International Association for Blended Learning
IABL 2017
The 2nd World Conference On Blended Learning
April 26-28, 2017
Toronto, ON, Canada
Development of a Collaborative Game for
Enhancing the
Educational Process in Classroom
MSc Oldi Stefanidi
Prof. Avgoustos Tsinakos
MSc Persefoni Karamanoli
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Outline
We present:
 A description of educational technology.
 A description of collaborative learning.
 Learning via mobile devices.
 Design and development of a collaborative learning
game for mobile devices.
Educational Technology
 Association of Educational Communications and Technology
(AECT): “A systematic process involving materials, theories, human
resources and knowledge for solving educational problems and
improve learning”.
 Advantages:
• Use the Internet as a source of knowledge and communication.
• Opportunities for information
perceptions about the world.
and
shaping
 Disadvantages:
• Absorption of attention
• Social isolation and sense of dependence
• Reduce confidence
attitudes
and
Collaborative Learning
 In the mid-1960s, the collaborative learning method was relatively
unknown and largely ignored by teachers.
 Collaborative learning has become an accepted and often
preferable educational process at all levels of education.
 “A learning system that allows small heterogeneous groups to work
collectively in order to accomplish their goals and succeed when
the team succeeds.”
 Collaborative learning can be categorized in four types:
• Official collaborative learning
• Informal collaborative learning
• Collaborative Base Groups
• Mix of the above mentioned
Collaborative Learning
 Collaborative learning may result in:
• Greater understanding of the course by the students.
• More appreciation and respect for themselves.
• More positive attitude towards school.
• Improvement of the written and spoken word.
• Development of critical thinking.
• Highly satisfactory results for students who have learning
disabilities and children with special needs.
Learning Through Mobile
Devices
 The use of mobile devices and the possibilities they offer have
conquered a large proportion of our society.
 “All forms of exploitation of the possibilities offered by mobile and
wireless technologies and devices such as Wi-Fi, LAN, Bluetooth,
GSM, GPRS, GPS, 3G, satellite systems, mobile phone, tablets, PDAs,
laptops, etc., without the student having to be located at a
predetermined point for using them or the possibilities they offer.”
 Learning through mobile devices may offer the opportunity for:
• Collaborative learning activities using mobile devices,
• Quiz via text messages (sms),
• Virtual chat messages e.g. language course through quiz via text
messaging (sms).
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 The application divides the class into groups and students
collaborate via a quiz game for achieving common goals.
 Designed for enhancing the existing school book of GeologyGeography course.
 It addresses children at the first grade of high school.
 It requires a handheld device with Android software, build on
camera and Wi-Fi access.
 Augmented Reality content is combined
application for students and for teachers.
with
 Also, a database is used for storing student’s answers.
the
mobile
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 Development Tools:
•
MIT App Inventor 2: Platform for creating mobile applications.
•
Aurasma: Augmented Reality platform.
•
MySQL: Software for the creation and use of an online database.
•
PHP: Interpreted scripting language.
•
WinSCP: An open-source simple file transfer protocol (SFTP), file
transfer protocol (FTP), web distributing authoring and versioning
(WebDAV) and secure copy (SCP) client.
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 The application is divided into two menus that are joined by a main
screen, the teacher menu and the student menu.
 Teacher’s menu is parted from a password textbox and four
buttons.
• Students: Displays the students' list and selecting a student
reveals the questions and answers asked and stored in the online
database.
• Teams: Displays the list of teams and team questions and answers
that each team has given and is stored in the online database.
• Delete a team: User can delete the answers given from each
team.
• Exit: User can close the application.
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
The main menu
Teacher main menu
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 After selecting the student’s menu, user has to choose a team and fill
the name and surname textbox. Afterwards, user can access the
student’s menu, which contains six buttons.
• Info: Contains information about the program and its operation.
• Aurasma: The application opens the Google Play URL which is
uploaded and gives the user the ability, at first, to download the
Aurasma application and afterwards to open it.
• Start: User can start playing the Quiz game.
• Evaluation: Displays the rating of the teacher. This button is visible
only after playing the game.
• Correct Answers: User can find information about where to find the
correct answers of the game in the schoolbook. This button is visible
only after playing the game.
• Exit: User can close the application.
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
Group selection screen
Students menu
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 The Quiz game is considered to be the most important part of the
application.
 After pressing the Start button and prior beginning the game, users will
watch a short video related to ecology.
 Afterwards, another screen is loaded and the game begins.
 Basic structure:
• Question_Label gets the content an element from the global
Question_list component.
• The same applies
Multiple_choices.
for
the
Answer_List
View
with
the
global
• Global index variable is responsible for getting questions and multiple
answers that match.
• The answers are stored to another variable that has the form of a list.
• Finally, answers are send to
Web_update.Post.Text feature.
an
online
server
with
the
call
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
Quiz programming
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 To the first player of each
team the questions, the
multiple answers and a
countdown
clock
are
displayed.
 By choosing one of the
possible
correct
answers
appears a notice which
shows the selected answer
that contains a textbox
where the player has to justify
the answer.
 The
answer
and
the
justification are uploaded on
the online server.
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 After finishing with the game,
user has now access to a
new screen which contains
two buttons, Correct Answers
and Menu.
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 For the next players in the
same group, the process is the
same, except that when the
questions and answers are
show it is also displayed a
notification that the question
has already been answered
by one or more team
members.
 At the same time, another
button appears that enables
the access to answers that
other players have given,
enhancing this way the
collaboration
between
teammates.
A collaborative learning game
for mobile devices
 Each group is set to consist of four people.
 The forth member of each team has the most important role, and
has to answer the questions really carefully, since these answers will
be stored and finally evaluated from the teacher as the “team
answers”.
 For this player the replying procedure is the same, but after finishing
the game the next screen contains one more button, Send, which
is for emailing to the teacher that this team has answered the
questions and is available for evaluation.
Conclusions
 The collaborative game application provides:
• clustering of class,
• comfort and convenience in handling,
• potential justification of responses,
• possibility of communication with the teacher,
• visibility of score of each team,
• additional incentives for exploring the book with the use of AR,
• (for the teacher) the direct monitoring of test progress for each
student or each team, at any time or place,
• low cost.
Conclusions
 Limitations:
• the application has not yet been tested under real conditions,
• there cannot be a solid statement upon its use.
 Further research:
• explore the usability of the application with the conduction of a
study,
• incorporation of other features like: a) importing questions from
the database to the application in order to be used as a weekly
test, b) the ability to store, long-termly, results for comparing them
at the end of each year and determine the progress and c) the
extension of the method to other school courses.
Conclusions
 The use of mobile devices combined with collaborative
educational applications that interact with the learning material,
allow for an education without the limitation of space or time,
which manage to assist the students and especially students with
learning difficulties or special needs.
Q&A
Thank you for your attention.