Integrating Augmented Reality into Blended Learning for Elementary Science Course
Chien-Hsu Chen
Department of Industrial Design, National Cheng Kung University No.1, University Road, Tainan City
701, Taiwan ROC + 88662757575
chenhsu@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Chun-Yen Huang
Department of Industrial Design, National Cheng Kung University No.1, University Road, Tainan City
701, Taiwan ROC + 88662757575
P38001067@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Yin-Yu Chou
Department of Industrial Design, National Cheng Kung University No.1, University Road, Tainan City
701, Taiwan ROC + 88662757575
P38001075@mail.ncku.edu.tw
ABSTRACT
Because of the advanced technology and popularity of mobile devices, Computer assisted instruction (CAI) has become an important role in learning activities and provide effective and efficient learning tools. With the development of digital learning, blended learning integrating a variety of multimedia technology and different learning method has become a hot topic in educational research. And studies have shown that the potential of CAI to benefit blended learning environments and increase the flexibility and interaction of learning activities. In recent years, augmented reality (AR) technology is new CAI tool that bring a new experience to learning. Therefore, this study proposed an augmented reality-based blended learning (ARBL) approach to evaluate the learning usability of elementary students. There were 25 participants to learn with ARBL, and a questionnaire was given to them to understand their feeling about the ARBL learning.
The results of the experiment showed that students could enjoy the learning activities and they were interested in the learning course. And the ARBL learning approach provides a helpful CAI tool in the blended learning to assist teachers/students in exploring learning knowledge.
CCS Concepts
• Human-centered computing ➝ Mixed / augmented reality • Human-centered computing ➝ Mobile devices • Applied computing ➝ Computer-assisted instruction
Keywords
Augmented reality, Mobile learning, Computer assisted instruction, Blended learning
1. INTRODUCTION
Due to the advances of the computer technology and network, blended learning is developed in various ways of integrating different multimedia and become a popular learning strategy.
Computer assisted instruction (CAI) has become a crucial role in learning activities, that provides teachers/students not only effective and efficient learning tools but also exciting and promising learning experience. Instructional material are
delivered from physical textbook to electronic course content, while the learning strategy are transferred through traditional face- to-face learning method into e-learning or mobile learning. Many studies also have revealed that the potential of CAI to benefit blended learning environments and increase instructional flexibility and interaction [10, 19].
Many researches and applications of blended learning use CAI tools to assist learning such as e-learning websites, simulated animations, computer games, and augmented reality learning [2, 4, 7, 15, 17, 18]. However, augmented reality (AR) technology has begun a new CAI tool because of its ability to create tangible and highly interactive user interface. Appropriate computer-assisted instruction is very important in the learning while the learning contents can't be expressed by words such as phenomena, 3D geometry, evolution or abstract concepts. AR technology has the ability to merge virtual objects into a physical real world environment, so that students have immersion learning and can be easier to learn the abstract learning contents [3].
In recent years, with the popularity of mobile devices and mobile networks, digital learning can not only be applied to computers, learners have a more freedom and convenience in learning through mobile devices. In this study, a learning material design based on blended learning was proposed. A mobile-based augmented reality learning activity was integrated into blended learning to assist students in observing the learning content of plants in daily life. The paper is organized as follows. It talks about the relative work in the section II. And then, the section III explains the method used in this study. The section IV discusses the evaluation. At last, the conclusion is in the section V.
2. RELATIVE WORK 2.1 Blended Learning
The term of blended learning is based on the model of combing traditional classroom learning with digital learning materials, which gradually developed into a series of synchronous and asynchronous learning models. Graham [9] clarified a common definition about the blended learning that combining different learning modalities, combining learning methods or combining online and face-to-face learning. Driscoll [8] stated that “blended learning means different things to different people, which illustrates the untapped potential of blended learning”.
Research stated that adopting blended learning for three reasons:
(1) it can improve learning effectiveness, (2) it can increase learning access and flexibility, and (3) it has greater cost effectiveness [11]. Herlo [13] proposed that using blended learning with student-centered approach to support students' SAMPLE: Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this
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DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/12345.67890
active learning. The students can explore and apply the different contexts to transform the information into useful and helpful to them. This found that blended learning can arouse students’
curiosity and motivation, and improve their learning achievement.
Wu, Tennyson, and Hsia [22] indicated that computer self- efficacy, performance expectations, system functionality, content feature, interaction, and learning climate are important factors for using blended e-learning environment. Suda, Sterling, Guirguis, and Mathur [20] proposed that utilizing blended learning to support students in pharmacist experience and performance, they found that blended learning can help students to improve their learning outcomes, and most of the students have positive attitude towards the blended learning approach. Researchers have indicated that the important point of appropriate technology to design the course to enhance students' learning experience and participant [6, 19].
2.2 Augmented Reality in Education
Azuma [1] defines an AR has the following three features: (1) combining virtual objects in a real world environment, (2) providing the real-time interaction with users, and (3) interacting with users in three-dimension space. Liarokapis [16] stated that an AR system should have the following components: (1) marked cards which are graphics pattern for encoding information of objects, (2) capturing input device that could be a webcam, (3) computer device such as PC, laptop or mobile device, (4) AR software that is used to encode/decode and track the marked cards, (5) input device such as mouse and keyboard, and (6) output device such as head-mounted display, computer monitor or mobile device. There are a variety of studies and applications that used AR technology to assist students in many fields such as mathematics, industrial design, medical and astronomy.
