Mobile apps and games to foster students’ writing competences
Anke BernsManuel Palomo DuarteJuan Manuel DoderoManuel Zurera Pérez
ANTWERP CALL 2014
Content1. Teaching background2. Purpose of the study3. Game-structure and design4. Software-Architecture5. Experience6. Methods/ Instruments7. Conclusions8. Future work9. Acknowledgements
● very large language courses
● few hours of formal learning/many hours of informal
learning
● few opportunities to individually attend learner needs
● need for more individualized feedback
● need for more language input and output
1. Teaching Background
● the potential of smartphones to enhance language
learning in general as well as to focus on specific language
skills such as writing in and outside the classroom
● the possibilities of designing highly interactive learning
materials and environments for mobile devices
2. Purpose of the study is to explore:
3. Game-structure
3.1 Game-design
3.1.1 Single -Player-Mode
Test 1 Test 2 Test 3
● feedback that helps learners to succeed in their “game” (immediate feedback)
● feedback that allows learners to reflect on their errors and weaknesses (delayed & extensive feedback)
3.1.2 Feedback Design
Instant feedback Delayed feedback
3.1.3 Implicit feedback
Test 2 Test 2
Instant explicit feedback Delayed extended feedback
3.1.4 Explicit feedback
Test 3 Test 3
3.1.5 Gamification of the APP
● time-limit
● scores
● feedback on game-performance
3.1.6 Collaborative role-play gymkhana: Catch me, if you can!
4. Software architecture● Openfire chat server
registers conversation logs
● the app connects to the server to register for a game
● when all students are connected the server creates teams and starts the game
● player identities are hidden during the game (students need to use chat), but stored by the server
5.1 Participants
● 108 students from the A1.1 level, who participated voluntarily in an acceptance and usability test of the first stable version
● study was carried out in 2 sessions:
5. The experience
Session 1Students
individually played levels 1-3
Session 2Students performed a
collaborative role-play(level 4)
▪ 6.1 Pre- and posttest
▪ 6.2 Paired Samples Test
▪ 6.3 Previous writing tasks> pre-test results
▪ 6.4 Previous writing tasks> post-test results
▪ 6.5 Survey
6. Method and Instruments
The use of mobile phones offers new possibilities to provide students with:
● highly interactive learning environments
● versatile opportunities to get new language input and to interact with other users in the target language
● to facilitate ubiquitous learning
7. Conclusions
● to implement more learning contents and levels
● to adapt the app for other foreign languages
● to use the app with a larger sample size
● to analyze students’ log and text-chat interactions
● to analyze the correlation of feedback (instant feedback & delayed Feedback) and learning outcomes
8. Future work
Would you like to test the App? ● App is available as
open-source software
● language independent
What you need!
● a server● android 2.3 ● integrated camera● Wifi/3G connection
[email protected] (Dep. de Filología Francesa e Inglesa, UCA)
manuel. [email protected] (Dep. of Computer Science, UCA)
[email protected] (Dep. of Computer Science, UCA)
[email protected] (Dep. of Computer Science, UCA)
For any further question please write us an email:
This work has been funded by:
● the Andalusian Government under the ASCETA (Ref. P09-TIC-5230, PAIDI programme);
● the Tecnologías móviles para el aprendizaje ubicuo de alemán (PI_14_104) project of UCA programme for Researching and Innovation in Education;
● the European Union under the OpenDiscoverySpace (CIP-ICT-PSP-2011-5) project;
● We would also like to thank David Romero, the Free/Libre Software and Open Knowledge Office at UCA (OSLUCA), Mar Dodero, Cristina Ortega, Ignacio Calleja, Pilar Romero and Andrea Calderón for their support during the project development.
Acknowledgements
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