Digital Learning Playground: Integrating a Robot and a Responsive Stage to Construct a Near Authentic Learning Environment in the Classroom

• Main Authors: Jih-Hsien Lee, 李志賢
• Other Authors: Gwo-dong Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/76597909791369989828

博士 === 國立中央大學 === 資訊工程研究所 === 99 === The traditional design of classroom is to transfer and teach contents. Teachers are the main resources of learning, and students are passive receivers of knowledge. Mostly, students often lack the opportunity to apply what they learned. However, knowledge is the product of interactions of learners and environment, and is essentially affected by culture and activities. Under this situation could cause students to neglect the fountainhead, application, and meaning of knowledge. Students not only are easy to forget what they have learned, but also do not know how to use their knowledge into the real life. This could cause the learning outcomes cannot achieve the intended purpose. Many educators have advocated that students should learn in real situations. In the recent years, authentic learning has been widely used on various fields. It provides a learning environment in order to allow the learner to immerse in the environment to develop knowledge and skills through problem solving in different situations. Many emerging information technologies have been used to present authentic environment in pedagogical purpose. How can we bring the benefits of real-world, situated learning to the traditional classroom? Authentic learning may provide one solution. However, the authentic learning environment might not be accessible for classrooms with concerns of sophisticated equipments, spatial convenience, cost, and extendibility. Thus, developing a mechanism to create an affordable near authentic learning environment in the classroom which students can learn effectively through the concrete experience is crucial to facilitating learning. For construct a near authentic learning environment and bring the benefits of authentic learning to the conventional classroom, this study constructed a learning system in the classroom called Digital Learning Playground (DLP). Teachers can transfer learning contents into the system and utilize the DLP to assist students learning; students can acquire the experience through personal involvement and learn by hands-on experience. This study attempts to devise a mechanism to integrate the Mixed Reality technology and a robot to construct a near authentic learning environment. It adopted the concept of dramatic stage to construct a responsive stage, through the stage set up and Mixed Reality technology to create learning situations. A robot with emotion feedback was designed to play the role of learning agent. In order for learners to gain a more realistic learning experience, we included the experiential learning cycle in the instructional design. It also designed three instructional methods for teachers and students to conduct the learning activities in the classroom. According to the results of the experiments, 89.4% of students satisfied the learning experiences provided by the system. Almost the students can acquire the learning model of “act-response-reflect” design and 93.3% students thought that they can transfer the knowledge to other similar situations. There also had 93.3% students thought that the system can help their learning and believed they could have better achievement through the system. It compared the test scores between the students who learn in the DLP with the students that did not use the DLP; we can clearly see that the students who earn in the DLP scored higher than the other students. The teacher indicated that the DLP could provide practical learning opportunities for students to use what they had learned. It could also allow the student to be more proactive, motivated and focused towards the lesson and lessen the burden on both the students and teachers. They in addition said that most classrooms already had the required equipment for DLP, so they feel that the possibility of using DLP in a classroom is quite high. This results of this study revealed that we can use digital technology to provide an affordable, accessible near authentic learning environment in the classroom and bring the benefits of authentic learning to the conventional classroom.