INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT

OF INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

Núbia dos Santos Rosa Santana dos Santos

, José Valdeni De Lima

1,2

and Leandro Krug Wives

PPGIE, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil

PPGC, Institute of Computing, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Keywords: U-learning, m-Learning, Learning Objects.

Abstract: Nowadays, different possibilities like desktop, mobile computers and mobile devices allows learners to

access digital learning content. These technologies and the Internet have enabled ubiquitous and virtual

learning environments, but some issues arise when the user is not connected. This paper propose the use of

sheets of paper as an alternative medium to provide ubiquitous learning even when the user has not an

active connection. Although of printed media to be used a lot as an education resource, the printed media

has limitations on interactivity. Thus, this paper presents some possibilities of use the printed media to

access the content available in the Learning Management System (LMS), allowing more interactivity.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, different possibilities like desktop,

computers and mobile devices allows learners to

access digital learning content. Beyond these

possibilities, this article highlights the integration of

printed media.

About distance learning, according to data

available in Censo EaD.br (2010), the media more

used for distance learning courses are still printed

material (87.2% of institutions use them), followed

by e-learning (71.5%) and video (51.7%).

Furthermore, Sellen and Harper (2001) highlight

four key features of the use of paper (i.e., printed

material), as the possibility of quick and flexible

navigation through a document, the insertion of

notes during the reading, mobility and hybrid

integration of activities such as reading and writing.

In Jaco (2008) are highlighted some positive aspects

of the printed material, including the flexibility of

space, time and pace of learning.

However, the printed media has limitations as

little interactivity serving more to read than to study

the material (Belisário, 2006). In relation to the

material in Hypertext, Belisário (2006) points the

printed media characterized by low-interaction.

According to the author, that does not reduce the

need and the importance of material printed, since,

to the majority of populations, it still is and will be

the media used to activities in the distance learning.

Considering the limitations found in printed

media, the paper presents a proposal to improve the

educational material offered in distance learning in

the search of providing interactivity and ubiquity.

For this, one possibility is the use of resources in

printed media, 2D barcodes and integration with

mobile devices.

This paper is structured as follows: section 2

presents the proposal, section 3 presents some

results with Learning Objects (LO) and section 4

presents some concluding remarks.

2 INTEGRATION OF PRINTED

MEDIA, 2D CODES AND

MOBILE DEVICE

Some possibilities of technologies appropriate to

recognize the paper as an input device of data in a

computer are presented in Klemmer (2003):

 Passive RFID tags (eg. RFID - Radio

Frequency Identification and IR – Infra-Red);

 Active electronic tags (e.g., motes);

 Labels visual (includes 2D glyphs and QR

Code);

 Content analysis based on image processing

(eg, OCR - Optical Character Recognition).

416

dos Santos Rosa Santana dos Santos N., Valdeni de Lima J. and Krug Wives L..

INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL CONTENT.

DOI: 10.5220/0003957104160420

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2012), pages 416-420

ISBN: 978-989-8565-07-5

 2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Among these features highlights the 2D barcodes,

which are two-dimensional figures that store

information that can be read by compatible

electronic devices. Practical examples of

technologies that generate such codes are

DataMatrix and QR Code

The proposal this paper is to use the printed

media integrated with 2D barcode, as an alternative

means to provide learning mobile and interactivity

by others devices. Furthermore, the proposal is to

use the QR Code due to its characteristics, the

processing speed and capacity data.

The proposal aims to improve the printed

educational materials with use of methodology and

pedagogical theories, designed for distance learning.

The Figure 1 shows the access to dynamic content

using the 2D Code and mobile devices.

Using QR Code technology in printed media, all

the features present in the material, such as text,

images, audio, video, etc., can be accessed in an

integrated and/or individually, using a mobile device

(Figure 1). When accessed, the QR Code allows to

perform actions such as accessing a site, read a text,

enter data for sending messages (SMS) and contacts.

Figure 1: Access at LO in the Moodle between printed

media, 2D Barcode and mobile device.

