Designing Effective Materials and Activities for Mobile Augmented Learning
This paper presents the findings from a study of augmented mobile learning with Chinese students (n = 37) at a post-secondary vocational school. Students were enrolled in a course concerning horticultural science and applications. We augmented the school’
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mented reality
Mobile learning
1 Introduction With the rapid development of mobile and wireless communication technologies, mobile learning has emerged as an interesting topic of research within the CSCL community [1, 2]. Mobile learners can use both physical and digital resources in classrooms, online, or anywhere in their environment using mobile devices, wireless networks, and educational software applications. Much of the current research has focused on K12 and higher education, demonstrating that mobile devices can support collaborative learning activities both in and outside of classrooms [3–7]. One interesting approach to mobile learning is to augment students’ physical environment with supplemental information that can be gained through their mobile devices. Spikol et al. [8] investigated students’ use of mobile phones to scan information about their surrounding environment, but focused more on students’ scientific practices than on their use of augmented materials for conceptual learning. Others have studied such augmentations, including [9], whose project called “the ambient wood” engaged students in exploring the hidden aspects of trees and other plants, including sounds and invisible features (i.e., in the roots or inside the trees). Still, there remains a © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 S.K.S. Cheung et al. (Eds.): ICBL 2016, LNCS 9757, pp. 85–93, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-41165-1_8
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need for studies that advance our understanding, in CSCL, of how to design such augmentation activities such that they directly serve purposes of learning and collaboration. A recent efforts called the EcoMobile project [10] has taken major strides toward sophisticated interactions and materials, demonstrating content and affective learning gains, but is still focused on supporting specific forms of scientific inquiry, such as the combination of Augmented Reality (AR) and environmental probes. This study seeks to contribute a new design of augmented mobile learning that emphasizes the structured design of materials and activities, in order to understand what factors may be important to creating effective learning conditions. It is clearly an attractive approach, and compelling for students. But what kinds of activities will result in good learning of the targeted conceptual material? What kinds of content should be embedded in the environment, and how should students be expected to utilize that information? We approach this challenge through a design oriented methodology, designing materials and activities to produce an effective augmented mobile learning activity, and then analyzing the factors that underlie the efficacy of our designs. Our research is in the context of vocational education, which is an important challenge in China, where we seek to infuse practitioners of various disciplines with both practical and theoretical knowledge. Students often find it difficult to apply conceptual content in service to practical problems, and the vocational education setting provides
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