Wu-Yuin Hwang

Users' Familiar Situational Contexts Facilitate the Practice of EFL in Elementary Schools with Mobile Devices.

It is beneficial for students to experience situational learning, especially for English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. Providing more listening and speaking opportunities could help EFL students with English learning. Our research proposes a listening and speaking practice system employing personal digital assistants (PDAs) for situated learning using contexts with which students would be familiar. The proposed system attempts to help participating EFL students by presenting learning contexts in familiar situations, such as during lunch at school. The results show that the proposed system and designed activities provided EFL elementary school students with listening and speaking practice opportunities in basic vocabulary and simple sentences with the support of familiar, situational learning. In the experiment, the experimental group learned multimedia-based learning materials about food materials at lunch with PDAs. In contrast, the control group learned via paper-based learning materials in class without real contextual support. After the experiment, findings reveal that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in learning achievement. By providing recommended sample voices recorded by peers, students in the experimental group could repeatedly listen to the recordings in familiar situations, thus obtaining more opportunities to practice and interact with peers later. The other significant finding is that the number of peers used to practice speaking English in daily contexts, defined as practice diversity, was significantly correlated to learning improvement. That is, when students practiced speaking English with an increased number of peers, in familiar contexts, their English skills improved. After interviews with students, an interesting phenomenon was identified; students in the experimental group extended their learning from school to home. Furthermore, students’ learning was not only a deliberate event or situation – learning also took place spontaneously in their daily lives. Therefore, the proposed system and activities can help EFL students, particularly novices, listen to and speak English in familiar situational contexts.

Improving English as a Foreign Language Writing in Elementary Schools Using Mobile Devices in Familiar Situational Contexts.

This research proposed a situational learning system to help elementary school students practice and improve their English as a foreign language (EFL) writing skills. Students carried out assigned writing tasks using the support of mobile devices in situations deemed to be familiar to the students, such as on the school playground, within classroom facilities, and at lunch. The study recruited 59 sixth-grade students from two separate EFL classes. A class of 28 students was identified as the experimental group, and another class of 31 students was assigned as the control group. The students of the experimental group carried mobile devices to carry out EFL writing assignments within specific and familiar subject environments, stimulating real-life situations or contexts. The results of the experiment indicated a significant difference in learning achievement between the two groups. Students in the experimental group perceived the designed activities to be fun; thus, they were more inclined to maintain interest in situated learning scenarios. Furthermore, based on interviews with participating students from both groups, we found that the activities presented within familiar contexts, and supported by our proposed EFL writing system, inspired students to not only write more sentences, but to describe the target objects clearly and thoroughly.

Cognitive diffusion model with user-oriented context-to-text recognition for learning to promote high level cognitive processes

This study proposed Cognitive Diffusion Model to investigate the diffusion and transition of students’ cognitive processes in different learning periods (i.e. pre-schooling, after-schooling, crossing the chasm, and high cognitive processes). In order to enable majority of students crossing the chasm, i.e. bridge lower and higher levels of cognitive processes such as from understanding the knowledge that students learn in class to applying it to solve daily-life problems, this study proposes User-Oriented Context-to-Text Recognition for Learning (U-CTRL). Students participating at learning activities can capture learning objects and then recognize them into text by using U-CTRL. Finally, this study presents a case that shows how to facilitate students’ cognition in English through applying the knowledge to solve daily-life problems with U-CTRL and how to evaluate the case.

Employing self-assessment, journaling, and peer sharing to enhance learning from an online course

This study explored the use of self-assessments, journaling, and peer sharing in an online computer programming course. We conducted an experiment using a pretest–intervention–posttest design in which 64 undergraduate first-year students participated. We aimed to investigate whether self-assessment, journaling, and peer sharing can facilitate students’ learning. Moreover, we examined how the research variables related to each other and to learning achievement. Therefore, after the experiment, (1) prior knowledge, learning performance, and achievement were assessed, (2) online logs representing learning behaviors were analyzed, and (3) students were interviewed. Results demonstrated that self-assessment, journaling, and peer sharing effectively facilitated learning and students’ cognition regulation strategies. Namely, keeping a learning journal enabled students to summarize key concepts, elaborate ideas, and reflect on learning material; self-assessment allowed students to reflect on their understanding of the material under study; and peer sharing enabled students to study peers’ learning journals and self-assessments to improve their own. Although self-assessment, journaling, and peer sharing significantly correlated with each other and with learning achievement, results showed that keeping a learning journal had the strongest effect on learning achievement. Moreover, self-assessment and keeping a learning journal complemented each other and combining the two resulted in even higher learning achievement scores. The findings suggest that the use of self-assessment, journaling, and peer sharing show promise to facilitate learning from an online course.

Analysis of Learning Behavior in Problem-Solving-Based and Project-Based Discussion Activities within the Seamless Online Learning Integrated Discussion (SOLID) System.

Both asynchronous and synchronous discussions have advantages and limitations for online learning. This study conducts an empirical analysis of these discussion activities while applying the proposed Seamless Online Learning Integrated Discussion (SOLID) system, which can instantly integrate Facebooks asynchronous discussion function with the MSN Messengers synchronous discussion function. This study examines two teaching activities (a problem-solving-based activity and a project-based discussion activity) within the SOLID system and compares their differences in knowledge construction phases and cognitive dimensions via a quantitative content analysis and lag sequential analysis. The results show that both cognitive and knowledge construction dimensions exhibit a higher diversity of interaction in the project-based activity than in the problem-solving-based activity. In addition, based on the results of the research, this study offers, as reference, recommendations to instructors and researchers for the implementation of online discussion activities.

