Teachers’ Adoption of Embodied Learning Digital Games with an Inclusive Education Approach: Lessons Learnt from the INTELed Project in Spain

Producción CientíficaEmbodied learning digital games have been used with success in the past to support students with special education needs, but their application by teachers in mainstream classes with an inclusive approach is still a challenge. This paper presents the results of a set of pilots in which a suite of embodied digital games was applied into pre-school and primary school classrooms. The findings of the studies provide insights into the conditions that facilitated and/or impeded the adoption of the technology by the participant teachers. These results are then elaborated to define a first set of strategies that could be used by third-party teachers to fulfill the same objectives, and to identify concrete design challenges for the application of embodied digital games in classrooms.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Project TIN2017-85179-C3-2-R)Junta de Castilla y León (Project VA257P18 (CASSUALearn

Out of Mind, Out of Sight: Language Affects Perceptual Vividness in Memory

We examined whether language affects the strength of a visual representation in memory. Participants studied a picture, read a story about the depicted object, and then selected out of two pictures the one whose transparency level most resembled that of the previously presented picture. The stories contained two linguistic manipulations that have been demonstrated to affect concept availability in memory, i.e., object presence and goal-relevance. The results show that described absence of an object caused people to select the most transparent picture more often than described presence of the object. This effect was not moderated by goal-relevance, suggesting that our paradigm tapped into the perceptual quality of representations rather than, for example, their linguistic availability. We discuss the implications of these findings within a framework of grounded cognition

Investigating Children’s Immersion in a High-Embodied Versus Low-Embodied Digital Learning Game in an Authentic Educational Setting

Communications in Computer and Information Science Volume 1044, 2019, Pages 222-233© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Prior research has supported that game-based learning is dependent on the degree of immersion achieved, namely the degree to which children become cognitively and emotionally engaged with a given educational digital game. With the emergence of embodied digital educational games, researchers have assumed that the affordances of these games for movement-based interaction may heighten even more experienced immersion. However, there is lack of empirical research on the investigation of children’s immersive experiences in embodied educational games, warranting this claim. Existing research on immersion is still restricted in highly-controlled laboratory settings and focuses on non-educational embodied games played by mostly young adult populations. Extending prior research in the educational context, this study has investigated children’s immersion in a high-embodied digital learning game integrated in an authentic school classroom (Group1 = 24), in comparison to a low-embodied digital version of the game (Group2 = 20). Our findings did not support previous hypotheses regarding experienced immersion in high-embodied digital games; post-interventional surveys indicated that there was no difference in most dimensions of experienced immersion. Interviews with a subset of the children (n = 8 per condition) resulted in the identification of various (a) media form, (b) media content and (c) context-related factors, which provided plausible explanations about children’s experienced immersion in the two conditions. Implications are discussed for supporting immersion in high-embodied educational digital games implemented in authentic educational settings

Visualization of Heat Transfer Using Projector-Based Spatial Augmented Reality

Thermal imaging cameras, commonly used in application areas such as building inspection and night vision, have recently also been introduced as pedagogical tools for helping students visualize, interrogate and interpret notoriously challenging thermal concepts. In this paper we present a system for Spatial Augmented Reality that automatically projects thermal data onto objects. Instead of having a learner physically direct a hand-held camera toward an object of interest, and then view the display screen, a group of participants can gather around the display system and directly see and manipulate the thermal profile projected onto physical objects. The system combines a thermal camera that captures the thermal data, a depth camera that realigns the data with the objects, and a projector that projects the data back. We also apply a colour scale tailored for room temperature experiments

Embodied learning in a digital world: a systematic review of empirical research in K-12 education

There is a widespread assumption that technology-enhanced embodied learning environments, which are grounded on the notion of embodied cognition, can promote learning. The current study reviews the empirical basis of this assumption by examining literature published from 2008 to 2017 which employed technology-enhanced embodied learning environments in K-12 education. Overall, 41 journal articles were included in the review study; these were indexed in four databases (Education Research Complete [via EBSCO], ERIC, JSTOR, and Scopus) as well as in Google Scholar, or were identified via the ancestry method. As part of our analysis, we focused on the type of technology-enhanced embodied environments utilized for educational purposes, the research methods adopted for their evaluation, and the educational contexts in which they were implemented. At the core of this review study, we investigated students’ learning outcomes across the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, while we examined the learning effectiveness of technology-enhanced embodied environments, as compared to other interfaces and forms of instruction. In general, the review revealed positive outcomes about the use of technology-enhanced embodied learning environments in K-12. Most of the reviewed studies were contextualized in STEM education, adopted gesture-based technologies, and evaluated students’ learning using retrospective measures grounded on pre–post-testing. Cognitive outcomes were dominant in the reviewed studies, while the evaluation of affective and psychomotor outcomes received less attention. Most of the reviewed comparative studies reported that students in the embodied learning condition had increased learning gains, when compared to their counterparts in the control or comparison groups. However, these findings should be treated with caution due to a set of methodological concerns that this review identified. We conclude this chapter with a synthesis of our findings in the form of emerged implications and we provide a set of guidelines for future research and practice in the field of technology-enhanced embodied learning environments

An Evaluation-driven design approach to develop learning environments based on full-body interaction

The development of learning environments based on full-body interaction has become an increasingly important field of research in recent years. However, the design and evaluation strategies currently used present some significant limitations. Two major shortcomings are: the inadequate involvement of children in the design process and a lack of research into what meanings children construct within these learning environments. To tackle these shortcomings we present an evaluation-driven design approach, which aims at analyzing situated interpretations made by children. These interpretations are then used to guide and optimize design in an iterative process of design and assessment. This evaluation-driven design method was applied in the development of the EcoSystem Project, a full-body interaction learning environment for children aimed at supporting learning about environmental relationships. The application of this iterative approach proved to be highly effective both in facilitating continuous improvements in the proposed design and in reducing misconceptions by children using the environment. Moreover, experimental evaluation reported significant learning gains in children. This suggests both the potential of using full-body interaction to support learning and the effectiveness of our evaluation-driven approach in optimizing design solutions through the analysis of children’s interpretations.We thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant TIN2014-60599-P) to support the project. We also thank all the participants from local schools for their time and motivation during the participatory design workshop. We are also very grateful for the valuable information and materials on environmental education provided by experts from Fàbrica del Sol, Ecoserveis, Aula Ambiental de la Sagrada Família, Societat Catalana d‘Educació Ambiental (SCED) and Centre de Suport a la Innovació i la Recerca Educativa (CESIRE)