The technical framework of interactive functions for course-management systems: Students’ perceptions,uses, and evaluations

This study explores the interactivity of course-management systems (CMSs). First, this study reviews the concepts of interactivity, interactivity dimension, and interaction type on the basis of related theories and studies. Second, this study analyzes the interactive functions attributable to the six major CMSs in Taiwan colleges and universities, and re-constructs a technical framework containing five interaction types, nine interactivity dimensions, and 83 possible interactive functions. This study has found that a total of 21 interactive functions were featured in the six CMSs, while six functions identified from theories and research were not. In terms of interaction type, the results indicate that these six CMSs possessed the highest percentage of possible interactive functions for facilitating human interactions (e.g., learner–learner interaction and learner–instructor interaction), followed by learner–interface interaction and learner–self interaction, with the lowest percentage corresponding to learner–content interaction. In terms of interactivity dimension, these six CMSs seemed more likely to feature a learner-centered design approach than a system-centered one. Also, this study conducted user surveys on students’ perceptions, use, and evaluation of these interactive functions. A total of 491 valid sets of data were collected from six CMS user groups. The results indicate that, for their online learning, students considered the function of “Assignment handling” to be the most known, frequently used, and useful function. In addition, students were well familiar with, and made use of, any functions that would help them monitor or track their learning process. Students required more content-related interactive functions than were currently available in CMSs. Last, the regression results indicate that the more positively the students perceived the CMS interactivity, the usefulness of CMS for learning, and the interactive functions, the more positively these students perceived their CMSs.     

Can more interactivity improve learning achievement in an online course? Effects of college students' perception and actual use of a course-management system on their learning achievement

This study aims to investigate how interactivity influence learners' use of interactive functions in the course-management system (CMS) and their online learning performance. A two-tier mediation framework is proposed to examine the mediating effects of different actual-use records concerning the CMS's interactive functions. Data are collected from 381 undergraduate students who enrolled in a general-education asynchronous online course from three universities in Taiwan. The results indicate that the relationships among students' self-reported use of interactive functions, students' perceptions of the usefulness of interactive functions, and students' actual-use logs have some direct influences on students' online learning performance (online-discussion scores, exam scores, and group-project scores). In addition, students' actual-use logs (the number of times of log-ins to the online course, the number of times students read learning materials, and the number of postings on the discussion board) have a mediated effect on students' self-reported frequency of logging into the CMS, students' self-reported frequency of using the learner–instructor/learner–learner interactive functions, and online learning performance. The findings and implications could constitute a useful guide for educational practitioners and designers concerned with the effective integration of interactivity into future online courses.     

Using short message service to encourage interactivity in the classroom

Interactivity in the classroom is reported to promote a more active learning environment, facilitate the building of learning communities, provide greater feedback for lecturers, and help student motivation. Various definitions of interactivity exist in the literature, alternately focusing on the participants, structure and technology. The PLS TXT UR Thoughts research project builds on existing definitions to define interactivity as a message loop originating from and concluding with the student. The authors chose to introduce mobile phones and short message service (SMS) within the classroom due to the ubiquity of mobile phones among students and the interactive potential of SMS. SMS is a low-threshold application used widely by students to quickly send concise, text-based messages at any time. The research presented involved students sending SMS in real-time, in class, via their personal mobile phones. Using a modem interfacing with customised software to produce SMS files, the lecturer can view the messages and verbally develop the interactive loop with students during class. The SMS are available online after class, allowing interactive loops to further develop via threaded comments.     

Measuring with Murray: Touchscreen technology and preschoolers' STEM learning

American students rank well below international peers in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Early exposure to STEM-related concepts is critical to later academic achievement. Given the rise of tablet-computer use in early childhood education settings, interactive technology might be one particularly fruitful way of supplementing early STEM education. Using a between-subjects experimental design, we sought to determine whether preschoolers could learn a fundamental math concept (i.e., measurement with non-standard units) from educational technology, and whether interactivity is a crucial component of learning from that technology. Participants who either played an interactive tablet-based game or viewed a non-interactive video demonstrated greater transfer of knowledge than those assigned to a control condition. Interestingly, interactivity contributed to better performance on near transfer tasks, while participants in the non-interactive condition performed better on far transfer tasks. Our findings suggest that, while preschool-aged children can learn early STEM skills from educational technology, interactivity may only further support learning in certain contexts.     

