Ah-Fur Lai

Development of a mobile rhythm learning system based on digital game-based learning companion

Rhythm is an important aspect of music development of children. The drum is the instrument that is often played by children and helps them acquire rhythmic skills of music. There are, however, other sources and instruments that are used to create the effects of rhythm. Nevertheless, current education neglects the exploration activities of sound and its relationship with rhythm in elementary school. Based on the positive learning effects of digital game-based learning and learning companion, findings based on this research developed a mobile rhythm learning system that make the rhythms learning anywhere and anytime possible. This digital learning companion leads the learner to explore a variety of sound material in the daily life. The learner can use the sound material as background music to the rhythm games, thereby enhancing rhythm learning by this system. In addition, the learner could collaboratively ensemble a rhythm game with their peers through Bluetooth connection.

Weighted Threshold Secret Image Sharing

Given a secret image I, a threshold r, and a set of n ( ≥ r) participants P = {1, 2, ... , n} with a set of weights W = {w 1, w 2, ... , w n } where w i is the weight (which indicates the degree/rank of importance) of participant i and we assume that w 1 ≤ w 2 ≤ ... w n . The idea of weighted threshold secret image sharing encodes I into n shadows S 1, S 2, ..., S n with sizes |S 1| ≤ |S 2| ≤ ... |S n | in which S i is distributed to participant i such that only when a group of r participants can reconstruct I by using their shadows, while any group of less than r participants cannot. We propose a novel weighted threshold secret image sharing scheme based upon Chinese remainder theorem in this paper. As compared to the conventional Shamir’s and recent Thien-Lin’s schemes, which produce shadows with the same size, our scheme is more flexible due to the reason that the dealer is able to distribute various-sized shadows to participants with different degrees/ranks of importance in terms of practical concerns.

The Evaluation of Two-Stage Mobile Learning Guidance of Math in an Elementary School

Learning guidance after class is an important activity in elementary school because it can help the students to improve their learning achievement. Traditional learning guidance is, however, tedious and unstructured due to its complexity and the burden on teachers. The purpose of this study is to propose a model of two-stage mobile learning guidance based on use of mobile computer devices and a cognition awareness mechanism. A mobile computer device offers a feasible tool for better learning guidance owing to its mobility and natural user interface. The study adopts the mobile device to assist the elementary school student to learn math and conducts an after-class learning guidance experiment to evaluate the suitability of the model.

Integrate Handheld Device and RFID to Support Context Awareness Environment for Outdoor Inquiry Learning Activity

The main purpose of this study is to conduct a ubiquitous learning experiment to investigate the difference of inquiry learning effect between traditional teaching environment and ICT-based ubiquitous learning environment. This study employed RFID technology and mobile learning system to build a ubiquitous inquiry learning environment, and adopted the aquatic plant unit as an example for science learning experiment. The subjects were sixty-six 5th graders in Taipei city. After analyzing the collected data, the result reveals that the achievement of aquatic plant is not significantly different between treatment group and control group. Nevertheless, the treatment group showed highly positive attitudes toward ubiquitous inquiry learning.

The flow and self efficacy of sixth grade students under Scratch programming learning

Due to the complexity of its syntax and unfriendly programming environment of the traditional computer language, teaching the students in the elementary school to learn computer programming is impossible. On the contrary, a visualized programming environment such as MIT Scratch will be suitable for the young students to learn. Nevertheless, there is little research to study the suitability of the visualized programming environment. As a result, this study adopts MIT Scratch as a learning tool and conducts an experiment to investigate the flow and self-efficacy of programming of sixth grade students (n=121). Furthermore, the peer coaching strategy is integrated into this study to survey its effectiveness.

Implementation of Web-Based Dynamic Assessment System and its Application on Science Learning

The purpose of the study is to design a web-based dynamic assessment management system based on gradual prompting assessment theory and probe into the learning effects of dynamic assessment. The study utilized the lever concept of elementary science as an example to design its digital intervention materials and conducted a learning experiment. The process of applying this method was, then, investigated for better understanding of the theoretical mode and principles of dynamic assessment. The results show that there is significant learning effects and learning retention for at-risk learners.

Application of High-Level Fuzzy Petri Nets to fall detection system using smartphone

The coming of aging society signifies that falling down has become one of the very important issues in global public health. The smart phone, which is more commonly used than human fall detection devices, was selected as a mobile device of human fall detection and a fall detection algorithm was developed for this purpose. What the user has to do is to put the smart phone in his/her thigh pocket for fall detection. The signals detected by the tri-axial G-sensor adopted were converted into signal vector magnitudes as the basis of detecting a human body in a stalling condition. The Z-axis data were captured for identification of human body inclination and the occurrence frequencies at the peak of the area of use were used as input parameters. High-Level Fuzzy Petri Net was used for analysis and development to identify walking, exercising and falling down. The result of this study may be used in relevant equipment or the field of home nursing.

The Learning Effect of Video Annotation on Chinese Calligraphy Curriculum in Elementary School

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Chinese calligraphy curriculum by means of video annotation. We adopted quasi-experimental design to conduct a learning experiment. The subjects are 66 sixth grade students from three classes in Taipei city, and they were divided into three groups including one experiment group accepting video annotation method, one control group accepting video teaching method. The learning experiment lasts for one semester. The findings show that the cognition and skills of calligraphy of experiment group are enhanced through video annotation method. The frequency of annotation including skills of operating brush and writing patterns were increasing at each annotation activities, indicating the learners have ability of reflecting and observing the drawbacks of their Chinese calligraphy skills.

A Development and Evaluation of Web-Based Annotation and Virtual Composing System for Video of Stream Type

Video of stream type has been widespread used for various educational applications. Nevertheless, the teachers encounter many difficulties when integrating it into instruction, above all, in blended learning. Especially, video composing and annotation are essential and tedious tasks for the teachers before conducting their video-based teaching. In order to avoid the previous dilemma, the main purpose of this study was to develop a web-based annotation and virtual composing system for stream type video materials. The system was named after “etTube (Easy Teaching Tube)”. The etTube system provides divergent kinds of annotation including text-based annotation, voice annotation drawing annotation, static and dynamic overlay image annotation. Specified by the users in this system, the virtual video composition will be easily formed and shared. After conducting a field testing in elementary schools, the participants give a high appraisal on the educational applications of this system.

Sharing an Image with Variable-Sized Shadows

Most secret image sharing schemes produce shadows with an equal size including the well known Shamirs and Thien-Lins approaches that are based upon polynomial interpolation. In this paper we design a novel threshold secret image scheme which generates shadows with different sizes. To share an image secretly among n participants, our scheme depends on n pre-determined relative prime moduli to encode the image into n shadows by Chinese remainder theorem which are distributed to the n participants such that every group of r participants could recover the image by using their shadows and moduli, while any group of less than r participants cannot. Owing to the design that a shadow is a collection of the remainders of its corresponding modulus in our scheme, the size of the shadow is dependent on that of the modulus. As compared to those conventional secret image sharing schemes that produce shadows with the same size, our scheme is more flexible due to the reason that by choosing a proper set of relative prime moduli the dealer is able to generate and distribute shadows with different sizes to the participants according to their degrees of importance.