Portable e-Learning box for agriculture to support farmer in rural areas: A case study in Thailand

Abstract

This paper presents an economic e-Learning prototype for boosting up agricultural knowledge in rural regions of Thailand. The proposed prototype is designed on low-resource and mobility concepts. An e-Learning service is utilized for local self-learning and local staff to instruct contents. Due to the limitations and problems of ICT infrastructure, we design our system to function in two modes which are an offline e-Learning server and a gateway hotspot. Low power consumption and alternative energy sources such as solar cell system, automotive battery, and mobile power bank are utilized concerning the electrical power issue. Ease of use and user-friendly interface are considered in order to suit the characteristic of Thai farmers and non-IT skill users. The system was evaluated by the practical performing. The testing results prove that the system can operate a local e-Learning service to participants up to 15 concurrent connections. Moreover, a local wireless hotspot is automatically activated when LAN cable is connecting to the Internet. Finally, the user satisfaction was evaluated to confirm the proposed solution performance and usability as well.