The impact of animation interactivity on novices’ learning of introductory statistics

This study examined the impact of animation interactivity on novices’ learning of introductory statistics. The interactive animation program used in this study was created with Adobe Flash following Mayer’s multimedia design principles as well as Kristof and Satran’s interactivity theory. This study was guided by three main questions: 1) Is there any difference in achievement improvement among students who use different interactive levels of an animation program? 2) Is there any difference in confidence improvement among students who use different interactive levels of an animation program? 3) Is there any difference in program perception among students who use different interactive levels of an animation program?     

网络环境下课堂教学的交互形式研究

以计算机多媒体技术、计算机网络技术为主的信息技术正被越来越多的教师应用到教学实践中,给教师的教学、学生的学习都带来了巨大的变化。信息技术集直观性、开放性和交互性于一体,对提高教学效率、增强学生的自主学习能力都有很大的帮助。该文主要就信息技术的交互性特点来探讨网络环境下课堂教学的交互形式,主要包括师生与网络的交互困难及其应对形式,学生与网络交互对软件的要求,学生与老师面对面的交互,学生与学生面对面的交互等内容。     

Influence of group size on students' participation in online discussion forums

This study attempts to examine how students participate and interact in different discussion modules organized with different group size in an online environment. It adopts a case study methodology where full semester online course with two small-group and three class-wide discussion forums was examined. The researcher counted the number of messages and hits (i.e. the number of students' clicks on other messages) and analyzed that to classify the level of interactivity of every individual message into four categories, i.e. independent, quasi-interactive, interactive (elaborative) and interactive (negotiating). It found that the class guidelines and active encouragement by the instructor had contributed to the high number of total messages and hits representing students' overall participation in all discussion forums. However, large discussion forums in the course had their limitations in promoting higher level of interactivity among the students. On the other hand, two small-group discussion forums had a higher number (by 21%) of enhanced interactivity (elaborating and negotiating mode). The study then concludes that a high quality participation in a large online class could be effected through sub-grouping. It further alludes that other practices should be taken into consideration to promote interactivity in discussion.     

Enhancement of math content accessibility in EPUB3 educational publications

ABSTRACT

The article presents methods of increasing mathematical content accessibility in educational e-publications using multimodal user interfaces (UI). Educational mathematical publications such as exercise notebooks and worksheets, require student's interactivity in problem solving. EPUB3, an open format for e-publications, has the possibilities of creating multimedia, interactive mathematics content. Among the programs that support EPUB3, only a few support the MathML format presenting formulas, and provides limited possibilities for user interactivity, insufficient in mathematical education. Our solutions in the PlatMat system increase the interactive accessibility of EPUB3 mathematical content for students with visual impairment. The solutions are based on concurrent multimodal alternative interfaces for exploring math content in EPUB3 publications. Students can read and modify formulas choosing preferred UI and device. Similarly, in different modes (visual, acoustic and touch) students can recognise function graphs and shapes of geometrical figures saved in scalable vector graphics (SVG) format. Teachers can create universal mathematical documents for all students. The system supports inclusive maths education and is designed according to the principles of universal design for learning (UDL). The article describes the system’s usefulness in relation to research conducted among maths teachers. Positive results have become the basis for the further development of the system.     

The psychology behind QR codes: User experience perspective

QR codes, 2-D bar codes that can be read by special software on a smartphone, have been undergoing rapid development. This study examines how a Technology Acceptance Model could predict users’ intentions to continue using QR codes by integrating interactivity and quality motivations as primary determining factors. Although studies have shown interactivity is important to users, not many study have analyzed the mediating influence of interactivity within interactive marketing context. Therefore, the original TAM was expanded to encompass user perceptions of interactivity and quality. The results of this study show that user intentions and behaviors are largely influenced by the perception of the quality of QR codes. In addition, the results of the model show that interactivity is a key behavioral antecedent to the use of QR codes. In the extended model, the moderating and mediating effects of the perceived interactivity on relationships among the variables were found to be significant. The new set of variables is QR code-specific, acting as factors that enhance attitudes and behavioral intentions. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of construction of a theory of interactivity and provision of practical insights into development of user-centered QR codes.     

