Facilitating knowledge construction in mobile learning contexts: A bi-directional peer-assessment approach

With the advancements in technology networks, mobile learning has been extensively applied in teaching contexts, enabling closer interaction between students and authentic environments. Previous studies have indicated that, when learning in real-world contexts, students need to interact with real learning targets and peers as well as the digital learning content; thus, effective learning strategies or tools are generally required for helping them organize knowledge and for promoting peer interactions. As a result, the present study developed a bi-directional peer-assessment-based concept mapping system, which not only engages students in assessing peers’ concept maps, but also encourages them to evaluate or respond to peers’ ratings and comments. To explore the effectiveness of this learning system, the study conducted an experiment in elementary science classes. A total of 101 fifth graders from four classes were recruited to participate in the study. Two classes were assigned to the experimental group and two to the control group. The experimental group adopted the bi-directional peer-assessment approach, while the control group adopted the conventional peer assessment approach for concept mapping. The results reveal that the bi-directional peer-assessment-based concept mapping system can not only increase students’ learning achievement and the completeness of their concept mapping, but can also enhance their critical thinking tendency and the feedback quality of their peer assessment.     

Mitigating the urban–rural educational gap in developing countries through mobile technology-supported learning

One form of educational inequality is the disparity that exists between urban and rural settings. Equal distribution of quality education is a challenge for developing countries due to the unavailability of resources. Various approaches to equal distribution are distance learning, telecast learning and e-learning; however, these approaches cannot achieve the desired objectives due to their limitations. This research aimed to investigate the interesting question of whether mobile technology can bring urban and rural settings closer together. A mobile application for learning Urdu grammar was designed to measure the learning gains of fourth-grade students at two different schools from urban and rural settings. A quantitative technique, the quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test method, was used to measure the effectiveness of the mobile application. The comparison of the students’ performances at the urban and rural schools illustrated the role of mobile technology in mitigating the educational gap. The present study provides evidence that children from different social backgrounds may benefit equally from mobile technology.     

Unsupervised word sense disambiguation for Korean through the acyclic weighted digraph using corpus and dictionary

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is meant to assign the most appropriate sense to a polysemous word according to its context. We present a method for automatic WSD using only two resources: a raw text corpus and a machine-readable dictionary (MRD). The system learns the similarity matrix between word pairs from the unlabeled corpus, and it uses the vector representations of sense definitions from MRD, which are derived based on the similarity matrix. In order to disambiguate all occurrences of polysemous words in a sentence, the system separately constructs the acyclic weighted digraph (AWD) for every occurrence of polysemous words in a sentence. The AWD is structured based on consideration of the senses of context words which occur with a target word in a sentence. After building the AWD per each polysemous word, we can search the optimal path of the AWD using the Viterbi algorithm. We assign the most appropriate sense to the target word in sentences with the sense on the optimal path in the AWD. By experiments, our system shows 76.4% accuracy for the semantically ambiguous Korean words.     

Investigating the role of computer‐supported annotation in problem‐solving‐based teaching: An empirical study of a Scratch programming pedagogy

For more than 2 years, Scratch programming has been taught in Taiwanese elementary schools. However, past studies have shown that it is difficult to find appropriate learning methods or tools to boost students’ Scratch programming performance. This inability to readily identify tutoring tools has become one of the primary challenges addressed in Scratch programming studies. To cope with this problem, we propose an innovative approach, which combines an Annotation‐based Scratch Programming (ASP) tool with the problem‐solving‐based teaching approach in Scratch programming pedagogy. The ASP tool was developed to enable students to create, review and share Scratch programming and homework annotations. In a quasi‐experimental study, we have evaluated Scratch programming pedagogy at a North Taiwanese elementary school to investigate the effects of instructional‐tools‐supported programming instructional modes on Scratch programming performance. The experimental results show that students who received ASP tool support in conjunction with a problem‐solving‐based teaching approach performed significantly better than the other groups. Based on our findings, the innovative approach was believed to play an important role in improving the learning patterns of younger pupils. Therefore, we suggest that teachers consider incorporating the innovative method into their teaching environments in order to boost students’ learning achievements in the area of Scratch programming and the subsequent learning process.     

常山属的初步研究

Dichroa Lour., a small genus of Saxifragaceae, contains about 12 species, ranging from the mainland of S. E. Asia southward to Pacific islands. But most of the species are more restricted in distribution. Of the 12  recognized species,  six  are known from South China and Indochina; three are confined to west and northwest New Guinea; two are endemic to the Phillipines. Only one species is widely distributed in S. E. Asia.  In the present paper, the genus is divided into two sections  and two series based on the number of stamens and the characteristics of the ovary.  One spe- cies is described as new.     

The effect of an MSN agent on learning community and achievement

The use of instant messaging to support e-learning will continue to gain importance because of its speed, effectiveness, and low cost. This study developed an MSN agent to mediate and facilitate students' learning in a Web-based course. The students' acceptance of the MSN agent and its effect on learning community identification and learning achievement were investigated using the technology acceptance model. Results indicated that the MSN agent proved easy to use, and that students recognized its benefits with regard to their learning. In more detail, students perceived that the MSN agent would be beneficial to learning community identification, but this perceived usefulness had less effect on their learning achievement. However, it was found that perceived system usage of the MSN agent was significantly related to learning achievement, which differed from the result of analyzing students' perceived usefulness of the agent. Rather than using a systematic recording log, the perceived system usage of the MSN agent was measured through questionnaires. Interview feedback revealed that effective learning was related to the learners' engagement in the MSN agent and not just from their perceived usefulness of it. Therefore, the MSN agent could have more potential to facilitate students' learning in an online environment if learning activities related to study are designed to promote students' engagement.