Social interaction through a mobile instant messaging application using geographic location for blended collaborative learning. Christos Troussas, Akrivi ...
Social interaction through a mobile instant messaging application using geographic location for blended collaborative learning Christos Troussas, Akrivi Krouska, Maria Virvou Software Engineering Laboratory, Department of Informatics University of Piraeus Piraeus, Greece {ctrouss, akrouska, mvirvou}@unipi.gr Abstract—Blended collaborative learning describes the combination of online collaboration with traditional classroom collaboration methods and independent study to create a new, hybrid way of tutoring. As such, students can increase their metacognitive awareness, improve their understanding and develop a high communicative competence through the integration of mobile technology. This study presents the development of a mobile instant messaging application which can give students the opportunity either to chat with their peers and instructors or to create groups for discussion. Furthermore, this application also incorporates notifications about the geographic location of users in a way to be informed concerning the proximity of their classmates and instructors. Hence, through the application, students can either communicate with the use of handheld devices or in case they are close to each other, they can meet in person to reap the benefits of face-to-face collaboration. Keywords—collaboration, communication, instant messaging application, mobile learning, geographic location
I. INTRODUCTION With the ever increasing adoption of Internet, distance education is supposed to be an integral part of the learning process. The emerging need of educational systems that can offer a pleasant environment and personalized tutoring is present [1]. Adaptive individualized online learning systems can also enhance the educational procedure by offering a student-centered environment of learning and prioritizing student’s needs [2]. Mobile learning (m-learning) can further enhance the online instruction given that it offers tutoring and/or even collaboration without dependence of time and place. Handheld devices, such as smartphones, tablets and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), can support educational activities by rendering the interaction, collaboration, active participation, information and resource sharing, and critical thinking between students feasible [3]. Given that mobile devices can easily communicate with other devices of similar technology, they offer the possibility to learners of sharing files, data or simple text messages. Learners can also cooperate with their peers or
teachers, by being connected to a shared data network, further enhancing opportunities for communication. Furthermore, mobile devices are especially well suited to different environments simply because they are available in different contexts, and so they can enhance the learning activity [4]. Socialization has significant pedagogical implications in collaborative learning that support the student’s personal relationships and social interaction with their classmates [5]. Hence, collaboration among students or between students and instructor can reap the benefits of knowledge sharing and mutual information provision; thus, students can learn in a faster pace. Through communication using mobile devices, students are encouraged students to keep in touch with their classmates and teacher, have a support group and turn to each other for questions or even build a tight group. Hence, communication with one or multiple friends (group chatting) offers the following: •
Active participation due to encouragement from classmates or instructor.
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Negotiation, in case of a disagreement.
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Debating so that a better idea is adopted.
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Reviewing the ideas of others by cultivating mutual understanding and accepting other opinions.
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Sharing and supporting concepts.
Moreover, online digital media for collaboration can be combined with traditional classroom collaboration methods
so that the students’ learning goals can be achieved in an effective way. Hence, while students still attend schools with a teacher present, following face-to-face classroom practices, they can experience, at the same time, computer-mediated activities regarding content and delivery, providing a blended collaborative learning. In view of the above, this paper presents a mobile application which is designed and implemented for users who want to communicate with their friends through instant messages without being charged by telecommunication companies. This can be achieved simply if users have a
working phone number and either a wireless local area networking (WiFi) connection or an internet connection. This mobile application can foster the communication since it also provides indication of geographic location and the students can be notified by the system about the proximity of other students or their instructors. Hence, apart from the communication with the use of handheld devices, this study also promotes the collaboration with students that are close, offering blended collaborative learning.
III. INSTANT MESSAGING APPLICATION FOR BLENDED COLLABORATIVE LEARNING The architecture of our mobile messaging application follows the general architecture of mobile applications. Namely, as shown in Fig. 1, web services provide remote access to the application and are necessary for its effective operation and interoperability. The web server and the database consist of core modules of the architecture of the mobile messaging application.
II. RELATED WORK This section provides a literature review in the use of instant messaging applications or other communication modules in the field of education. In [6] and [7], the authors of these two papers present experiments which were conducted in two different universities. Both authors used two different groups of students. In these two experiments, the first group used the WhatsApp1 instant messaging application in conjunction with traditional way of learning, while the other group experienced in-class activities without the use of the application. According to these studies, both authors attest that the learning using the WhatsApp1 application helps students understand better the learning material, spot the difficulties and easily construct and share knowledge than the traditional learning. In [8], the authors designed a system which would offer communication between mobile devices. The authors’ proposal is to provide the user a studio of tasks allowing the fast creation of communications tools such as Diary, Forum, Shared spaces, White board and chat. Also, the authors illustrate the importance of the communication in the educational process through mobile phones. In [9], the author investigates whether mobile devices are currently used to enhance or support learning. According to this study, mobile devices, as communication tools, offer a fertile ground to education. The findings indicate that students are using their mobile devices to enhance learning outside of the classroom. However, after a thorough investigation in the related scientific literature, we came up with the result that there has not been developed a mobile instant messaging application using the geographic location of users. Hence, we designed and implemented this mobile messaging system that can assist online learning while through notifications users can be informed about the proximity of their classmates or teachers. As such, blended collaborative learning is further enhanced since users can choose either to communicate through their handheld devices or to meet in person for the needs of the educational process.