面向主题的Web数据采集及信息整合系统的设计与实现

提出了一个基于ASP技术的可靠的动态交互数据采集及信息整合系统,介绍了它的设计思想和工作原理,详细阐述了整个系统关键部分的实现过程。实验结果表明,该数据采集系统,具有很好的安全性、交互性,并具有较好的实践意义。     

A Movie Recommendation System – An Application of Voting Theory in User Modeling

Our research agenda focuses on building software agents that can employ user modeling techniques to facilitate information access and management tasks. Personal assistant agents embody a clearly beneficial application of intelligent agent technology. A particular kind of assistant agents, recommender systems, can be used to recommend items of interest to users. To be successful, such systems should be able to model and reason with user preferences for items in the application domain. Our primary concern is to develop a reasoning procedure that can meaningfully and systematically tradeoff between user preferences. We have adapted mechanisms from voting theory that have desirable guarantees regarding the recommendations generated from stored preferences. To demonstrate the applicability of our technique, we have developed a movie recommender system that caters to the interests of users. We present issues and initial results based on experimental data of our research that employs voting theory for user modeling, focusing on issues that are especially important in the context of user modeling. We provide multiple query modalities by which the user can pose unconstrained, constrained, or instance-based queries. Our interactive agent learns a user model by gaining feedback aboutits recommended movies from the user. We also provide pro-active information gathering to make user interaction more rewarding. In the paper, we outline the current status of our implementation with particular emphasis on the mechanisms used to provide robust and effective recommendations.     

Perception of Interactivity: Affects of Four Key Variables in Mobile Advertising

There are indications that interactivity could benefit the effectiveness of mobile advertisements. But there are few guidelines on how to design interactive mobile advertisements. This study investigated the influences of various design features of mobile advertisements on perceived interactivity and the relationship between perceived interactivity and attitude toward mobile advertisements. An experiment consisting of 2 sessions was conducted to test 5 proposed hypotheses with 40 participants. Results showed that the number of user control options and the customizability of advertisements have significant influences on users' perception of interactivity. The more options a message advertisement provides, the more interactive the participants perceive the advertisement; a customizable game advertisement is perceived as more interactive than an uncustomizable game advertisement. But no significant effects of presenting instructional information of mobile Web advertisements and including humorous elements were found. Finally, perceived interactivity was found a strong predictor of attitude toward mobile advertisement.     

Interactivity and memory: Information processing of interactive versus non-interactive content

Existing research on the effects of interactivity tends to treat it as a global characteristic of the interface. However, not all content on an interface is endowed with interactive features. Therefore, it is important to explore how interactivity affects the cognitive processing of those particular content that is presented with interactive features and the surrounding content without these features. With this objective, a between-subjects experiment was conducted to understand how levels of interactivity affect information processing among users of an e-commerce website. The major findings of the study are: 1) Higher interactivity enhances recognition as well as recall memory of interactive content, but diminishes recognition and recall memory of non-interactive content; 2) Individuals spend the least amount of time on the interface with high interactivity, while most of this time is spent on interactive part rather than non-interactive part of the interface; 3) A moderate level of interactivity attracts most user attention to product information. The findings about interactivity’s effect have implications for cue-summation theory and limited capacity theory. The experiment’s results also hold practical implications for e-tailers.     

Interactive lectures: Effective teaching and learning in lectures using wireless networks

Among the severe instructional shortcomings of lectures is their lack of interactivity. To overcome these problems, the learning environment of the interactive lecture is introduced, in which students and lecturer interact by using mobile computers in a wireless network. In an experimental study, 44 students participated in interactive and in conventional lecture meetings. A quiz service that allowed question to be posted, students’ answers to be evaluated, and the results to be presented graphically, was implemented on mobile computers. The participants rated the interactive condition better, also reporting higher levels of attention, activity and perceived learning success for this condition. Objective measures indicated a slight but insignificant difference toward better learning results in the interactive condition.     

Instructional video in e-learning: Assessing the impact of interactive video on learning effectiveness

Interactive video in an e-learning system allows proactive and random access to video content. Our empirical study examined the influence of interactive video on learning outcome and learner satisfaction in e-learning environments. Four different settings were studied: three were e-learning environments—with interactive video, with non-interactive video, and without video. The fourth was the traditional classroom environment. Results of the experiment showed that the value of video for learning effectiveness was contingent upon the provision of interactivity. Students in the e-learning environment that provided interactive video achieved significantly better learning performance and a higher level of learner satisfaction than those in other settings. However, students who used the e-learning environment that provided non-interactive video did not improve either. The findings suggest that it may be important to integrate interactive instructional video into e-learning systems.     

