Music Mentor

Extra-curricular learning is on the rise, and many are interested in expanding their current knowledge by utilizing the recent increase in educational technology. While many forms of educational technology exist, there are few interactive and engaging platforms that teach music theory. Apps such as Perfect Ear and MyMusicTheory are great for becoming familiar with reading music and recognizing pitches, however, they often become dry with repetition and repeated tasks. By combining existing technologies that can complete real time conversions from raw audio to MIDI, our goal was to gather information such as harmonies, key and compatible chords from the user’s input. Using this data we aimed to create dynamic lesson plans based on user input, rather than using the same repetitive prompts from overused question pools. We were successfully able to generate these lesson plans, however, the lesson plans that we were able to create are somewhat limited. Given time restraints, we struggled to implement the pruning of audio input to match the desired lesson plans, as the recorded notes must match the correct format to generate a successful plan. Furthermore, we were not able to train a reliable voice model to recognize notes before the project was due. Though not fully complete, we successfully created a prototype dynamic lesson plan that can potentially engage users and assist in the learning of music theory if implemented in future technology

Un modèle de personnalisation des aspects éducatif et ludique pour les jeux sérieux

L’utilisation des jeux en éducation, appelés jeux sérieux, se développe de plus en plus, mais pour être performants, ces jeux doivent être personnalisés en fonction de la progression des apprentissages tout en conservant leur aspect ludique. Un état de l’art sur le domaine de l’analyse de l’apprentissage a été effectué pour comprendre comment personnaliser de tels jeux. Cependant, les travaux actuels prennent peu en compte les deux aspects pédagogiques et ludiques. L’objectif de cette recherche a été de proposer un modèle de personnalisation du contenu pédagogique et ludique pour les joueurs-apprenants dans les jeux sérieux. Le modèle proposé organise le savoir du domaine à apprendre et indique les télémétries à enregistrer sur l’apprenant pour personnaliser son parcours en fonction de ses performances. Le modèle a été validé par la création d’un prototype qui a permis de vérifier sa fonctionnalité. Ainsi, avec ce modèle, le jeu peut proposer le contenu le plus pertinent pour l’apprenant, lui montrer sa progression et interagir avec lui selon la mécanique de jeux qui lui correspond le mieux. Bien que la personnalisation ludique soit limitée, le modèle est assez flexible pour s’adapter à toute forme de matériel pédagogique et tout domaine d’étude. Des tests impliquant des apprenants permettraient une validation plus avancée.The use of games in education, called serious games is growing, but to be effective, these games must be personalized according to the progress of learning while keeping their playful aspect. A state-of-the-art on the field of learning analytics was conducted to understand how to customize such games. However, the current works do not cover educational and entertainment aspects. The objective of this research project was to propose a model for the personalization of educational and playful content for players-learners in serious games. The proposed model organizes the knowledge of the field to be learned and indicates the telemetry to be recorded on the learner in order to personalize his or her path according to his or her performance. The model was validated by creating a prototype that verified its functionality. Thus, with this model, the game can offer the most relevant content for the learner, show him his or her progress and interact according to the game mechanics that best match him or her. Although playful customization is limited, the model is flexible enough to adapt to any form of educational content and any field of study. Tests involving learners would allow a more advanced validation

Integrating Socially Assistive Robots into Language Tutoring Systems. A Computational Model for Scaffolding Young Children's Foreign Language Learning

Schodde T. Integrating Socially Assistive Robots into Language Tutoring Systems. A Computational Model for Scaffolding Young Children's Foreign Language Learning. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld; 2019.Language education is a global and important issue nowadays, especially for young children since their later educational success build on it. But learning a language is a complex task that is known to work best in a social interaction and, thus, personalized sessions tailored to the individual knowledge and needs of each child are needed to allow for teachers to optimally support them. However, this is often costly regarding time and personnel resources, which is one reasons why research of the past decades investigated the benefits of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs). But although ITSs can help out to provide individualized one-on-one tutoring interactions, they often lack of social support. This dissertation provides new insights on how a Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) can be employed as a part of an ITS, building a so-called "Socially Assistive Robot Tutoring System" (SARTS), to provide social support as well as to personalize and scaffold foreign language learning for young children in the age of 4-6 years. As basis for the SARTS a novel approach called A-BKT is presented, which allows to autonomously adapt the tutoring interaction to the children's individual knowledge and needs. The corresponding evaluation studies show that the A-BKT model can significantly increase student's learning gains and maintain a higher engagement during the tutoring interaction. This is partly due to the models ability to simulate the influences of potential actions on all dimensions of the learning interaction, i.e., the children's learning progress (cognitive learning), affective state, engagement (affective learning) and believed knowledge acquisition (perceived learning). This is particularly important since all dimensions are strongly interconnected and influence each other, for example, a low engagement can cause bad learning results although the learner is already quite proficient. However, this also yields the necessity to not only focus on the learner's cognitive learning but to equally support all dimensions with appropriate scaffolding actions. Therefore an extensive literature review, observational video recordings and expert interviews were conducted to find appropriate actions applicable for a SARTS to support each learning dimension. The subsequent evaluation study confirms that the developed scaffolding techniques are able to support young children’s learning process either by re-engaging them or by providing transparency to support their perception of the learning process and to reduce uncertainty. Finally, based on educated guesses derived from the previous studies, all identified strategies are integrated into the A-BKT model. The resulting model called ProTM is evaluated by simulating different learner types, which highlight its ability to autonomously adapt the tutoring interactions based on the learner's answers and provided dis-engagement cues. Summarized, this dissertation yields new insights into the field of SARTS to provide personalized foreign language learning interactions for young children, while also rising new important questions to be studied in the future

Situated Immersive Gaming Environments for Irish Language Learning

In this thesis, three cycles of design based research are outlined, implementing a situated immersive virtual reality game for Irish language learning. It was undertaken in order to investigate a potential technological solution to improve the limited number of daily Irish adult speakers in Ireland, 3%. It examines the intersection between game based learning, Irish language learning and virtual reality technology and the methodological approach undertaken follows a design based research paradigm. The research focus is on motivation and anxiety through interaction with a virtual reality game. It offers several contributions to current literature including: The utilisation of the Second Language (L2) self-system system of motivation within a design based research methodological approach. The study disseminates the results of three cycles of a design based research experiment. It found an increase in vocabulary retention, reduction in anxiety towards Irish and a significant increase in attitudes towards learning Irish. It also highlights learner’s experience of a immersive situated game to learn Irish. The first case study was conducted with 7 participants from TU Dublin’s game design programme. This was a pilot study which confirmed the questionnaires and game design direction of the thesis moving forward. The results led to a redesign of the game following quantitative and qualitative feedback from participants. The second case study was conducted with 13 participants from TU Dublin’s Irish language classes. There were no statistically significant results found, however, there was a large reduction in the mean for Irish language anxiety and Irish language self confidence in participants after engaging with the virtual reality game. The results led to a redesign of the game following the quantitative and qualitative feedback from participants. In the third case study there were 10 participants from Marino Institute of Education. Statistically significant results were found with a 21% increase in vocabulary retention alongside a decrease in Irish language anxiety and an increase in attitudes towards iilearning Irish. Focus groups of the participants are explored through thematic analysis in order to corroborate the quantitative data. Participants validated the quantitative analysis and illustrated how the design of the VR game aided their motivation and vocabulary retention. The thesis concludes by providing a summary of the research questions and the results obtained and gives game design recommendations for future immersive situated games for Irish language learning