Evaluating a tactile and a tangible multi-tablet gamified quiz system for collaborative learning in primary education

[EN] Gamification has been identified as an interesting technique to foster collaboration in educational contexts. However, there are not many approaches that tackle this in primary school learning environments. The most popular technologies in the classroom are still traditional video consoles and desktop computers, which complicate the design of collaborative activities since they are essentially mono-user. The recent popularization of handheld devices such as tablets and smartphones has made it possible to build affordable, scalable, and improvised collaborative gamifled activities by creating a multi-tablet environment. In this paper we present Quizbot, a collaborative gamifled quiz application to practice different subjects, which can be defined by educators beforehand. Two versions of the system are implemented: a tactile for tablets laid on a table, in which all the elements are digital; and a tangible in which the tablets are scattered on the floor and the components are both digital and physical objects. Both versions of Quizbot are evaluated and compared in a study with eighty primary-schooled children in terms of user experience and quality of collaboration supported. Results indicate that both versions of Quizbot are essentially equally fun and easy to use, and can effectively support collaboration, with the tangible version outperforming the other one with respect to make the children reach consensus after a discussion, split and parallelize work, and treat each other with more respect, but also presenting a poorer time management.We would like to thank Universitat Politecnica de Valencia's Summer School for their collaboration during the development of this study, as well as Colegio Internacional Ausias March for their support in the development of educational content.This work is supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) with Project TIN2014-60077-R. It is also supported by fellowship ACIF/2014/214 within 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 SportGarcía Sanjuan, F.; El Jurdi, S.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Nácher-Soler, VE. (2018). Evaluating a tactile and a tangible multi-tablet gamified quiz system for collaborative learning in primary education. Computers & Education. 123:65-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.04.011S658412

Tangibot: A collaborative multiplayer game for pediatric patients

[EN] Background Previous research has studied the effects of games in pediatric wards, but none of it has focused on the impact of the hospital¿s school staff on the psychosocial state of the children nor on the gameplay itself. Objectives To present the Tangibot application and evaluate its impact on the children¿s psychosocial state in the short term and the impact of the teacher on their psychosocial state, communications and coordination during the activity. Methods A study was conducted in a hospital classroom with 20 participants, who participated twice in the game: one with the teacher playing along and another without her. An observational scale was used by two evaluators in order to assess the impact on the children. Results and conclusions The study revealed that the teacher has an impact on the children¿s communication and coordination procedures but has no impact on the psychosocial state of the participants. The teacher¿s impact was found to be positive about communications. Dialogue management significantly improves when the communication includes the teacher, which means speaking turns are observed more consistently. Information pooling also improves, and the participants ask the teacher more questions. Consensus is also reached more often and more easily, but this does not reflect on the performance, as the time management is evidently worse when the teacher is present, as is also the joint task orientation. On the other hand, it was found that the teacher does not have an impact on the psychosocial state of the participants during the game, and that it is the game itself which changes their state over time. In the case of affection, which reflects the participants¿ emotions of joy or boredom, their state improved significantly after a few minutes of play. The same thing occurred for physical activity, interest in the activity and interaction between peers, which increased in value in the first part of the game, although physical activity and interaction were reduced towards the end. No changes were found throughout the game in the number of complaints, nervousness or satisfied comments, which remained very low for all these aspects, showing that the game distracted them from their various symptoms. Based on these results, future work will explore the effects of gamification on the overall hospitalization perception, with special focus on the social opportunities during the hospital stay, to provide ways for the children to meet others during their treatment, to make the experience less painful and reduce their feelings of isolation. Some game strategies should also be evaluated to determine the ones that provide the best opportunities to improve the children¿s hospital experience.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by Spanish MINECO with Project TIN2014-60077-R-AR. The work of Jorge Montaner is supported by a national grant from the Spanish Ministry for Education (FPU17/03333). Special thanks to the staff of La Fe Hospital in Valencia who have collaborated in the experiment.Montaner-Marco, J.; Carrión-Plaza, A.; García Sanjuan, F.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2019). Tangibot: A collaborative multiplayer game for pediatric patients. International Journal of Medical Informatics. 132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.103982S13

Children s Acceptance of a Collaborative Problem Solving Game Based on Physical Versus Digital Learning Spaces

[EN] Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is an essential soft skill that should be fostered from a young age. Research shows that a good way of teaching such skills is through video games; however, the success and viability of this method may be affected by the technological platform used. In this work we propose a gameful approach to train CPS skills in the form of the CPSbot framework and describe a study involving 80 primary school children on user experience and acceptance of a game, Quizbot, using three different technological platforms: two purely digital (tabletop and handheld tablets) and another based on tangible interfaces and physical spaces. The results show that physical spaces proved to be more effective than the screen-based platforms in several ways, as well as being considered more fun and easier to use by the children. Finally, we propose a set of design considerations for future gameful CPS systems based on the observations made during this study.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (project TIN2014-60077-R); Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (with fellowship FPU14/00136) and Conselleria d'Educacio, Cultura i Esport (Generalitat Valenciana, Spain) (grant ACIF/2014/214).Jurdi, S.; García Sanjuan, F.; Nácher-Soler, VE.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2018). Children s Acceptance of a Collaborative Problem Solving Game Based on Physical Versus Digital Learning Spaces. Interacting with Computers. 30(3):187-206. https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwy006S18720630

Gamification of Assessment Test through Multiple Question Paths to Facilitate Participants’ Autonomy and Competence

