16. ICT in Education and Training
Paper
Design Principles of Transversal Media Education in Primary School, Developing an Interactive Digital Storytelling System
Michael Schlauch
Free Unversity of Bolzano, Italy
Presenting Author: Schlauch, Michael
Initiatives for media education and digital skills in schools have long been a priority in national (KMK, 2016, 2016; MIUR, 2015) and international agendas (European Commission, 2020). The UNESCO recognizes it as an integral part of ensuring quality education for all (Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, 2017). However, research needs to examine further what constitutes viable resources, approaches and practices for education in the digital age. Digital storytelling has accrued significant interest over the last decade (Ohler, 2013; Robin, 2008; Yang & Wu, 2012). Proponents indicate benefits such as blending digital, oral and written literacies, enhanced potentials for engagement, reflection, deep learning and project-based learning across multiple subjects (Wu & Chen, 2020).
Nevertheless, according to a metareview conducted by Chang and Chu (2022, p. 2), little research has examined technology-enhanced digital storytelling. An emerging research field is concerned with interactive digital storytelling (Koenitz et al., 2015), where researchers explore how computational systems afford nonlinear storytelling and new kinds of aesthetic experiences. Yet, due to its different origin as a field, applications in education are still underresearched.
This research aims to investigate possible interventions for collaborative, guided storytelling that provide natural opportunities for media education with children aged 9-11. The research pursues the double goal of developing a design solution and theory-building by adopting the educational design research (EDR), or design-based research (DBR) approach. As an EDR project, the research starts from the stage of analysis and exploration and continues with design and construction, and evaluation and reflection. This paper focuses on the design and construction of an interactive storytelling tool.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWith a focus on the specific research question "What design propositions can be drawn from what is known to design a learning arrangement for guided storytelling?", the research examines what technology-enhanced digital storytelling means in the context of media education in primary school. The development study aims at creating a tool that uses storytelling to generate curiosity and interest in complex topics, enables children to self-express and identify with their work, promotes ample digital literacy practices, encourages children to engage creatively with digital media and values the role and competence of teachers in curating and shaping the learning environment. The development study employs various methods including cooperative inquiry (Druin, 1999) with a small group of children, an extensive literature review of related work and design principles as well as conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe resulting browser-based storytelling tool embodies several design principles developed in the previous research literature, such as cognitive load theory, universal design for learning, and constructionism. Conjecture mapping has been a crucial technique to specify underlying theoretical and design conjectures. Thus, this contribution resulted in a set of design-principles, grouped in the categories ’objects-to-think-with’, ’inclusive instructional design’, ’student agency’, ’interactivity’, ’curriculum guidance’, ’flexibility’ and ’community learning’. With the example of the designed tool and a preliminary analysis of observed child interactions during subsequent evaluation, this paper presents how these design principles have been enacted in a real-world application.
ReferencesBroadband Commission for Sustainable Development. (2017). Working group on education: Digital skills for life and work New York, United Nations Educational, Scientific; Cultural Organization. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000259013
Chang, C.-Y., & Chu, H.-C. (2022). Mapping digital storytelling in interactive learning environments Sustainability, 14(18), 11499. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811499
Druin, A. (1999). Cooperative inquiry: Developing new technologies for children with children In Proceedings of the sigchi conference on human factors in computing systems.
European Commission. (2020). Shaping europe’s digital future Publications Office. https://doi.org/doi/10.2759/091014
KMK. (2016). Bildung in der digitalen welt. strategie der kultusministerkonferenz https://www.kmk.org/themen/bildung-in-der-digitalen-welt/strategie-bildung-in-der-digitalen-welt.html
Koenitz, H., Ferri, G., Haahr, M., Sezen, D., & Sezen, T. I. (2015). Interactive digital narrative: History, theory and practice Routledge.
MIUR. (2015). Piano nazionale scuola digitale [[Accessed 2019-04-30]]. http://www.istruzione.it/scuola_digitale/allegati/Materiali/pnsd-layout-30.10-WEB.pdf
Ohler, J. B. (2013). Digital storytelling in the classroom: New media pathways to literacy, learning, and creativity Corwin Press.
Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital storytelling: A powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom Theory into practice, 47(3), 220–228.
Sandoval, W. (2014). Conjecture mapping: An approach to systematic educational design research Journal of the learning sciences, 23(1), 18–36.
Wu, J., & Chen, D.-T. V. (2020). A systematic review of educational digital storytelling Computers & Education, 147, 103786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103786
Yang, Y.-T. C., & Wu, W.-C. I. (2012). Digital storytelling for enhancing student academic achievement, critical thinking, and learning motivation: A year-long experimental study Computers & education, 59(2), 339–352.
16. ICT in Education and Training
Paper
Design and Programming Procces of an Educational Video Game in Primary Education
Blas González-Alba, Pablo Cortés-González, Deseada Ruiz-Ariza, Ana Carolina Alix-González, Moisés Mañas-Olmo
university of Malaga, Spain
Presenting Author: González-Alba, Blas
The incorporation of new technologies into the field of education has meant a transformation (Gómez-Galán, 2020) and a challenge for teachers. The continuous appearance of applications and technological devices requires teachers committed to their use and in continuous training.
In this context of technological innovation and even though there are many researchers and teachers who claim the enormous educational potential that video games have (Holbert and Wilensky, 2019) in psychomotor development (Liu et al., 2020), cognitive, communicative (Hartanto et al., 2018) and social (García et al., 2019), there are few formative experiences that use videogames as a learning tool in Primary and Middle School. In this regard, and as perceived in various investigations, the use of video games in schools contributes to the acquisition of content in subjects such as mathematics (Baek et al., 2020), language and literature (Gee, 2003), natural sciences, physics and chemistry (Baek and Touati, 2017), geology (Sharp, 2017) or social sciences (García-Fernández and Medeiros, 2019) and the improvement of memory (Jiménez and Díez, 2018) or attention and reasoning (Green and Seitz, 2015).
In this line, the so-called "serious games" are used because they have an educational purpose (Michael and Chen, 2006) that is characterized by contributing to the acquisition of curricular and attitudinal content (Del Moral et al., 2012). Likewise, the appearance in recent years of tools for the development of video games such as Game Maker, Torque Game Builder, Golden T Game Engine, The Game Creators or 3D Game Studio, among others, have allowed people not to create video games. professionals (Denner et al., 2012), that is, it allows them to perform the functions of designer, scriptwriter and programmer (Robertson and Howells, 2008).
Also the studies by Robertson and Howells (2008) and Vos, Van der Meijden and Denessen (2011) point out the benefits it has in the development of computational and creative thinking, expressive capacity, imagination, complex and systematic thinking, design skills, programming and digital storytelling, In the school, research such as Maloney, Peppler, Kafai, Resnick and Rusk (2008) or Wilson, Connolly, Hainey and Moffat (2011) in which students have used the Scratch software and the software developed by Kahn (2004) stand out. with the ToonTalk app.
This contribution collects an experience of creating a "serious game" video game in a multilevel classroom of a rural school located in the province of Malaga (Spain) during the 2018/19 school year. We have used a qualitative methodology with the objective of knowing the limitations, weaknesses and potentialities inherent to a project of this complexity and to analyze the perceptions, learning and educational experiences of the students,
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedIn order to answer the research questions and establish a logical link between the aims and the procedure we have proposed a qualitative evaluation based on a case study. To specify this, we have used interviews, documentary review, participant observation and focus groups discussion with the purpose of using multiple methods to collect information -method triangulation-.
Considering this research approach, the aims of the present study are:
- Know the limitations, weaknesses and strengths that the teaching staff pose to develop an educational video game in a Primary Education classroom in Andalusia.
- Analyze the perceptions, learning and educational experiences of the students.
- Evaluate the role of external agents in the development of video game design and making experience in the mentioned primary school.