FrameIDTV: A framework for developing interactive applications on digital television environments

Digital TV technologies are stretching out the horizons for interactive applications to end users. However, developing interactive applications for this new environment is not as straightforward as developing Internet applications. In order to make this development process easier in the context of interactive digital TV (iDTV), one of the solutions is the development of Frameworks. However, after investigating some of the existing iDTV framework solutions, we have found a limitation on the range of the interactive application domain to DTV available in these current frameworks, which mainly show solutions for local interactive (enhanced TV). Thus, in this paper, we propose an iDTV Framework (called FrameIDTV) that makes possible a broader solution in the DTV domain for the construction of interactive applications, both local and remote. The remote interactivity is possible using a generic and easy to customize communication protocol that is specified in the framework for the application layer. Furthermore, applications such as voting, home banking, and t-commerce, which are executed locally in the set-top box and are integrated to remote services using a return channel, can use the proposed framework. FrameIDTV also allows the establishment of secure communications and is developed following a specific framework methodology. This framework has primarily targeted the Brazilian Digital TV standard and its procedural middleware, called Ginga-J. Nevertheless, FrameIDTV can be broadly used worldwide, since it is compliant with the Globally Executable MHP (GEM) standard.     

Congestion Control for Interactive Video-on-Demand over ATM

An interactive video-on-demand (IVoD) system consists of a video server and a client connected together through a high speed network. Use of interactive video-on-demand in an educational environment is very interactive because students frequently pause, fast-forward, skip and view frame-by-frame. Designing a network able to support interactivity and make efficient use of bandwidth is challenging. In this paper we evaluate the suitability of a number of congestion control schemes (based on the service categories of ATM) for carrying interactive video on demand. We have developed analytical models to evaluate and compare the various schemes. Data on interactive behaviour of students obtained from IVoD trails carried out in our laboratory have been used in the models. We show that the renegotiated constant bit rate service category has considerable potential for carrying IVoD over a high speed network, such as the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). We also show the use of an application layer, (such as Winsock 2), by the server to limit congestion within the network.     

Increasing Interactivity in Distance Educations: Case Studies Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

This paper describes how distance educations in developing countries can enhance interactivity by means of information and communication technologies. It is argued that e-learning involves a shift in the educational structure from traditional transmission of knowledge to interactive creation of knowledge. Our case studies are two distance educations in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka that use different technologies for implementing interactivity; Internet and computers in one case and video and mobile phones in the other. The findings are analyzed based on Structuration Theory and we compare the two approaches based on emerging norms and beliefs. Findings from both cases show the concurrent enactment of both the transmission and the interactive structure. Whereas peer collaboration and the use of self-assessment tools make students take more ownership of their learning, we also found the idea of a classroom with an instructive teacher to be deeply rooted in the students' minds.     

基于庐山三维场景的图算法虚拟仿真系统研究

为应对传统计算机算法教学中理论知识存在逻辑性强、抽象程度高、教学与实验脱节、缺乏交互性等现实问题,本文借助虚拟现实技术,基于江西知名旅游胜地庐山的三维场景,使用Unity3D引擎设计图算法虚拟仿真系统。该系统实现5种图算法的仿真实验过程,每种图算法均提供“自动展示”和“用户交互”这2种运行模式,还提供用户进入景点(对应图的结点)分场景的自由控制视角浏览庐山景观的功能;同时,探讨本虚拟仿真系统存在的理论问题,并给出解决这些问题的关键技术和实施方案;最后,通过Prim最小生成树算法验证本虚拟仿真系统的实用性和灵活性。与传统的算法讲授、个性化问题驱动教学方式相比,本文设计的图算法虚拟仿真系统具有趣味性、交互性、沉浸性,既能激发学生学习的探索性和主动性,又为算法与数据结构课程提供了一种新的教学和实验方法。     

Steerable projection: exploring alignment in interactive mobile displays

Emerging smartphones and other handheld devices are now being fitted with a set of new embedded technologies such as pico-projection. They are usually designed with the pico-projector embedded in the top of the device. Despite the potential of personal mobile projection to support new forms of interactivity such as augmented reality techniques, these devices have not yet made significant impact on the ways in which mobile data is experienced. We suggest that this ‘traditional’ configuration of fixed pico-projectors within the device is unsuited to many projection tasks because it couples the orientation of the device to the management of the projection space, preventing users from easily and simultaneously using the mobile device and looking at the projection. We present a study which demonstrates this problem and the requirement for steerable projection behaviour and some initial users’ preferences for different projection coupling angles according to context. Our study highlights the importance of flexible interactive projections which can support interaction techniques on the device and on the projection space according to task. This inspires a number of interaction techniques that create different personal and shared interactive display alignments to suit a range of different mobile projection situations.