M-learning programming platform: Evaluation in elementary schools

Efthimios Alepis, Christos Troussas

Abstract


Mobile learning has invaded the everyday life and therefore evaluation methodology and reporting  should be used so that mobile technologies are tested out in a variety of learning contexts. Το this direction, a mobile learning platform, named m-AFOL, was designed for elementary school students so that they are taught basic programming principles. The platform is a sophisticated learning tool that incorporates affective interaction among learners and tutoring agents in order to maximize educational gains. The paper presents a two-level evaluation study of m-AFOL, estimating its effectiveness and acceptance rate. The evaluation concludes that the mobile facilities of the resulting intelligent tutoring system are highly acceptable (over 80%) from young learners, being keen on using mobile devices while learning. Concluding. the mobile platform is evaluated in comparison with a desktop version of resulting system.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Alepis, E., Virvou, M.: Object-Oriented User Interfaces for Personalized Mobile Learning, Intelligent Systems Reference Library Volume 64, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Pages 109-125 (2014)

Abdul Razak, F.H. , Salleh, K. , Azmi, N.H.: Children's technology: How do children want it? Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) Volume 8237 LNCS, Pages 275-284 (2013)

McKenney, S., Voogt, J.: Technology and young children: How 4-7 year olds perceive their own use of computers. Computers in Human Behavior Volume 26, Issue 4, Pages 656-664 (2010)

Jackson, L.A., Witt, E.A., Games, A.I. , Fitzgerald, H.E. , Von Eye, A. , Zhao, Y.: Information technology use and creativity: Findings from the children and technology project. Computers in Human Behavior Volume 28, Issue 2, Pages 370-376 (2012)

Clements, D., Nastasi, B.: Electronic media and early childhood education. In B. Spodek, editor, Handbook of research on the education of young children, pages 251–275. Macmillan, New York, (1993)

Fessakis, G. , Gouli, E. , Mavroudi, E.: Problem solving by 5-6 years old kindergarten children in a computer programming environment: A case study. Computers and Education Volume 63, Pages 87-97 (2013)

Kordaki, M.: A drawing and multi-representational computer environment for beginners' learning of programming using C: Design and pilot formative evaluation. Computers and Education Volume 54, Issue 1, Pages 69-87 (2010)

Werner, L., Campe, S., Denner, J.: Children learning computer science concepts via Alice game-programming. SIGCSE'12 - Proceedings of the 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Pages 427-432 (2012)

Virvou, M., Alepis, E., Mpalasis, K.: Evaluation of a multimedia educational tool for geography in elementary schools. Proceedings of International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education, ICICTE, Pages 364-374 (2013)

Shieh, C.-K., Mac, S.-C., Chang, T.-C., Lai, C.-M.: An object-oriented approach to develop software fault-tolerant mechanisms for parallel programming systems, Journal of Systems and Software, Volume 32, Issue 3, Pages 215-225 (1996)

Pastor, O., Gómez, J., Insfrán, E., Pelechano, V.: The OO-Method ap-proach for information systems modeling: From object-oriented concep-tual modeling to automated programming, Information Systems, Vol 26, Issue 7, pp. 507-534 (2001)

Frazier, F.: The logo system: Preliminary manual. BBN Technical Report. Cambridge, MA: BBN Technologies (1967)

Feurzeig, W.: Toward a Culture of Creativity: A Personal Perspective on Logo's Early Years and Ongoing Potential, International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning , Volume 15, Issue 3, pp 257-265 (2010)

Goleman, D.: Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, New York , (1995)

Picard, R.,W., Klein, J.: Computers that Recognise and Respond to User Emotion: Theoretical and Practical Implications, Interacting with Computers, Volume 14, Issue 2, Pages 141-169 (2002)

Elliott, C., Rickel, J., Lester, J.: Lifelike pedagogical agents and affective computing: an exploratory synthesis. In Wooldridge MJ, Veloso M (eds) Artificial intelligence today, LNCS 1600. Springer, Berlin, Pages 195–212 (1999)

Johnson, W.L., Rickel, J., Lester, J.: Animated pedagogical agents: face-to-face interaction in interactive learning environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence 11, Pages 47–78 (2000)

Kahn, K.: ToonTalk - An Animated Programming Environment for Children, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 197-217 (1996)

Alepis, E.: AFOL: Towards a new intelligent interactive programming language for children, Springer, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies Volume 11, Pages 199-208 (2011)

Troussas, C., Virvou, M., Alepis, E. (2014).Collaborative learning: Group interaction in an intelligent mobile-assisted multiple language learning system. Informatics in Education, 13 (2), 279-292. (a)

Troussas, C., Alepis, E., Virvou, M. (2014). Mobile authoring in a multiple language learning environment. IISA 2014 - 5th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications, art. no. 6878819, pp. 405-410. (b)

Troussas, C., Virvou, M., Alepis, E. (2013). Comulang: Towards a collaborative e-learning system that supports student group modeling. SpringerPlus, 2 (1), 1-9.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.