THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Thai students make their mark

Thai students make their mark

Mobile app that helps people collaborate on an online project wins prize

 

Two Thai students from Khon Kaen University have won a prize at the 2012 e-Learning International Contest of Outstanding New ages (e-ICON) World Contest held in Korea last week. 
Suwitcha Jogthong is a student from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Phattarajul Chantaramontri is a student from the Faculty of Engineering. Their team also included two Korean students. 
According to the rules of the contest, each team is made up of four students, two from countries participating in the competition and two Korean students assigned by the host.
Numpon Mahayotsanun, a lecturer at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Khon Kaen University, said the students taking part in the contest have to make their project proposal. They have to work with their teams from the participating countries and in Korea for a week on the proposal and complete the project. Students could be working together online or through dedicated websites for collaboration. 
At the contest, students have to spend three days together to turn the proposal project into an e-leaning software or application that is ready for use.
Suwitcha and Phattarajul developed a mobile application called ‘Idea Plus’ that allows people to collaborate together online. It is a social media for people to do a project together. People who use this application can create their own project and then post it on the app to seek partners who might be interested in or might have skills that suit the idea. Then, they can meet and work together online. 
Suwitcha said that the inspiration for developing ‘Idea Plus’ came from her own experience of needing partners who could help her complete a project that required some skill that she does not have. Idea Plus can help people like her, who have the idea to create a project to find partners with requisite skills.
She added that she had direct experience of this need to join this competition. She does not have computer skills but she desired to join the e-ICON. Hence she needed to find the right partner, which was Phattarajul. Then, she and Phattarajul worked with two Korean students – Kwon Hee Cho and Beoyl Jeon – who are studying education. They have different areas of skills but worked together to complete the project. She said Idea Plus addresses this kind of situation where people who are skillful in different areas work together online or via mobile phone.
“The beauty of this application is it helps people who have an idea in mind find the right partners with the skills that they need to complete the project,” said Suwitcha.
Phattarajul added that the contest required participants to develop applications or content related to e-learning, and Idea Plus is designed to facilitate people to be able to keep learning by themselves online in collaboration with others easily. 
“We heard about this competition from the teachers. We were interested in it as we thought it would give us a chance to have the experience of working with friends from abroad,” said Phattarajul.
This year, Thailand sent three teams to participate in e-ICON 2012, one team for high school level and two teams at university level, from Sri Pathum University and Khon Kaen University.
 
 
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