purposes. Past exercises are recorded in the textbox, and can be saved as text file for future references or online platform importing. The GUI layout consists of the application title and the panel which contains the major functions. The design of the panel is using three different tabs to separate functions. This design allows the users to switch from one function to another without losing data. Moreover, alert messages are deployed as reminders to the users on completing their actions or entering the input in correct format. Testing and debugging was done along the development process. Minor improvements are made such as constraining the second conversion selection based on the first conversion type was selected as not all conversion types are valid. The application is successfully developed and tested at the end.