German Language Training App for Primary School Children

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Educational Technology, TU Graz
„We care about education“
S C I E N C E n P A S S I O N n T E C H N O L O G Y
u www.tugraz.at
German Language Training App
for Primary School Children
June 25-29, 2018
Alexander Schwaiger, Markus Ebner, Martin Ebner, Maria Grandl
Educational Technology

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Actual Situation in Learning
•  Traditional methods are still dominant
•  Experience is the key to build deep knowledge and
mental models
•  Learning and understanding without experience?
•  A call for a new educational technology
June 25-29, 2018
Martin Ebner, Educational Technology

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Research Questions
•  How shall a game be designed to improve German
language skills for primary school children?
•  How can personalized content be delivered to
different groups of age that heavily vary in their
available vocabulary?
•  Which exercises must be created to support
Learning Analytics?
June 25-29, 2018

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Games and Education
•  Children have always played games for fun
•  The game industry is growing
•  57% of online teens actively create content
•  Children want to be producer instead of consumer
➤ Solution: Digital Game-Based Learning
June 25-29, 2018

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Digital Game-Based Learning
•  A selected problem scenario is embedded into a play
framework
•  Reduction of the number of educational instructions
•  Support of the learning process
•  Decisions based on context with immediate feedback
•  Motivation generally decreases when solving
challenging tasks
➤ But why not with games?
June 25-29, 2018

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Learning with Games
•  Information is provided just in time and on demand
•  Carefully selected order of problems
•  Creation of Expertise by Experience
•  Keeping the player motivated is the key
•  Increased Motivation leads to more Willpower
•  Acting at a certain distance
•  Children can dive into Worlds full of Opportunities
June 25-29, 2018

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How to create a good game?
•  A good learning system is indispensable
•  Characteristics
•  Focus on well-ordered problems
•  Support the creation of non-cognitive skills
•  Provide the necessary tools to solve the problems
•  Learn and explore instead of only facts and information
•  Challenge the players to build deeper knowledge
•  Use gamification to keep players motivated
•  Different types of systems support different learning
objectives
June 25-29, 2018

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Recognice the potential of DGBL!
•  Can support the learning process
•  Promotes several types of learning
•  Allow children to experience, think, fail and succeed
•  Provide valuable context and feedback based on
actions and decisions
•  Use gamification to keep players motivated
•  Anywhere, anytime and on demand
•  Not all games are suited for learning
June 25-29, 2018

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The Chocolate Factory
•  German language training app
for primary school children
•  Developed for iOS and Android
•  Different types of levels
•  Gamification system
•  Personalized content delivery
•  Connection to the IDeRBlog
June 25-29, 2018

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Story and Design (1)
•  Goal: Master different types of language training
exercises to collect ingredients
•  Gamification: Use the
collected Ingredients to
produce chocolate
June 25-29, 2018

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Story and Design (2)
June 25-29, 2018

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Types of Levels
•  4 Types of exercises
•  One is unlocked after the other
•  Right / Wrong
•  Lower-/Uppercase
•  Insert
•  Bonus (Combination)
June 25-29, 2018

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Right / Wrong Exercise
•  Presents a specific word
•  Decide if the word is written right or wrong
•  Yes / No buttons
•  Direct feedback
•  If the answer was wrong,
the correct word is
displayed
June 25-29, 2018

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Lower- / Uppercase Exercise
•  Children need to decide, whether one word is written
in Lower- or Uppercase notation
the correct spelling is
displayed
June 25-29, 2018

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Insert Exercise
•  Children need to decide on a specific word’s missing
letter
the correct letter is
displayed
June 25-29, 2018

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Gamification
•  Use the collected ingredients to produce flavoured
chocolate bars
•  Every chocolate bar
requires a different
amount of ingredients
•  Keeps children motivated
•  12 Bars can be collected
June 25-29, 2018

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Research Study (1)
•  Austrian primary school, second Grade
•  16 children
•  Introduction to the game
•  30 min game session
•  1900 answers collected
June 25-29, 2018

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Research Study (2)
•  After playing the children were divided into groups
•  Rating of different statements with smileys
•  Using the Cut-Off-Technique
•  Each group discussed their point of view
•  One decision to agree on within the group
June 25-29, 2018

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Research Study (3)
•  Statements:
1.  The game was easy to play
2.  I liked to play the game
3.  I find it great to produce my own chocolate
4.  The exercises are easy for me
5.  I want to play the game again
•  Smileys:
June 25-29, 2018

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Research Study (4)
•  Feedback Result
•  Chocolate creator was liked the most
•  Positive feedback among all children
•  Balanced distribution among exercises played
June 25-29, 2018
0%
18%
35%
53%
70%
88%
5 min 10 min 15 min 20 min 25 min 30 min
CorrectAnswers
Game Session

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June 25-29, 2018
martin.ebner@tugraz.at
https://learninglab.tugraz.at/ https://elearningblog.tugraz.at/

German Language Training App for Primary School Children

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