Throughout the 2018/19 school year, we conducted in-depth interviews, focus groups discussion and meetings with the participants (teachers and students), with the aim of having in-depth information from all the agents involved. The research was developed in two phases, in which a total of 12 interviews and six discussion and reflection groups were carried out. We used audio recorders and making field notes during observations as data collection instruments.
During the first phase, we visited the primary school five times (October and December 2018-, February, March and April 2019). During these meetings (1) the students were observed working on the video game; (2) in-depth interviews were conducted with the teaching staff; (3) focus group discussions were held with the students.
In a second phase, and once the field work was completed -May and June 2019-, we went to the school three times again, with the aim of conducting (1) an in-depth interview with each of the students and teaching staff; (2) a focus groups discussion with the teaching staff (3), a final feedback session and focus groups discussion with the students and the teaching staff.
Once the fieldwork-transcription-return process was completed (October 2019), and with the Nvivo software in its version 11.0, both researchers have categorized the texts into thematic blocks (November-December 2019) following a deductive process- inductive (Strauss and Corbin, 2002) for the construction of emerging and common analysis categories -descriptive-
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsConsidering (a) the proposed aims, (b) the analysis and interpretations derived from this work, and, (c) the linking from the research questions with the research conclusions, we think that it is necessary: (1) to expand the offer and improve the quality training of teachers -initial and continuous- in relation to the use of educational technology in general, and videogame design and programming tools in particular; (2) to increase educational actions that promote the design and programming of video games in schools; and, (3) promote the development of projects that promote the participation of agents in and outside the school and multidisciplinary professionals.
In accordance with the objectives set out in this research, these three axes show us some of the limitations, potentialities and challenges of developing a project as complex as the design and development of an educational video game in a Primary Education classroom.
Considering these dimensions and despite the fact that tools such as Game Maker, Torque Game Builder, Golden T Game Engine, The Game Creators or 3D Game Studio allow students to create their own video games, the main conclusion of our study is that we need programming tools with virtual work environments adapted to the capacities of primary school students.
However, and according to the results, the educational innovation and transformation process requires pragmatic, expanded, shared, active, flexible, holistic and transversal educational micro-actions that allow us to overcome an educational model anchored in the curriculum and in more traditional teaching. The creation of the video game “Las prehistóricas aventuras de Daniela” responds to a particular educational experience that challenges the school to be a space permeable to other experiences, and other actors, in which knowledge is also, and must be constructed and shared under an integrating logic, cooperative and transdisciplinary platform.
ReferencesBaek, Y. y Touati, A. (2017). Exploring how individual traits influence enjoyment in a mobile learning game. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 347–357.
Baek, Y., Min, E. y Yun, S. (2020). Mining Educational Implications of Minecraft. Computers in the Schools, 37(1), 1-16.
del Moral Pérez, M. E., Villalustre, L. M., Yuste, R. M. y Esnaola, G. (2012). Evaluación y diseño de videojuegos. RED, 33(1), 1-17.
Denner, J., Werner, L. y Ortiz, E. (2012). Computer games created by middle school girls: Can they be used to measure understanding of computer science concepts?. Computers & Education, 58(1), 240-249.
García-Fernandez, J. & Medeiros, L. (2019). Cultural Heritage and Communication through Simulation Videogames—A Validation of Minecraft. Heritage, 2(3), 2262-2274.
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Palgrave Macmillan.
Gómez-Galán, J. (2020). Media Education in the ICT Era: Theoretical Structure for Innovative Teaching Styles. Information, 11(5), 276.
Green, C. S. y Seitz, A. R. (2015). The impacts of video games on cognition. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2(1), 101-110.
Hartanto, A., Toh, W. X. & Yang, H. (2018). Context counts: The different implications of weekday and weekend video gaming for academic performance in mathematics, reading, and science. Computes and Education, 120, 51-63.
Holbert, N. & Wilensky, U. (2019). Designing educational video games to be objects-to- think-with. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 28(1), 32-72
Jiménez, A. M. P. y Díez E. M. (2018). Impacto de videojuegos en la fluidez lectora en niños con y sin dislexia. El caso de Minecraft. RELATEC, 17(1), 78-90.
