2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Research and Development of a Novel Learning Support Environment on Synchronized Multiple Devices with Affordance
| Project/Area Number |
20K19939
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| Research Institution | Kyushu University |
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Principal Investigator |
Lu Min 九州大学, 基幹教育院, 助教 (60750007)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | learning-support / mobile learning / multiple devices / learning dashboard / learning analytics |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The COVID-19 situation brought opportunities to rethink of the potential of the proposed multi-device learning environment (MDLE) in the new normal. Questionnaires to the students taking online courses are conducted to collect their usage of existing ICT devices at home. Instead of looking at the screen or blackboard of the teacher while operating their own computers in a classroom, the students attending the online lectures have to frequently switch between the online meeting software, web browsers, and other tools. Some of the students are using their smartphones or tablets as a secondary screen to reduce the workload. It has shown the potential of MDLE in the online or self-learning scenarios.
For the students to have better understanding of their learning activities and reflect to future learning strategies, a learning dashboard visualizing the analytics from the operation logs of the students' online learning activities is proposed, and a prototype visualizing the reading paths on digital text books was developed. The results were presented in international conferences. Such learning dashboard tools will be a component in MDLE to provide supplement information aside of the screen of the main learning material.
The research adjusted from providing a one-fit-all solution to focus on a specific application scenario that is groupwork-based practice courses with in-door and out-door activities. A prototype focusing on multi-device and multi-user collaboration is being designed and the hardware, software and cloud computing are well prepared for the next stages.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Suffered from the COVID-19 situation, the progress is slightly delayed because the dramatic changes of research and education environments. Such a situation made it impossible to conduct the expected studies and experiments for the assumed lecture-style studies in classrooms. The efforts made for adjusting to the conduct of online lectures also has taken some of the time for the research. However, it also brought opportunities to rethink about the potential of the proposed multi-device learning environment (MDLE) in the new normal.
As the study progresses, the difficulty of proposing a one-fit-all solution of MDLE in such as small-scale research is revealed. The research adjusted the goal to a more specific and concrete application scenario of MDLE for the prototype development. Such adjustment also has taken time to reform the original design of the prototype and slightly delayed the research schedule.
Preparation of the development environment, including hardware, software and cloud computing services are not influenced. The development of learning dashboard tools as a component of MDLE is still on schedule.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Instead of proposing a one-fit-all solution of MDLE, this research has adjusted its scope to design a framework of supportive tools for the groupwork-based exercise courses composed by both in-door and out-door activities. A prototype realizing the framework is planned to be developed, which is targeted on a field work-based geo-content creating course.
The development will be on the basis of the researcher's existing research and prototype development on human-centered mobile mapping. The new prototype will be integrated with the learning management system (e.g., Moodle) and dashboard tools. Mobile devices are supposed to be used more for out-door activities, gathering materials including location-related data, as for their portability and abundant sensors. Devices like PCs are supposed to be used more indoor for processing the materials, as for their larger screens and more powerful processors. Multi-device and multi-user collaboration will be the key focus of this prototype. For example, the students may share the materials obtained in field work across devices and users, and process the materials at the same time in-door and out-door.
The fast prototyping suppose to provide a usable application in FY2021. The researcher will seek chance to cooperate with other researchers to attend their field work-style classes to test the prototype for the evaluation and improvement of the proposed framework in FY2021 and FY2022.
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| Causes of Carryover |
The amount not used in FY2020 is mainly because of the COVID-19 situation. (1) Almost all the academic conferences have changed to be held online. Thus the planned travel expense for attending conferences is not incurred. (2) It was not safe to conduct face-to-face interviews and experiments, thus the planned remuneration is not incurred.
The usage plan in the next fiscal year is to use the amount for travel expense of research meetings with potential joint researchers for planning and conducting the experiments of the developed prototype in field work courses.
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Research Products
(4 results)
