Supporting students with learning disabilities to explore linear relationships using online learning objects

The study of linear relationships is foundational for mathematics teaching and learning. However, students’ abilities connect different representations of linear relationships have proven to be challenging. In response, a computer-based instructional sequence was designed to support students’ understanding of the connections among representations. In this paper we report on the affordances of this dynamic mode of representation specifically for students with learning disabilities. We outline four results identified by teachers as they implemented the online lessons

Face of the Future

Paul Oh, robotics visionary, believes Nevada is poised to become the nation’s premier destination for all manner of “unmanned systems,” those technological marvels that are rapidly redrawing the boundaries between man and machine

Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Entertainment Computing. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Entertainment Computing, vol. 17 (2016). DOI 10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001.[EN] According to current kindergarten curricula, game play is an important basis for children development and it is the main driving force when designing educational activities during early childhood. This paper presents a review of the current state of the art of game technologies that support pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children development. Moreover, the most emergent technologies for developing educational games for preschool children are identified and a set of future challenges are discussed. The main goal of this work is to review the state of the art in interactive technologies which will help educators, game designers and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) experts in the area of game-based kindergarten instruction. 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work received financial support from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with the project TIN2014-60077-R (SUPEREMOS). This work is also supported by a predoctoral fellowship within the FPU program from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports to V. Nacher (FPU14/00136) and from GVA (ACIF/2014/214) to F. Garcia-Sanjuan.Nácher-Soler, VE.; García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2016). Interactive technologies for preschool game-based instruction: Experiences and future challenges. Entertainment Computing. 17:19-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2016.07.001S19291

Analyzing children's expectations from robotic companions in educational settings

The use of robots as educational partners has been extensively explored, but less is known about the required characteristics these robots should have to meet children's expectations. Thus the purpose of this study is to analyze children's assumptions regarding morphology, functionality, and body features, among others, that robots should have to interact with them. To do so, we analyzed 142 drawings from 9 to 10 years old children and their answers to a survey provided after interacting with different robotic platforms. The main results convey on a gender-less robot with anthropomorphic (but machine-like) characteristics

Humanoid Robots Supporting Children’s Learning in an Early Childhood Setting

This qualitative study explored the affordances provided by the integration of the NAO humanoid robot in three preschool classrooms. Using the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework as a lens, the researchers qualitatively analyzed data from focus groups, observations, field notes and student artifacts, using grounded coding to uncover language and communication, physical, cognitive and social–emotional learning experiences for children. The researchers also examined interactions between the robot, children and teachers to identify successes and challenges experienced during the integration. Findings indicate the robot provided opportunities for student development in all learning domains. Students were intellectually curious about the robot; data showed their eagerness to “talk with,” generate questions about, make eye contact with and learn more about the robot. Students viewed these interactions as two-way. The presence of the robot created much enthusiasm and excitement, resulting in the opportunity for students to practice waiting their turn and cooperation. Challenges uncovered show that teachers lacked experience and knowledge in the integration and operation of the robot. Despite these challenges, findings show that teachers welcomed the robot as a tool in the classroom to align with curriculum requirements and meet the developmental needs of children

A low-cost classroom-oriented educational robotics system

Over the past few years, there has been a growing interest in using robots in education. The use of these tangible devices in combination with problem-based learning activities results in more motivated students, higher grades and a growing interest in the STEM areas. However, most educational robotics systems still have some restrictions like high cost, long setup time, need of installing software in children's computers, etc. We present a new, Iow-cost, classroom-oriented educational robotics system that does not require the installation of any software. It can be used with computers, tablets or smartphones. It also supports multiple robots and the system can be setup and is ready to be used in under 5 minutes. The robotics system that will be presented has been successfully used by two classes of 3rd and 4th graders. Besides improving mathematical reasoning, the system can be employed as a motivational tool for any subject