Liu, W., Zeng, N., McDonough, D. J. & Gao, Z. (2020). Effect of Active Video Games on Healthy Children’s. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(21), 8264.
Maloney, J. H., Peppler, K., Kafai, Y., Resnick, M. y Rusk, N. (2008). Programming by choice: urban youth learning programming with scratch. En Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE (pp. 367-371).
Michael, D. y Chen, S. (2006). Serious Games: Games that Educate, Train and Inform. Thomson Course Technology.
Robertson, J. y Howells, C. (2008). Computer game design: opportunities for successful learning. Computers & Education, 50(2), 559–578.
Sharp, L. (2017). The Geology of Minecraft. Teachingscience, 68(1), 14–18.
Vos, N., van der Meijden, H. y Denessen, E. (2011). Effects of constructing versus playing an educational game. Computers & Education, 56(1), 127– 137.
16. ICT in Education and Training
Paper
Learning Science Supported by a Digital Learning Environment
Norbert Erdmann, Mirjamaija Mikkilä-Erdmann
University of Turku, Finland
Presenting Author: Erdmann, Norbert
In our society today, there are many big issues like climate change, biodiversity, and energy supply where good understanding of physics, biology and other environmental studies are required. The basis for understanding these complex phenomena is already laid at school, starting in primary education. Furthermore, digital development with the internet has found its way into school life. Compared to traditional textbooks used in schools the Internet offers an immense wealth of information, views, and reflections. According to current curricula in Europe like in Finland (see Finnish National Board of Education 2016), the students are expected to cope with the great amount of information and learn to find relevant information for learning purposes in schools. (Magliano et. al. 2017). Hence, it is important in science education both to learn scientific content like facts and concepts but also online inquiry skills (Goldman et.al., 2012). Online-inquiry involves skills such as finding and evaluating different sources, recognizing the main relevant ideas their relationships and connections from the different sources, and synthesizing knowledge from various sources (e.g., Frerejean et al. 2019). Learning these skills does not occur naturally but is often challenging and needs to be practiced in school already in primary education.
In this study we investigate how online inquiry skills can be facilitated by using a learning environment, Kidnet, which is designed to practice the whole cycle of online inquiry in a flexible way in an authentic classroom. During online inquiry student constructs different kinds of mental models (Rouet et al. 2017). First the student constructs a context model and perceives the context of the inquiry task, for example the topic and the functioning of the learning environment. Furthermore, the student constructs a task model and plans the strategy for example how to search, what sources are relevant, when to search more sources, how to write a synthesis etc. In an online science inquiry, the student has not only to learn science content, concepts and causal and temporal relations, but also skills. These skills are understanding the inquiry task, choosing search strategies, searching, and locating information, scanning and evaluating the information, finding and selecting the main ideas and synthesizing these ideas into a coherent model, and writing a synthesis (Brand-Gruwel et al. 2009). The KidNet environment comprises all phases of online inquiry from the task to writing a synthesis. It is a closed environment so that all actions made by the student are stored into a file, in the log data. In KidNEt environment there are precisely defined files relating to each task. Thus the log data can be analysed, for example, the sources, which the student used, and the main ideas, which the student copied into the personal clipboard to use them by writing the synthesis.
Furthermore, we used the approach of science capital (Archer et at. 2015) to describe students attitudes towards science, engagement with science-related activities, and access to science-related resources and opportunities. (Archer et al. 2015). In sum we aim to support students to gain a more comprehensive understanding of science topics, learn skills in digital environment and investigate attitudes towards science.
Hence, this case study deals with the following research questions:
- How do students learn online inquiry skills by using digital learning environment KidNet?