Gamifying activities to make them more game-like is one of the hottest trends in various fields, including education. Among the factors influencing the success of gamification for education are the participants’ sense of autonomy and competence, which can be facilitated with the incorporation of multiple learning paths. However, the use of multiple question paths in gamified assessment tests is still under-studied. This mixed-method study was aimed at exploring the matter through a paper-based and gamified assessment test in higher education. A controlled experiment was conducted in a calculus course in an informatics department. The experimental group (n = 38) undertook a gamified written test, and the control group (n = 37) undertook a regular one. The gamified test consisted of several Hard and Medium Questions, and each participant would choose a question path containing some of the questions. Nine question paths were available with varying ratios between Hard and Medium Questions, and the participants were allowed to ask for two hints on the Hard ones. A questionnaire, based on the EGameFlow model, was used to assess the gamified test. The results show that the gamified test was able to facilitate the participants’ sense of autonomy but not their sense of competence, which was due to flaws of the test. Two additional positive effects of the test on the participants’ knowledge improvement and Flow experience are identified. The path selection pattern among the participants and the flaws of the gamified test are also discussed

Collaborative behavior, performance and engagement with visual analytics tasks using mobile devices

Interactive visualizations are external tools that can support users’ exploratory activities. Collaboration can bring benefits to the exploration of visual representations or visu‐ alizations. This research investigates the use of co‐located collaborative visualizations in mobile devices, how users working with two different modes of interaction and view (Shared or Non‐Shared) and how being placed at various position arrangements (Corner‐to‐Corner, Face‐to‐Face, and Side‐by‐Side) affect their knowledge acquisition, engagement level, and learning efficiency. A user study is conducted with 60 partici‐ pants divided into 6 groups (2 modes×3 positions) using a tool that we developed to support the exploration of 3D visual structures in a collaborative manner. Our results show that the shared control and view version in the Side‐by‐Side position is the most favorable and can improve task efficiency. In this paper, we present the results and a set of recommendations that are derived from them

Bibliometría aplicada a la gamificación como estrategia digital de aprendizaje

Este trabajo se interesa por un tema de actualidad como es la gamificación en educación,una interesanteestrategia didácticapara responder a los alarmantes datos sobre fracaso y abandono escolar obtenidos año tras año enlas pruebas diagnósticas realizadas enel ámbito europeo. A través del estudio bibliométrico de la producción científicase ha analizado las principales tendencias en gamificación,como práctica mediada por la tecnología en las aulas de las diferentes etapas educativas, a través de 137documentos alojados enlabase de datos Scopus y publicados en la última década. Enlosresultados se revela que el número de documentos se ha incrementado notablemente en los últimos años; sin embargo, el impactoen las prácticas digitalizadas de aulasigue siendo escaso,exceptuando algunos casos.Se destaca que el peso del continente europeo es notable en este campo,si lo comparamos con el americano o el asiático. Y también que la mayoría de las publicaciones se sitúan en Primaria, existe un cierto equilibrio entre asignaturas científicas y humanísticas y los dispositivos de preferenciason las tabletas. Concluimosapuntandocontrastar sistemáticamente estudiospor etapasyreflexionarsobre las estrategias educativas en el contexto de la sociedad digital

Does the Interactive Push-Presentation System Nearpod Effect Student Engagement in High School Anatomy?

The ability of the United States to succeed and compete successfully in the 21st Century will be directly related to the effectiveness of America’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education. In 2012 the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology set a goal to add one million STEM college graduates over a 10-year period. Motivation in STEM secondary classrooms is a critical contributor to students entering college in declaring and persisting in a STEM related major. The purpose of this study is to add research findings to the literature regarding means of using technology to increase K12 science motivation. How to increase STEM engagement and achievement has been the subject of much research. Research has shown that interactive lessons using student response systems, including clickers and mobile devices, can increase student engagement. Nearpod gives students the ability to draw and write complex expressions and participate in lecture and reinforcement activities as a class. In this quasi-experimental static-comparison study, we describe the use of Nearpod, a cloud based audience response software application intervention, and its impact on five subscales of motivation in a high school Human Anatomy & Physiology classroom. A total of 38 students from a rural Virginia high school participated in the study. Student engagement was measured using the Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ II). The SMQ II uses a Likert Scale and the scores from the two groups were analyzed using independent t-tests in Statistics Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Results showed Nearpod had a statistically significant increase on student’s intrinsic motivation and self-determination. Using an larger sample size would reinforce the results of this study

Investigating Real-time Touchless Hand Interaction and Machine Learning Agents in Immersive Learning Environments

The recent surge in the adoption of new technologies and innovations in connectivity, interaction technology, and artificial realities can fundamentally change the digital world. eXtended Reality (XR), with its potential to bridge the virtual and real environments, creates new possibilities to develop more engaging and productive learning experiences. Evidence is emerging that thissophisticated technology offers new ways to improve the learning process for better student interaction and engagement. Recently, immersive technology has garnered much attention as an interactive technology that facilitates direct interaction with virtual objects in the real world. Furthermore, these virtual objects can be surrogates for real-world teaching resources, allowing for virtual labs. Thus XR could enable learning experiences that would not bepossible in impoverished educational systems worldwide. Interestingly, concepts such as virtual hand interaction and techniques such as machine learning are still not widely investigated in immersive learning. Hand interaction technologies in virtual environments can support the kinesthetic learning pedagogical approach, and the need for its touchless interaction nature hasincreased exceptionally in the post-COVID world. By implementing and evaluating real-time hand interaction technology for kinesthetic learning and machine learning agents for self-guided learning, this research has addressed these underutilized technologies to demonstrate the efficiency of immersive learning. This thesis has explored different hand-tracking APIs and devices to integrate real-time hand interaction techniques. These hand interaction techniques and integrated machine learning agents using reinforcement learning are evaluated with different display devices to test compatibility. The proposed approach aims to provide self-guided, more productive, and interactive learning experiences. Further, this research has investigated ethics, privacy, and security issues in XR and covered the future of immersive learning in the Metaverse.<br/