Multimedia Development of English Vocabulary Learning in Primary School

In this paper, we describe a prototype of web-based intelligent handwriting education system for autonomous learning of Bengali characters. Bengali language is used by more than 211 million people of India and Bangladesh. Due to the socio-economical limitation, all of the population does not have the chance to go to school. This research project was aimed to develop an intelligent Bengali handwriting education system. As an intelligent tutor, the system can automatically check the handwriting errors, such as stroke production errors, stroke sequence errors, stroke relationship errors and immediately provide a feedback to the students to correct themselves. Our proposed system can be accessed from smartphone or iPhone that allows students to do practice their Bengali handwriting at anytime and anywhere. Bengali is a multi-stroke input characters with extremely long cursive shaped where it has stroke order variability and stroke direction variability. Due to this structural limitation, recognition speed is a crucial issue to apply traditional online handwriting recognition algorithm for Bengali language learning. In this work, we have adopted hierarchical recognition approach to improve the recognition speed that makes our system adaptable for web-based language learning. We applied writing speed free recognition methodology together with hierarchical recognition algorithm. It ensured the learning of all aged population, especially for children and older national. The experimental results showed that our proposed hierarchical recognition algorithm can provide higher accuracy than traditional multi-stroke recognition algorithm with more writing variability

Early years practitioner beliefs about digital media: from pedagogical incompatibility to new pedagogy

This dissertation reports research that investigated the integration of technology into early years pedagogy. The work contributes to knowledge about teaching and learning in the early years in the context of the pedagogical challenges practitioners face when integrating technology. The theoretical framework for the study combined theories of activity theory and learning ecologies. The methodology was framed by educational design research. Collaborative design was adopted by the researcher and a primary-school nursery teacher to develop and implement an intervention in her classroom, focussing on the integration of digital media in teacher-to-children, and peer-to-peer interactions. Ongoing reflective dialogue facilitated the collaborative nature of this study and supported the adoption of new practices. Research data included video observations of the children, the teacher and other practitioners. The data sets also included interviews and reflective discussions with the teacher, and scrutiny of classroom planning documents. Qualitative data analysis involved thematic analysis to identify key factors that were related to changes in teacher beliefs and pedagogy across the phases of the design research. Iterative cycles of the intervention were designed and implemented in collaboration with the teacher. This resulted in the development of teaching and learning strategies to integrate digital media into free-flow play and into directed teaching. The developments required the reconstruction of some practitioner beliefs about the value of digital technologies in early education. The study findings suggest professional development should address practitioner beliefs about digital media and early years pedagogy, and provide time and space for reflection. The research makes an original contribution to knowledge about the integration of digital media into early years classroom pedagogy, including in-depth understanding of the potential barriers and gateways between practitioner beliefs about new technologies and their uptake in the classroom, and the processes of bringing about change through appropriate intervention and reflection

COVID-2019 Impacts on Education Systems and Future of Higher Education

The rapid outbreak of the COVID-19 has presented unprecedented challenges on education systems. Closing schools and universities and cancelling face-to-face activities have become a COVID-19 inevitable reality in most parts of the world. To be business-as-usual, many higher education providers have taken steps toward digital transformation, and implementing a range of remote teaching, learning and assessment approaches. This book provides timely research on COVID-19 impacts on education systems and seeks to bring together scholars, educators, policymakers and practitioners to collectively and critically identify, investigate and share best practices that lead to rethinking and reframing the way we deliver education in future

Examining university student satisfaction and barriers to taking online remote exams

Recent years have seen a surge in the popularity of online exams at universities, due to the greater convenience and flexibility they offer both students and institutions. Driven by the dearth of empirical data on distance learning students' satisfaction levels and the difficulties they face when taking online exams, a survey with 562 students at The Open University (UK) was conducted to gain insights into their experiences with this type of exam. Satisfaction was reported with the environment and exams, while work commitments and technical difficulties presented the greatest barriers. Gender, race and disability were also associated with different levels of satisfaction and barriers. This study adds to the increasing number of studies into online exams, demonstrating how this type of exam can still have a substantial effect on students experienced in online learning systems and technologies

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

Intuitive interaction: Steps towards an integral understanding of the user experience in interaction design

A critical review of traditional practices and methodologies demonstrates an underplaying of firstly the role of emotions and secondly aspects of exploration in interaction behaviour in favour of a goal orientated focus in the user experience (UX). Consequently, the UX is a commodity that can be designed, measured, and predicted. An integral understanding of the UX attempts to overcome the rationalistic and instrumental mindset of traditional Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) on several levels. Firstly, the thesis seeks to complement a functional view of interaction with a qualitative one that considers the complexity of emotions. Emotions are at the heart of engagement and connect action irreversibly to the moment it occurs; they are intettwined with cognition, and decision making. Furthermore, they introduce the vague and ambiguous aspects of experience and open it up to potentiality of creation. Secondly, the thesis examines the relationship between purposive and non-purposive user behaviour such as exploration, play and discovery. The integral position proposed here stresses the procedurally relational nature and complexity of interaction experience. This requires revisiting and augmenting key themes of HCI practice such as interactivity and intuitive design. Intuition is investigated as an early and unconscious form of learning, and unstructured browsing discussed as random interaction mechanisms as forms of implicit learning. Interactivity here is the space for user's actions, contributions and creativity, not only in the design process but also during interaction as co-authors of their experiences. Finally, I envisage integral forms of usability methods to embrace the vague and the ambiguous, in order to enrich HCI's vocabulary and design potential. Key readings that inform this position cut across contemporary philosophy, media and interaction studies and professional HCI literature. On a practical level, a series of experimental interaction designs for web-browsing aim to augment the user's experience, and create space for user's intuition