- What kind of science capital students have
- How is students’ science capital is linked to online inquiry skills?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe case study was performed as an intervention using a pre- and a post-test design. The participants were 30 six-graders aged from 12 to 13 years from a primary school in an urban area of Finland. After a general introduction and online questionnaire for science capital the performance-oriented skill- test for online inquiry with KidNet was performed. The intervention was led by the teacher in five 90-minutes lessons. The topic in the intervention was “Animal Adaptation and challenges with the climate change”. Furthermore, online inquiry skills were systematically taught and practiced. There were three assignments concerning the topic in the KidNet. Log data was collected and analysed concerning, how many relevant sources the student detected, how many relevant main ideas the student had copied into the personal clipboard, and how many relevant ideas the student wrote in the synthesis.
The science capital questionnaire consisted of 26 Likert scale items (1-5; 1= strongly agree to 5 = strongly disagree).
Findings
Our preliminary results indicate that students´ performance in finding relevant sources did not improve from pre-to post-test. However, students learned to detect more main ideas in the relevant sources statistically significantly (p = .03), from pre-test (M=4.4;SD=3.3) to post-test (M =6.3;SD = 3.1). Results concerning science attitudes revealed that students perceived their self-efficacy in science as neutral (M = 3, SD= ). The support from teachers to learn science was seen rather negative (M = 3.2; SD =. 8). A future career in science was not considered as a good possibility (M = 3.4; SD=.8), although a science qualifications in general was perceived as useful (M = 2.6; SD = .7). Parents seems to support this attitude to study for science qualification ( M = 2.7; SD=.7). Dependencies between the outcomes of the intervention and the factors of the science capital could not be found.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe case study has brought some interesting and pedagogically meaningful findings. The environment seems to be promising while it supports students to learn online inquiry skills. The science capital approach seems to fit well together with online inquiry with complex science topics. The questionnaire seems to work also in the Finnish context. However, the role of the teacher can be elaborated a little better in this context of primary education. Furthermore, it can be assumed that in online inquiry assignments attention should be paid to a more positive contextualisation. This can be achieved, for example, through an appropriate framework like a storyline to enhance the personal connection to the science topic. However, we have considered the small sample of our case study as a limitation.
Furthermore, KidNet can be seen as a promising learning environment. However, the potential is far from exhausted especially regarding the analysis of the log file. Furthermore, the function of the clipboard to prepare the main ideas for the synthesis writing must offer more support. Finding the main ideas seems to be well supported, but the support for using the selected main ideas for writing the synthesis must be improved. One can think in the direction of concept maps, which KidNet can offer. In the primary education the solution should be a very simplified form of concept map. Furthermore, more process data from the log file as well as the synthesis can be analysed in other ways.
ReferencesArcher, L., Dawson, E., DeWitt, J., Seakins, A., & Wong, B. (2015). “Science capital”: A conceptual, methodological, and empirical argument for extending bourdieusian notions of capital beyond the arts. Journal of research in science teaching, 52(7), 922-948.
Brand-Gruwel, S., Wopereis, I., & Walraven, A. (2009). A descriptive model of information problem solving while using internet. Computers & Education, 53, 1207–1217.
Finnish National Board of Education (2016). National Core Curriculum for Ba¬sic Education 2014. Helsinki, Finland: Finnish National Board of Edu¬cation.
Frerejean, J., Velthorst, G. J., van Strien, J. L., Kirschner, P. A., & Brand-Gruwel, S. (2019). Embedded instruction to learn information problem solving: Effects of a whole task approach. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, 117–130.
Goldman, S. R., Braasch, J. L., Wiley, J., Graesser, A. C., & Brodowinska, K. (2012). Comprehending and learning from Internet sources: Processing patterns of better and poorer learners. Reading research quarterly, 47(4), 356-381.
Magliano, J. P., McCrudden, M. T., Rouet, J. F., & Sabatini, J. (2017). The modern reader: Should changes to how we read affect research and theory?. In The Routledge handbook of discourse processes (pp. 343-361). Routledge.
Rouet, J. F., Britt, M. A., & Durik, A. M. (2017). RESOLV: Readers' representation of reading contexts and tasks. Educational Psychologist, 52(3), 200-215.
|
