The Limited Effect of Graphic Elements in Video and Augmented Reality on Children’s Listening Comprehension

There is currently significant interest in the use of instructional strategies in learning environments thanks to the emergence of new multimedia systems that combine text, audio, graphics and video, such as augmented reality (AR). In this light, this study compares the effectiveness of AR and video for listening comprehension tasks. The sample consisted of thirty-two elementary school students with different reading comprehension. Firstly, the experience, instructions and objectives were introduced to all the students. Next, they were divided into two groups to perform activities—one group performed an activity involving watching an Educational Video Story of the Laika dog and her Space Journey available by mobile devices app Blue Planet Tales, while the other performed an activity involving the use of AR, whose contents of the same history were visualized by means of the app Augment Sales. Once the activities were completed participants answered a comprehension test. Results (p = 0.180) indicate there are no meaningful differences between the lesson format and test performance. But there are differences between the participants of the AR group according to their reading comprehension level. With respect to the time taken to perform the comprehension test, there is no significant difference between the two groups but there is a difference between participants with a high and low level of comprehension. To conclude SUS (System Usability Scale) questionnaire was used to establish the measure usability for the AR app on a smartphone. An average score of 77.5 out of 100 was obtained in this questionnaire, which indicates that the app has fairly good user-centered design

A Goal Question Metric (Gqm) Approach for Evaluating Interaction Design Patterns in Drawing Games for Preschool Children

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest to use smart devices\u27 drawing games for educational benefit. In Indonesia, our government classifies children age four to six years old as preschool children. Not all preschool children can use drawing games easily. Further, drawing games may not fulfill all Indonesia\u27s preschool children\u27s drawing competencies. This research proposes to use Goal-Question Metric (GQM) to investigate and evaluate interaction design patterns of preschool children in order to achieve the drawing competencies for preschool children in two drawing Android-based games: Belajar Menggambar (in English: Learn to Draw) and Coret: Belajar Menggambar (in English: Scratch: Learn to Draw). We collected data from nine students of a preschool children education in a user research. The results show that GQM can assist to evaluate interaction design patterns in achieving the drawing competencies. Our approach can also yield interaction design patterns by comparing interaction design patterns in two drawing games used

Mobile games and science learning: A comparative study of 4 and 5 years old playing the game Angry Birds

A popular activity among young children is the use of mobile devices and apps. Yet, the impact of mobile devices on learning and development is rather underexplored. The limited studies identified explore effects on literacy development and communication and report on mixed findings. A considerable gap is observed as to how the use of mobile apps relates to young children's understanding in diverse domains including science learning, and to extend, whether and how mobile apps should be used and how in early years' settings. The aim of this paper is to shed light on this area by examining the learning effects of touch screen mobile game applications, in particular the game Angry Birds, on two groups of preschoolers 4 and 5 years old respectively. Evidence from a comparative study with 32 participants reveal significant differences between the two groups in terms of game skills and their understanding of projectile motion. Implications for educational stakeholders, parents and app designers are discussed along with future research directions

FunNature: Android Application for Environmental Learning

The development of FunNature Android application is to provide an interactive learning aid for the preschoolers to learn about the environment that focus on flora and fauna. The objective is to demonstrate a minimum 10% improvement in object recognition through image, text and sound among the preschool children. In addition, the approach proposed by the author is mainly to assist the children during the learning process of environment by using the concept of game in an application. The idea of this project arose from an assessment of the current method used by the Malaysia preschools which is using reading materials or Microsoft Power Point slides. The author believes that by using reading materials, it fails to grab the children‟s attention which later becomes a problem for the kindergarten teacher. By using FunNature application, children and teacher can enjoy the learning process together especially if they play the games together. In order to develop such application, the author had conducted research on the following domains: (1) preschool syllabus by Ministry of Education to ensure that the game‟s content abide the syllabus and (2) environment domain focusing on flora and fauna in Malaysia context. For the research methodology, this study focuses on qualitative research acquired from the feedback of children on their experience in using the existing system and their opinions on the new interactive application. Parents and teachers also cooperated to give their feedback on the prototype of this application. Using a Rapid Application Development model, the author successfully developed an application that is user friendly and cost effective using Android platform. The final prototype of FunNature Android application is developed using Adobe Flash Creative Suite 5.5

EVALUATION OF EDUCATIONAL MOBILE APPS FOR TURKISH PRESCHOOLERS FROM GOOGLE PLAY STORE

There are many mobile applications (apps) for learning in Google Play Store. People usually evaluate the apps based on their personal view/criteria, and others have an idea about that app with its rating score and/or user comments. This study, aims to analyze the educational mobile apps objectively by using a reliable rubric tool; REVEAC (Rubric for the EValuation of Educational Apps for preschool Children). This is a descriptive research based on content analysis method. The mobile apps were selected in this study based on their following characteristics: belonging to educational category for children five years old and under; being free, trial or freemium; and having Turkish content. Android apps were selected because of its commonly usage in worldwide. The selected 44 apps have scores from 2.9 to 5 according to Google’s five-star rating system. The selected mobile apps had medium level of rubric scores. The rubric scores ranged from 29 to 66 points with a mean of 43.20 ± 7.89. There was no statistically significant correlation between rubric scores and a) Google Play scores; b) the number of people who voted for the mobile app, and c) how many times the mobile app downloaded. The 39 apps could be categorized as games, and five apps were interactive e-books. The most popular five contents of the apps were; animals, numbers, colors, fruits and vegetables, and shapes. Almost all of the apps were promoting learning through repetitive practices. The study also presented additional notes for the apps in terms of four domain; educational content, design, functionality, and technical characteristics.   Article visualizations