George Palaigeorgiou

Computational Estimation in the Classroom with Tablets, Interactive Selfie Video and Self-regulated Learning

Interactive video combines nonlinear video structuring, dynamic information presentation and several types of interactivity over or next to the video in order to make the video watching experience more participative and constructive. There are no studies that evaluate interactive video’s learning effectiveness in the classroom environment. In this study, we focus on assessing an e-learning environment based mainly on interactive videos which enables self-paced learning in the classroom with the use of tablets. The learning goal is to help primary school students to develop computational estimation strategies in math. Fifteen 5th grade students participated in a pilot study in 2 two-hours lessons and they were asked to sit in pairs in front of a tablet, share the provided earphones and follow a learning path concerning computational estimations without any guidance. The main protagonist of the videos was the teacher who went to various locations and presented a series of realistic shopping problems through selfie video. The videos were converted to interactive experiences in the LearnWorlds platform (http://www.learnworlds.com). Data collection was implemented through pre/post test, an attitude questionnaire and a focus group. After the intervention, the students became most flexible in the use of computational estimation strategies and they used a bigger repertoire of strategies. Moreover, students considered this way of learning as more fun and effective and characterized interactive videos as useful, helpful, provocative, informative and participative. The proposed approach managed to promote differentiated, autonomous and authentic learning.

FingerTrips on Tangible Augmented 3D Maps for Learning History

History education offers students the opportunity to learn about the past and make connections with the present. However, primary school students consider history lessons to be boring, dull and sterile. Integrating ICT in history teaching can enhance historical thinking and historical understanding, and may promote the exploration of the past with a critical approach rather than the passive accumulation of information. The objective of this study was to design and examine a low-cost augmented 3D tangible model of a historical site, in which students could interact with historical content through a virtual field trip by using their fingers. Twenty-six 6th grade students participated in a pilot study in order to evaluate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed learning environment called FingerTrips. Participants played with the augmented model in 10 sessions and in groups of 2 or 3 members. Data were collected with an attitude questionnaire and semi-formal group interviews. Students’ answers revealed that the FingerTrips environment enhanced their engagement and motivation in history learning, and made them feel as active participants in the historical event presented. Students considered their interactions as a real fieldtrip on the historical landscape model with the help of their fingers. Such an approach is closer to student’s interactive experiences and expectations, gamifies learning, and exploits embodied learning affordances, in order to achieve efficient, effective, and enjoyable learning.

Orchestrating tangible music interfaces for in-classroom music learning through a fairy tale: The case of ImproviSchool

Ubiquitous music is a relatively new research area which seeks ways to involve novices in music learning, playing and improvisation. Despite the ambitious goals, ubiquitous music is still unknown territory in schools. In this study, we have tried to identify whether ubiquitous music environments can enable novice music students to participate in meaningful learning activities in a short period of time inside the school classroom. The proposed approach, named ImproviSchool, consists of two basic elements: a) a set of tangible music interfaces, and b) a fairy tale for which the students are asked to compose a soundtrack. The fairy tale is broken down into smaller episodes and for each one, the students are asked to compose a music score and dramatize the narration. At the end, students have to perform their creations in front of an audience. The whole process is aimed to last only two sessions of 2 school hours. ImproviSchool was applied in two 4th grade school classrooms of 15 students each, with the aim of evaluating both the set of the music tangible interfaces and the instructional approach. Data were collected through questionnaires and focus groups with the students as well as an interview with the music teacher. Students found the “music images” for playing and composing music easy, attractive, expressive, and enjoyable, and within a very short time frame, they created their own musical arrangements. Students showed enthusiastic with what they had produced and with their performance while at the same time achieving music learning objectives regarding instrument recognition, rhythm, pitch, volume and execution style. The realization of such a demanding activity in just 2 sessions shows that ubiquitous music can radically change the way in which musical learning evolves in schools.