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The official website of WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com
Fig. 1. Logical architecture.
The fundamental capabilities offered by the application are the following, as also shown in the Use Case diagram of Fig. 2: • To send to and receive messages from friends who are connected one another with this application • To create chat groups with more than two users who can chat together (the user can add users from his friends list) • To edit your personal profile by changing user profile image • To build a “Friend Finder” feature with which the user will receive a notification of whether one of his friends is close to him The Use Case diagram, which is shown in Fig. 2, is a representation of a users’ interaction with the messaging application and shows the relationship between the users (students and instructors) and the different use cases in which the users are involved. Specifically, it identifies the different types of users of the application and the different use cases. The different uses of our messaging application can be summarized: •
Quick and simple communication with others at anytime and anywhere.
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Supporting direct communication of people who may be friends in the application, even without knowing it, resulting in a reduction in impersonal communication behind an electronic device.
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Favoring people’s communication and socialization.
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Knowing the classmates or teacher who are near to the student and can meet in person.
Fig. 2. Use case diagram.
Communicating or chatting in groups through the mobile messaging application can offer a fertile ground to work on problems, answer questions about the learning material, discuss case studies or simply master the basic concepts. The reason they learn is pretty straightforward; when students work with content in a group they are figuring things out for themselves rather by chatting with peers or their instructor. Moreover, when students are trying to explain concepts to each other, to argue for an answer, or to justify a conclusion, that interaction clarifies their own thinking and often it clarifies the thinking of other students. It needs to be stated that according an article of the April issue of The Teaching Professor newsletter2, the explanations that students wrote to justify a chosen answer were stronger after just seven minutes of discussion with two or three students; this fact further clarifies how important is online collaboration. 2
The Teaching Professor: https://www.magnapubs.com/newsletter/the-teachingprofessor (April, 2013)
Through our mobile messaging application, students can learn how groups function productively. In order for groups to function productively, students must fulfill individual responsibilities. Productive group members come prepared, they contribute to the group interaction, they support each other, and they deliver good work on time. In order for individuals to function productively in groups, they have the right to expect the group to value their individual contributions, to address behaviors that compromise group productivity, and to divide the work equitably among members. Also, they can learn why groups make better decisions than individuals. Students can see how different perspectives, constructive deliberation, questioning, and critical analysis can result in better solutions and performance. If students take an exam individually and then do the same exam as a group, the group exam score is almost always higher because students share what they know, debate the answers, and through that process can often find their way to the right answer. They can learn how to work with others. Group work helps students learn how to work with people outside their circle of friends, including those who have different backgrounds and experiences. They can even learn how to work with those who
disagree with them, and others they might not “like” or want as friends. The aforementioned benefits of collaboration and group working are combined with the characteristic of notification of proximity, offered by our mobile application. Specifically, blended collaborative learning is achieved as the application provides a platform in which the users can collaborate in groups and also a notification message informs the students about the proximity of their friends or teachers and thus they can meet with them to experience a face-to-face traditional instruction. IV. OVERVIEW OF THE APPLICATION Firstly, the application asks the user to log in with his/her Gmail account and several information about the user are held in the database. If the user does not have a Gmail account in order to log in to our messaging application, s/he is asked to create a new one. Fig. 3 illustrates a private messaging room, where two users can send messages to each other. Fig. 4 presents a group discussion. This screenshot shows a group discussion, named “Final Test”, where the students and the teacher can exchange messages for the final test. In Fig. 5, the notification message is shown which can inform the student who is close to him/her (either a classmate or a teacher) and they can either send message or meet in person and reap the benefits of collaboration in the learning process.
Fig. 4. Group chatting.
Fig. 5. Notification about proximity of friends.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
Fig. 3. Private chatting.
From the perspective of online communications industries, they are in their infancy regarding the development of messaging applications. Given that people dedicate a lot of time of their everyday life to communicate with friends, the ground for creating such application and enriching them with different modules and capabilities is still fertile. From the perspective of blended collaborative learning, instant messaging applications can be observed as a valuable tool for communication among students and teachers and to assist the tutoring of different concepts, such as programming languages, mathematics, foreign languages etc. The main conclusion of this study is that our application provides the students with the ability to communicate and interact with classmates and instructors and to be aware of the distance between them and classmates or teachers. Hence, they have the
opportunity either to communicate using their handheld devices or to meet in person with those that are close. Future work includes the following:
REFERENCES [1]
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Capability to log in to the application not only with a Gmail account but also other accounts, eg. Facebook account.
[2]
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Uploading “stories” so that users can share their daily routine with their friends.
[3]
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Blocking users with whom you do not want to interact for any reason.
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Sending an invitation to friends who do not have the app but would like to use it.
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Evaluate the application in terms of functionality.
[4]
[5]
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors of this paper would like to thank the University of Piraeus Research Center for the financial support of this research paper.
[6]
[7]
[8] [9]
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