With the use of 2D barcodes, the printed media

can be more interactive. The components of material

can be stored in the Virtual Environment, allowing

the registration of learner access. By registering to

access each feature of the LO, it can provide

personalized feedback to the learner.

Thus, with QR Code the learner accesses the

resource, the Moodle records in your historic and is

possible can give feedback to learners based on

historic. Thus, can verify the types of interactivity

obtained in the LO, available in Moodle. Moodle is

QR Code is registered trademark of DENSO WAVE

INCORPORATED.

an Open Source Course Management System

(CMS), also known as LMS or a Virtual Learning

Environment (VLE) (Moodle, 2011).

About interactivity Moreno and Mayer (2007)

presents five types of multimodal interaction in

educational Environment (Table 1), as seen in

Tarouco et al. (2009):

Table 1: Types of interactivity in educational

environments (Moreno and Mayer, 2007).

Dialogue

The learner receives feedback or

questions and answers for their

reactions.

Control

The learner determines the pace and /

or the order of presentation.

Handle

The learner establishes parameters

for a simulation, sets the focus and

approach (zoom) or moves objects in

The learner finds a new material by

search, verifies options and selects

the desired alternative.

Browse

The learner moves through different

areas of content by selecting different

sources of information available.

The next section presents analysis performed

with LO in order to verify if the LO materialized in

the printed media, with 2D barcodes and resources

accessed by mobile devices, offers the same

interactivity of LO on the computer with Web.

3 ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSAL

AT LEARNING OBJECTS

For analysis the proposal were materialized two LO.

The "Understanding greatness" LO (Figure 2) is the

area of mathematics and goal is to provide the

resolution of problems related with proportions

using pedagogical strategies.

Based on the Seesaw Interactive LO (Melo et al.,

2008) was developed using Flash and ActionScript.

As presented by Melo et al. (2008), the Seesaw is an

interactive simulation as a seesaw used by children

in amusement parks, and the goal is that the weights

on each side of the seesaw are balanced.

The LO is divided at scenes (Santos et al. 2008).

The first scene introduces the concepts and

challenges related to the proportionals theme. In this

scene are provided access to the exercises, videos on

the Web. In the second is possible to solve problems

(simulation), involving notions of magnitude, up to 4

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levels of difficulty. The Figure 3 shows an example

of materialization of OA.

Figure 2: The "Understanding greatness" LO.

Figure 3: Materialization of the "Understanding greatness"

LO.

Another LO developed was 'Prevention in the

Web' (Figure 4), developed in HTML5 and

Javascript; and stored in Moodle environment.

Moreover, has resources that identify the location of

acess when the user accesses the LO.

The LO is composed of several multimedia

features (video, audio, animation) and was

developed according to principles of multimedia

learning (Mayer, 2009), such as:

 Multimedia Principle - people learn better from

words and pictures than words.

 Spatial Proximity Principle - learners learn better

when corresponding words and pictures are near,

and not in places (page, screen) different. To

Filatro (2008) when people need to integrate

verbal and pictorial information (eg, on-screen

graphic and explanation of how to read the chart)

- an overload can occur in working memory and

learning process to be disturbed. The material

must have text and images in an integrated

manner, i.e., text positioned next to the images

related. Thus, the cognitive resources are spared

the task of integrating all the information.

 Temporal Contiguity Principle - learners learn

better when corresponding words and pictures

are presented simultaneously rather than

successively.

 Signaling Principle - People learn better from a

multimedia message when the text is signed

rather than unsigned.

 Redundancy Principle - people learn more deeply

from graphics and narration than from graphics,

narration and printed text.

 Personalization Principle - people learn better

from multimedia presentations when the words

are in conversational style rather than formal

style.

Figure 4: “Prevention in the Web” LO materialized in the

printed media.

The structure of "Prevention in the Web" LO is

presented in the Figure 5. The LO can have multiple

topics, one topic can have multiple pages and each

page can have multiple components.

Figure 5: Structure of “Prevention in the Web” LO.