The Study of Surface Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Its Design, Efficiency, and Challenges

In this study, a Surface Computer Supported Cooperative Work paradigm is proposed. Recently, multitouch technology has become widely available for human–computer interaction. We found it has great potential to facilitate more awareness of human-to-human interaction than personal computers (PCs) in colocated collaborative work. However, other studies and modern operating systems have rarely been concerned with colocated interactions in their user interface (UI) design. Therefore, one UI framework, which we have named Surface Application Framework (SAF), is proposed to support multitouch and multiuser applications on tabletop computers. To explore the effects of wide area SAFs on colocated collaboration, one application, capable of making English sentences, was developed based on an SAF. This application was used to conduct a user-centric study to investigate differences between surface computers and PCs. The results show that a surface computer performs better than a PC in creating awareness during collaborative work, but it requires more time due to its poor performance with drag-and-drop operations. Finally, this study summarizes a three-dimensional design approach to consider various trade-offs between awareness and manipulative performances. Additionally, some mechanisms are suggested to be employed to overcome the weakness of drag-and-drop operations with multitouch interfaces in a future study.

A case study of collaboration with multi-robots and its effect on children's interaction

Learning how to carry out collaborative tasks is critical to the development of a students capacity for social interaction. In this study, a multi-robot system was designed for students. In three different scenarios, students controlled robots in order to move dice; we then examined their collaborative strategies and their behavioral interactions. The following three scenarios were used: three students to three robots, three students to two robots, and two students to three robots. The experimental samples comprised sixth-grade students in elementary schools, 16 groups in total, and each group comprised three students. The results revealed three collaborative strategies for solving problems that emerged from the three scenarios: (1) independent-control (like cooperation), (2) mutual-control (like collaboration), and (3) coordinator-directed (like collaboration with coordinator). This study also found that students completed a task better with the least required time when they adopted the mutual-control strategy. In addition, coordination in the mutual-control and coordinator-directed strategies was generally regarded as helpful to task completion. With respect to behavioral interactions, students understood the importance of coordination yet still recognized that the skill of negotiation had to be learned. Our results suggest that the mutual-control and coordinator-directed collaborative strategy increased the frequency of task related interactions. Because collaboration inevitably entails conflicts, we should guide students not only in preventing these conflicts but also in learning how to cope with conflict and communicate and coordinate with others. By working together, learners had to figure out how to reduce conflicts, which was both a benefit to the completion of their collaborative tasks and an important skill for their socialization.

Effects of drag-and-response interaction mechanism of multi-touch operated tabletop technology on users' awareness and collaborative performance

In this study we proposed drag-and-response interaction mechanism of multi-touch operated tabletop technology which features a queue area, a rubber band and a transfer animation function. We conducted one experiment by applying our proposed drag-and-response and existing drag-and-drop and drag-and-pop mechanisms, one at a time, to support collaborative tasks on a large-size tabletop display. This study aimed to compare collaborative performance of participants on tasks with different interaction mechanisms and to explore effects of drag-and-response mechanism on awareness and collaboration of participants. Perceptions of participants toward using drag-and-response mechanism were also investigated. Results of this study revealed that drag-and-drop and drag-and-pop are not convenient mechanisms for collaborative work on a tabletop display. According to the results, drag-and-drop mechanism resulted in more exchange errors, while there were several conflicts and uncoordinated behaviors during collaborative work with drag-and-pop mechanism. Further investigation through questionnaire and interview surveys revealed that drag-and-response is beneficial for facilitating awareness and cohesive collaboration due to its functions, such as a queue area, rubber band and transfer animation. Moreover, the results showed that the rubber band facilitated participants to work with remote targets on a multi-touch tabletop display easily and the queue area enabled participants to control flow of coins into a personal panel and out of it. Participants made less number of exchange errors and drops with drag-and-response mechanism.It took longer time to complete tasks using drag-and-response mechanism.Participants perceived drag-and-response mechanism was easy to use, useful, and playful.Functions of drag-and-response mechanism could increase awareness of participants.Drag-and-response mechanism can improve participants overall collaborative performance.

Investigating the Effect of Taking and Reviewing Annotations and Homework to Math Learning

In the study, one Web annotation system VPen was proposed for facilitating students to foster metacognition by reviewing self and otherspsila annotation and homework. Annotations are personally meaningful and useful for individual reflection later, while homework sharing is generally useful for all because it is assigned by instructors. Therefore, through reviewing these two products, annotation and homework, some metacognition may occur. We conducted the quasi experiment employing VPen system to study the influence of reviewing annotation and homework on math learning. The results showed that reviewing selfpsilas annotation and homework had significant influence on learning achievements. Regarding consulting otherspsila annotation and homework, some interesting different phenomena were obtained; for consulting otherspsila annotation, less usefulness was found on learning achievement because annotation is usually meaningful and useful to it owner only, while consulting otherspsila homework is more useful because all students need to solve homework and can get much benefits from studying other solving methods. From this study, we suggested that the design of learning activities should consider not only taking annotation and homework but also promoting students to review them in order to foster metacognition.

A Mobile and Web System with Contextual Familiarity and its Effect on Campus English Learning

We build a Student-Partner mobile English learning system. We go deep into the campus to do English learning by portable of the mobile. The system offer the GPS function, campus map, camera, messaging, tracking and recording. Students can post the message or add the multimedia which he explore to the device. In the mobile, user can off-line to post the message. In addition, we design two activities, learning English by exploring the campus and presenting their exploring events. According to the questionnaire, students think the context familiarity is useful for learning.