International Journal of Learning Technologies and Learning Environments

Leveraging Gamification for Design and Implementation of an Online Learning Platform

2025-01-22T11:59:09+00:00

Digital transformation of the education sector has garnered a lot of attention in recent times both from the industry and academia. Fueled by increased availability of the Internet and digital technologies, online education is going through rapid evolution. Many educational organizations have adopted online mode of operation, and dedicated e-learning platforms have emerged – making education available to a huge number of learners and encouraging lifelong learning. Taking advantage of the convenience of self-regulated anytime-anywhere education, millions of users enroll in online courses, but unfortunately only about a tenth of them complete these courses. One of the main reasons for this high dropout rate has been pointed out to be learners’ incapability to retain motivation, or – putting it the other way round – lack of strategy by content providers to retain learners’ motivation. Recently, gamification has been increasingly used in educational contents in order to retain learners’ motivation throughout the duration of the course. In the same vein of such research, in this paper, we present Quiz and Treasures, a web-based learning platform which incorporates various game elements. We thoroughly analyzed the pros and cons of our proposed gamified learning system through the lens of Octalysis – one of the most prominent contemporary frameworks for gamification – and juxtaposing that result with Self-determination theory in terms of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. We also conducted a user study, result of which shows our application influenced positively in retaining learners’ motivation, with majority of them rating their experience as enjoying, and expressing intention to continue using the application. In addition, Quiz and Treasures allows instructors and administrators to register quizzes in advance and analyze results, enabling them to visually capture learners’ level of progress.

A Method to Detect Structure Errors using a Model Program

2025-01-25T12:32:50+00:00

It is difficult for novice programmers to solve compilation errors and perform debugging using only the error messages output by the compiler and execution results. Failure to solve errors may cause students to lose interest in programming. In this study, we propose a method to support the learning of C language by detecting the cause of errors that the compiler cannot indicate. This detection is performed by comparing the differences between the model program and that of the novice, assuming a situation where model programs are prepared in advance, that is, an exercise-style class. In the proposed method, syntactic elements in the source code processed by the parser are expressed in the XML format. The proposed method compares this XML representation with the document type definition (DTD) generated from the model program. First, the syntactic elements in the source code of the program written by the novice are translated into XML format. Next, a DTD is generated from the model program. This DTD defines the structure that the model program should satisfy. The DTD detects the structural difference between the model and program written by the novice, which are likely to be the cause of errors. The feedback provided is expected to enhance the effectiveness of C language learning for novice programmers.

Implementing Toggle Function for Card Operation-Based Programming Learning Support System and Evaluating its Effectiveness

2025-02-18T13:10:59+00:00

In many cases, programming classes in higher educational institutions have desired a system that supports students to concentrate on the essential learning task intended by the instructor. Then, focusing on thinking about the relations of meaningful parts, a card operationbased programming learning support system, COPS, was developed. This system targets to think only the relations of meaningful parts called chunks consisting of one or more statements and aims to control cognitive resources by limiting the patterns of learning activity. Through the practical use of an actual programming class, COPS was able to make learners concentrate on the intended learning task with reducing cognitive load. However, since COPS simplifies learning activities, there is a possibility that COPS does not have more learning effectiveness than the typical coding exercise. Therefore, to make COPS close to the learning activity of actual programming, we focus on the toggle function. The toggle function is a select box placed on the card, and it requires the user to learn to choose one statement from two or more statements. Thus, the toggle function would make the learning task of COPS closer to actual programming learning. This paper shows the detail of the design and implementation of the toggle function to COPS.

Computerized Model of Assessment Procedures of Students’ Reading Capabilities Based on Abridgement Method Employing Two-Pointer Problem Solution and Dynamic Programming

2025-02-19T01:57:29+00:00

There is an augmenting level of requirement for competent reading capabilities at various academic and societal settings today, which indicates a high demand for the school education system to employ the refined methodology to cultivate students’ reading skills and assess them on a quantitative and objective basis. In a conventional fashion, summarization has been a norm amongst a multitude of educational approaches available, while that entailed a couple of drawbacks from the perspective of educators, such as the labor-intensive and time-consuming marking procedures, difficulty in establishing a standardized and less marker-dependent model answer, and challenges in marking them in a fair manner. To confront these issues, a new approach called abridgement has been recently proposed by researchers, allowing for simplification of the conventional procedures time-wise and operation-wise. Notwithstanding these revolutionary features, the manual marking process in abridgement is still daunting enough for the educators to make them spend several days on it. This research, therefore, focused on the automation of the whole procedures of marking of abridged texts of students in a computerized fashion, employing two possible approaches; two-pointer problem solution algorithm and dynamic programming.

Case Studies of DRR Delivery Lessons Using ICT in Elementary School Classrooms in Japan

2025-01-25T11:50:38+00:00

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to conduct the face-to-face contact-based DRR (disaster risk reduction) delivery lessons that we had been providing in elementary schools. To overcome this challenge, we developed a video tool and practiced delivery lessons by using ICT in schools. This paper reports on three cases. In study 1, we conducted a delivery lesson by connecting the school broadcasting room to the classroom in a unidirectional manner. In study 2, we connected the laboratory in the university to the individual student’s computers. In study 3, we visited the school and carried out the lesson by connecting the school computer room with the teacher’s computer in the classroom. We summarized the differences among these three practices, as well as their various characteristics, and discussed the future directions of ICT-based DRR delivery lessons. The ICT-based DRR delivery lesson could bring new educational effects that have never been generated by the traditional delivery lessons.