Design and Evaluation of a Tangible-Mediated Robot for Kindergarten Instruction

© ACM 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACE '15 Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2832932.2832952Entertainment technology increases children’s engagement in educational activities designed to develop abilities ranging from collaborative problem-solving and cognitive attention to self-esteem. However, little research has been done on designing educational and entertaining interactive technology for kindergarten children (up to 5 years old). Furthermore, most of the work in this area has considered traditional input devices such as the mouse and keyboard, which are not suitable for these very young children. More recently, other more intuitive means of interaction (touch and tangible interfaces) and advanced educational artifacts such as robots have emerged. In this work we therefore present a joint collaboration between technologists and kindergarten instructors to design and evaluate a technological platform using a mobile robot for kindergarten instruction, as well as an intuitive and user-friendly tangible user interface. The results obtained suggest the platform is not only usable by kindergarten children, but it also allows them to be fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In addition, the instructors reported that the system was well accepted and praised its versatility in use as a supporting tool for their everyday classroom activities.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with Project TIN2014-60077-R, and from Universitat Politècnica de València under Project UPV-FE-2014-24. It is also supported by fellowship ACIF/2014/214within the VALi+d program from Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana), and by fellowship FPU14/00136 within the FPU program from Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Nácher-Soler, VE.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2015). Design and Evaluation of a Tangible-Mediated Robot for Kindergarten Instruction. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2832932.2832952SDiana Africano, Sara Berg, Kent Lindbergh, Peter Lundholm, Fredrik Nilbrink, and Anna Persson. 2004. Designing Tangible Interfaces for Children's Collaboration.CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, 853--868. http://doi.org/10.1145/985921.985945Alissa N. Antle. 2013. Exploring how children use their hands to think: an embodied interactional analysis.Behaviour & Information Technology32, 9, 938--954. http://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2011.630415Jennifer Connolly, Anna Beth Doyle, and Flavia Ceschin. 1983. Forms and Functions of Social Fantasy Play in Preschoolers in M. B. InSocial and Cognitive Skills: Sex Roles and Children's Play. Academic Press, New York, 71--92.Amnon Dekel, Galit Yavne, Ela Ben-Tov, and Yulia Roschak. 2007. The spelling bee.Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, ACM, 212--215. http://doi.org/10.1145/1255047.1255092Janet A. DiPietro. 1981. Rough and tumble play: A function of gender.Developmental Psychology 17, 50--58. http://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.17.1.50Allison Druin. 2002. The role of children in the design of new technology.Behaviour & Information Technology21, 1, 1--25. http://doi.org/10.1080/01449290110108659Madhumita Ghosh and Fumihide Tanaka. 2011. The impact of different competence levels of care-receiving robot on children.IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE, 2409--2415. http://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2011.6048743Juan Pablo Hourcade, Michael Crowther, and Lisa Hunt. 2007. Does mouse size affect study and evaluation results?: a study comparing preschool children's performance with small and regular-sized mice.Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, ACM, 109--116. http://doi.org/10.1145/1297277.1297300Juan Pablo Hourcade. 2007. Interaction Design and Children.Foundations and Trends in Human--Computer Interaction1, 4, 277--392. http://doi.org/10.1561/1100000006C. Lorelle Lentz, Kay Kyeong-Ju Seo, and Bridget Gruner. 2014. Revisiting the Early Use of Technology: A Critical Shift from "How Young is Too Young?" to "How Much is 'Just Right'?"Dimensions of Early Childhood42, 1, 15--23.Janet Lever. 1976. Sex Differences in the Games Children Play.Social Problems23, 4, pp. 478--487.Janet Lever. 1978. Sex Differences in the Complexity of Children's Play and Games.American Sociological Review43, 4, pp. 471--483.Susan C. Levine, Janellen Huttenlocher, Amy Taylor, and Adela Langrock. 1999. Early sex differences in spatial skill.Developmental Psychology35, 4, 940--949. http://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.35.4.940Liang-Yi Li, Chih-Wei Chang, and Gwo-Dong Chen. 2009. Researches on using robots in education.Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on E-Learning and Games, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 479--482. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03364-3_57Min Liu. 1996. An exploratory study of how pre-kindergarten children use the interactive multimedia technology: implications for multimedia software design.Journal of Computing in Childhood Education7, 1--2, 71--92.Javier Marco, Eva Cerezo, and Sandra Baldassarri. 2013. Bringing tabletop technology to all: Evaluating a tangible farm game with kindergarten and special needs children.Personal and Ubiquitous Computing17, 8, 1577--1591. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-012-0522-5Vicente Nacher, Fernando Garcia-Sanjuan, and Javier Jaen. 2015. Game Technologies for Kindergarten Instruction: Experiences and Future Challenges.Proceedings of the 2nd Congreso de la Sociedad Española para las Ciencias del Videojuego, 58--67.Vicente Nacher, Javier Jaen, and Alejandro Catala. 2014. Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children.Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, ACM, 159--162. http://doi.org/10.1145/2669485.2669523Vicente Nacher, Javier Jaen, Elena Navarro, Alejandro Catala, and Pascual González. 2015. Multi-touch gestures for pre-kindergarten children.International Journal of Human-Computer Studies73, 37--51. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2014.08.004Jeanne Nakamura and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 2008. Flow Theory and Research. InHandbook of Positive Psychology. 195--206. http://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195187243.013.0018Junichi Osada, Shinichi Ohnaka, and Miki Sato. 2006. The scenario and design process of childcare robot, PaPeRo.Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, ACM. http://doi.org/10.1145/1178823.1178917Mildred B. Parten. 1932. Social participation among pre-school children.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology27, 3, 243--269. http://doi.org/10.1037/h0074524Kimberly K. Powlishta, Maya G. Sen, Lisa A. Serbin, Diane Poulin-Dubois, and Julie A. Eichstedt. 2001. From infancy through middle childhood: The role of cognitive and social factors in becoming gendered. InHandbook of the psychology of women and gender, Rhoda K. Unger (ed.). John Wiley & Sons Inc., Hoboken, NJ, USA, 116--132.Kenneth H Rubin, Terrence L Maioni, and Margaret Hornung. 1976. Free play behaviors in middle- and lower-class preschoolers: Parten and Piaget Revisited.Child Development47, 2, 414--419. http://doi.org/10.2307/1128796Kenneth H. Rubin. 1977. Play Behaviors of Young Children.Young children32, 6, 16--24.Anne B. Smith and Patricia M. Inder. 1993. Social Interaction in Same and Cross Gender Preschool Peer Groups: a participant observation study.Educational Psychology 13, 29--42. http://doi.org/10.1080/0144341930130104Iris Soute and Henk Nijmeijer. 2014. An Owl in the Classroom: Development of an Interactive Storytelling Application for Preschoolers.Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interaction Design and Children, ACM, 261--264. http://doi.org/10.1145/2593968.2610467Amanda Strawhacker and Marina Umaschi Bers. 2014. "I want my robot to look for food": Comparing Kindergartner's programming comprehension using tangible, graphic, and hybrid user interfaces.International Journal of Technology and Design Education. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-014-9287-7Toshimitsu Takahashi, Masahiko Morita, and Fumihide Tanaka. 2012. Evaluation of a tricycle-style teleoperational interface for children: A comparative experiment with a video game controller.Proceedings of the 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, IEEE, 334--338. http://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2012.6343775Fumihide Tanaka, Bret Fortenberry, Kazuki Aisaka, and Javier R. Movellan. 2005. Plans for Developing Real-time Dance Interaction between QRIO and Toddlers in a Classroom Environment.Procceedings on the 4th International Conference on Development and Learning, IEEE, 142--147. http://doi.org/10.1109/DEVLRN.2005.1490963Fumihide Tanaka and Shizuko Matsuzoe. 2012. Learning Verbs by Teaching a Care-Receiving Robot by Children: An Experimental Report.Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, ACM, 253--254. http://doi.org/10.1145/2157689.2157781Fumihide Tanaka and Toshimitsu Takahashi. 2012. A tricycle-style teleoperational interface that remotely controls a robot for classroom children.Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 255--256. http://doi.org/10.1145/2157689.2157782Barrie Thorne. 1993.Gender Play: Boys and Girls in School. Rutgers University Press.Chau Kien Tsong, Toh Seong Chong, and Zarina Samsudin. 2012. Tangible multimedia: A case study for bringing tangibility into multimedia learning.Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences64, 382--391. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.045Jie Chi Yang and Sherry Y. Chen. 2010. Effects of gender differences and spatial abilities within a digital pentominoes game.Computers & Education 55, 1220--1233. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.019Nicola J. Yelland. 1994. The strategies and interactions of young children in LOGO tasks.Journal of Computer Assisted Learning10, 1, 33--49. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.1994.tb00280.xEvridiki Zachopoulou, Efthimios Trevlas, and Georgia Tsikriki. 2004. Perceptions of gender differences in playful behaviour among kindergarten children.European Early Childhood Education Research Journal12, 1, 43--53. http://doi.org/10.1080/1350293048520930

Framework to Enhance Teaching and Learning in System Analysis and Unified Modelling Language

Cowling, MA ORCiD: 0000-0003-1444-1563; Munoz Carpio, JC ORCiD: 0000-0003-0251-5510Systems Analysis modelling is considered foundational for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) students, with introductory and advanced units included in nearly all ICT and computer science degrees. Yet despite this, novice systems analysts (learners) find modelling and systems thinking quite difficult to learn and master. This makes the process of teaching the fundamentals frustrating and time intensive. This paper will discuss the foundational problems that learners face when learning Systems Analysis modelling. Through a systematic literature review, a framework will be proposed based on the key problems that novice learners experience. In this proposed framework, a sequence of activities has been developed to facilitate understanding of the requirements, solutions and incremental modelling. An example is provided illustrating how the framework could be used to incorporate visualization and gaming elements into a Systems Analysis classroom; therefore, improving motivation and learning. Through this work, a greater understanding of the approach to teaching modelling within the computer science classroom will be provided, as well as a framework to guide future teaching activities