WeMake: A Framework for Letting Students Create Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Environments for Their Own STEAM Learning

This paper presents the principles and the design of the WeMake framework. The goal of the WeMake framework is twofold: firstly, to create an interdisciplinary team of experts that together with students/teachers and a new participatory design methodology adapted to embodied interactions will develop low cost and easily reconstructable embodied interaction environments for STEAM domains; and secondly to invite students, teachers and schools across the world to build, exploit, share and assess their own versions of these embodied learning environments. The ultimate goal is to create an infrastructure that will motivate all stakeholders (from researchers to students) and maintain a perpetual cycle of embodied STEAM learning environment proposals and their deployment in the educational practice.

Embodied Learning About Time with Tangible Clocks

Time is a complex concept to grasp for elementary students and time related competencies take years to fully develop. In this article, we present and evaluate an instructional approach for learning to read and write time through embodied interactions with tangible clocks. The instructional approach consists of four “time learning stations” that may facilitate groups of 12 students (separated in teams of 3) to learn about time. The “time stations” include (a) a game with a big tangible 3D clock, (b) a game with a miniature tangible clock, (c) two notebooks with learning games about time, (d) a set of typical hand-written worksheets about time. Each team explores each station for 10 min and afterwards students move in a circular pattern to the next station. In order to evaluate the instructional approach, 84 students participated in a pilot study forming 7 groups of 12 students that used the time stations for approximately 45 min. Focus groups were conducted after each round of runs. Students supported that the whole setting greatly helped them to get acquainted with time and clock reading. Students underlined that the big 3D tangible clock was the most useful and entertaining activity and pinpointed that the specific interface was more engaging, the interactions were more kinesthetic and unexpected while the learning representation was significantly different from any other that they have used in the past.

Parental Mediation of Tablet Educational Use at Home and at School: Facilitators or Preventers?

The digital media age has dramatically transformed how children and parents perceive and react to media. Parental mediation concerns the set of strategies that parents employ in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks that the modern digital media induce. The majority of existing research on parental mediation is quantitative in nature, and there is a lack of in-depth understanding of not only the mediation strategies but the overall parents’ stance towards the educational usage of tablets both at school and at home. This study presents the results of 54 interviews with Greek parents regarding these attitudes. Our aim was to identify the reasoning behind buying a tablet, the mediation strategies applied, parents’ attitudes towards educational apps, their awareness and the sources of information about the educational apps, and whether they were ready and willing to support tablet-based learning at home and in school. Parents responses revealed that they have conflicting views on the educational value of tablets, they are misinformed or uninformed either by ignorance or by their own will and they have several concerns regarding excessive usage, access to unsupervised content and less physical activity. Parents mainly use restrictive mediation practices and, they feel outsmarted by their children. It seems that there is a growing gap between parents, children and the educational use of tablets at home and at school which needs to be addressed.

Wikis as a Mediation Platform for Developing Learning Communities: The WEKI Framework

Wikis provide unique affordances for collaboration and delivering public products and have been explored extensively as learning spaces. Most studies have underlined that triggering productive collaborative learning in wikis may be challenging and that an effective learning design is an important prerequisite for their successful exploitation. Several related design guidelines have been proposed such as setting group goals, design a rich context and problem, motivating progress monitoring, establishing structured collaboration processes etc. By following these guidelines and taking advantage of community of learners principles, we have designed the instructional approach WEKI which aims to help students to familiarize with a new learning domain by co-developing an open educational book about the domain. Twenty-four 4th-year undergraduate students of an Electrical and Computer Engineering Department applied the WEKI approach and formed a learning community for 15 weeks. The undergraduates successfully managed to design and develop an e-book and relevant learning resources about Microsoft Kodu in the context of a Teaching IT course. Interviews about students’ perceptions of WEKI were conducted with all of the students before and after the project. In the beginning, students considered the proposed framework as a complicated and challenging process but in the end, the vast majority of students stated that their experience and the final products exceeded their best expectations. Our results indicate that well-structured instructional approaches focusing on communities of learners’ principles, may realize the potential of wikis.