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The "Prevention in the Web" LO has some

activities (Figure 6) e when the QR Code related at a

question is acessed, the link directs for the specific

question in the Moodle, e no for general

questionnaire.

Figure 6: Exercises - “Prevention in the Web” LO.

Both LO were materialized in printed media with

QR Code. Analyzing interactivity in both LO

available in a Moodle, developments using the

proposal this paper, was possible verify:

 Dialogue. Through the links available in the

material the learner can get feedback textual and

offer more information about the content. An

example: on page 4 of the Prevention LO, learners

can access the Moodle forums on the subject

presented on the page. In addition, through the QR

Code on paper can be accessed exercises and receive

feedback in the form of text or audio. The LO in

printed media has links (QR Code) that allows to

access synchronous and asynchronous tools (chat,

forums, wiki, etc.) in the Moodle. Example: getting

help, click on a hyperlink to additional information.

 Control. The material has links of navigation

that allows to switch between contexts different of

LO (navigation between topics and pages), control

of animations, video and audio (forward, rewind,

pause, etc.).

 Manipulate. This type defines parameters in a

simulation game and executes the simulation to see

what happens. The LO "Understanding greatness"

allows moving objects (weights) to verify the result.

To solve the problem, the learner can choose the QR

Code that deemed correct and thus move the

elements of LO and the result is displayed. Thus, the

learner can analyze, take notes on paper and then

check the answer with the simulation in LO. In LO

prevention is possible to manipulate the animation.

 Search. In the LO the learner can search for

information on the Internet, as well as responding to

questionnaires. Each question has a QR Code

allowing direct access to the corresponding question.

The material has links to educational sites and can

be used for search various sources such as

repositories of LO, educational videos, etc. The LO

allows search for other exercises on the same

content on the Web. The learner can still access

complementaries information the content, in the

Web.

 Browse. The LO allows to navigate between

different resources available in the LMS. Thus, the

learner can navigate within the LO, as well as in

Moodle. In addition, it can get complementary

information on the Web.

To allow more interactivity, the LO must be

stored in a LMS. Each feature of LO is represented

by QR Code and when the user decodes the QR

Code with your mobile device will have access to the

resource. Thus, all that is accessed in the LO will be

registered in the LMS (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Example - part of Moodle report: date, resource

and content.

Özdemir (2010) points out that, besides providing

a more significant learning, the integration of mobile

technologies and printed books with help of 2D

barcodes, has the potential to reduce the cognitive

load.

After analysis the LO was seen that the resources

represented by the QR Code in the printed media,

when accessed by the mobile device, can allow

interactivity as through the computer with Web.

4 CONCLUDING REMARKS

This paper presented examples of application of the

proposal. The first example is based on an LO

“Understanding greatness”, similar to a game that

goals to bring the learner to reflect about the

problem.

Other LO refers content about the risks and

prevention methods on the Web, presents a variety

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of possibilities for interaction using the Moodle

environment. With this, intends to search

improvements to the development of content that

may promote distance learning, utilizing the

advantages of each technology (printed media,

mobile, Web). The LO can be accessed on the

Internet (desktop, notebook), the printed media (with

QR Code) and / or mobile devices (cell phones,

smartphones) and in the absence of a type of media

may continue their studies using others resources

availables.

Because of the limitations of printed media, the

model proposes the use of QR Code as a means of

access to multimedia content (integrated the device

mobile) and the application of appropriate

methodology and educational theories. Thus, the

content available on the LMS could be accessed via

device mobile, printed media with QR Code and

Web.

Moreover, the material should be multimodal in

order to offer different ways to be accessed in a

learning environment. Moreno and Mayer (2007)

defines multimodal learning environments as

environments that use two different ways of

representing content: verbal and nonverbal.

This paper was important to analyze the types of

interactivity possible, using printed media (with 2D

barcode) as a resource and mobile devices as input.

In this case, if the course offers only printed

material, the use of QR Code (and mobile device)

can provide access to other multimedia resources,

collaborating for Multimedia Learning.

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