Wu, Lee, Chang, and Liang [21] classified the AR learning approached into three categories: (1) engaging students into “roles”
that emphasize students' interactions with mobile-AR, multiplayer AR learning; (2) interacting with physical “locations” that emphasize students to interact in physical environment with location-based AR learning; (3) design the learning for “tasks”
that can be game-based AR learning. Chiang, Yang, and Hwang [5] proposed a location-based AR learning to guide students to collaborate with others to share their knowledge. Students used mobile devices to learn in location-based AR environment. The results of this study found that the location-based AR learning approach can improve the students' motivation and engage the students in more interaction. Hamada, Mohamed, Mohamed, and Youssef [12] proposed that using AR technology to assist E- learning in practical learning activities. They found that students can interact with virtual objects and realize the practical manipulations by using AR and Leap motion, and then it could reduce students' learning overload and failure about the learning materials and help students in practical activities well. Moreover, researchers stated that AR simulations approximate and present real-world interactions, enabling users to participate through highly natural and direct interaction [3].
3. AUGMENTED REALITY-based BLENDED LEARNING (ARBL)
The proposed AR-based blended learning (ARBL) took AR technology to assist students in learning the sharp of leaves and the growth pattern of the leaves. An AR learning space was developed in this study, and the teacher would integrate the AR learning space into blended learning. The teaching material of the
study is based on the textbooks from elementary school, and the topic of the growth pattern of the leaves is a required subject.
3.1 AR Learning Space
There are five parts in the AR learning space of this study, including the display unit, the tracking unit, the coding unit, the 3D database and the user. Each part of the AR learning space is responsible for an important task which is specifically described below and the system architecture AR learning space is shown in figure 1.
(a) The display: this part used a mobile device with a webcam, which the webcam was used to capture the target card and send information to the tracking unit to the further process. And the
processing result was shown on the screen of the mobile device immediately.
(b) The tracking unit: this unit is responsible for tracking the latest positions of target cards and their 3D objects representations.
(c) The coding unit: this unit is responsible for the coding of the target cards. The pictures of the plants are printed on cards for encoding. If a target card of a particular plant is recognized by the tracking unit, this unit starts to search the 3D database to find the corresponding 3D object of the target card. And the decoded information is then sent to display unit to show a decoded result.
(d) The 3D database: All 3D objects are built by using a 3D scanner as show in figure 2. Using the 3D scanner could build the 3D object of leaf in more detail and look like real.
Because of the advanced development of computer hardware and software and the popularity of mobile devices, this study used a mobile device for conducting learning activities. The proposed
tracking unit
coding unit
3D database
Figure 1. The system architecture of AR learning space.
3D scanner
real leaf 3D object of the leaf
Figure 2. Using 3D scanner to build the 3D models of leaves.
AR learning system used Unity and VuforiaTM software for system implementation, and used 3D scanner to build the 3D objects. The Unity software was used to implement the AR learning application for tracking and encoder/decoder parts while the VuforiaTM was used to train the database of the target card for encoding the particular target card with corresponding 3D object.
3.2 Experiment
This study ran a pilot experiment for investigating the effect of ARBL to help students. There were 25 students from an elementary school in Taiwan participating in this experiment.
At first, teacher instructed the course by a traditional teaching method face-to-face for the fundamental part. And then, the students could use the mobile device with AR learning to observing the sharp and the growth pattern of leaves by themselves. After the learning activity in the classroom, students would take a mobile device to explore the leaves on campus. The ARBL learning activities are shown in figure 3.
4. EVALUATION and DISCUSSION
After the learning experiment, a learning usability questionnaire was given to students to express their feeling about the ARBL approach. It consisted of 10 items with three constructs that used a five-point Likert scale, with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree, as shown in table 1.
Table 1. The questionnaire of learning usability Usefulness
Q1. The learning content can benefit me a lot.
Q2. The learning content is useless in daily life.
Q3. I will apply what I have learned in my daily life.
Learnability
Q4. I can easily understand the concept of the learning content.
Q5. I am immersed in those learning activities.
Q6. It is difficult to learn with this learning method.
Satisfaction
Q7. The learning content of the course is plentiful.
Q8. It is interesting for me to learn this course.
Q9. The learning content is boring for me.
Q10. I enjoy using this way and gain a lot from this course.
Results of the questionnaire are shown in figure 4. The average scores for the constructs of usefulness, learnability, and satisfaction were 4, 4.07 and 4.21 respectively. All scores were above 4.0 indicated that the students have positive attitude toward the ARBL learning method. The highest score of three constructs was the satisfaction construct with the score of 4.21, indicating that students were satisfied with the proposed ARBL learning approach. It might attribute to that the ARBL learning approach supported students a flexible and interesting way to learn the course. And the second highest score was the learnability construct with the score of 4.07 which might be due to the AR learning space provides the students a clear and easy guidance to observing the leaves.
5. CONCLUSION
Blended learning is a learning trend that allows teachers to use appropriate technology or multimedia materials to teach in response to instructional needs. This study demonstrated a blended learning approach combined with the AR technology for the leaves course of elementary school. The results of experimental learning showed that students could enjoy the learning activities and they were interested in the learning course.
Figure 4. The results of the questionnaire.
. In the classroom
❶
On campus
❷
❸
Figure 3. The learning process of ARBL.
The learning contents were shown on the display.
Moreover, students said they could clearly find the point of the leaves by themselves when they used the mobile device to observe the leaves on campus. And the teacher also indicated that using this kind of learning, reducing the loading of explanation.
In order to explain the course, using computer assisted instruction could help teachers to present the abstract or difficult teaching materials. While the learning content was involve in the concept of 3D geometry, a phenomenon or a situation, using AR technology could assist student to understand the learning knowledge with three dimension space in the real environment.
AR provides learners specific way of seeing, understanding the growth pattern of the leaves, and a simple outdoor exploration activities increase the fun of learning. Therefore, the ARBL learning approach proposed in this study demonstrated that AR can provide a helpful and useful CAI tool in the blended learning environment.
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