An Approach to Accessible Serious Games for People with Dyslexia
Author(s) Ángel Jaramillo-Alcázar, Eduardo Venegas, Santiago Criollo-C, Sergio Luján-Mora
Dyslexia is a cognitive disorder that affects the evolutionary ability to read, write, and speak in people, affecting the correct learning of a large percentage of the population worldwide. In fact, incorrect learning is caused because the educational system does not take into consideration the accessibility parameters that people with dyslexia need to maintain a sustainable educational level equal to others. Moreover, the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, has been deployed in education programs, offering many benefits; however, the lack of accessibility of those devices creates new barriers to students with dyslexia that hinder their education. With the aim of reducing these barriers, this paper presents an approach to the development of accessible serious games games for children with dyslexia. As a case study, a serious game based on a previously proposed serious game development method and a new set of accessibility guidelines for people with dyslexia is presented. The main purpose of the serious video game is to improve the treatment of dyslexia, through the collection of data obtained from two puzzles designed to train certain cognitive areas that affect this disability. This article has a double contribution: on the one hand, the guidelines and the method that can help video game developers and therapists to develop accessible serious games for people with dyslexia and, on the other hand, the two specific serious games that can be used by therapists, family members and people with dyslexia themselves.
Date of Publication: 26 Feb 2021 Electronic ISSN: 2071-1050
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052507 Publisher: MDPI – Sustainability
Mobile Learning Technologies for Education: Benefits and Pending Issues
Author(s) Santiago Criollo-C, Andrea Guerrero-Arias, Ángel Jaramillo-Alcázar, Sergio Luján-Mora
Today’s world demands more efficient learning models that allow students to play a more active role in their education. Technology is having an impact on how instruction is delivered and how information is found and share. Until very recently, the educational models encouraged memorization as an essential learning skill. These days, technologies have changed the educational model and access to information. Knowledge is available online, mostly free, and easily accessible. Reading, sharing, listening and, doing are currently necessary skills for education. Mobile devices have become a complete set of applications, support, and help for educational organizations. By conducting an analysis of the behavior and use of mobile devices on current students, efficient educational applications can be developed. Although there are several initiatives for the use of mobile learning in education, there are also issues linked to this technology that must be addressed. In this work, we present the results of a literature review of mobile learning; the findings described are the result of the analysis of several articles obtained in three scientific repositories. This work also lists certain issues that, if properly addressed, can avoid possible complications to the implementation of this technology in education.
Date of Publication: 30 April 2021 Electronic ISSN: 2076-3417
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/app11094111 Publisher: MDPI – Applied Sciences
Systematic literature review on software architecture of educational websites
Author(s) Milton Campoverde-Molina, Sergio Luján-Mora, Llorenç Valverde
The modern world greatly depends on information systems and the software that governs them. The software architecture defines and designs the holistic structure that the software will have, its components, the interaction between them and all the development is done around it. The purpose of this systematic literature review (SLR) is to analyse the software architectures used in educational websites, methodologies, technological components and empirical results. The search of the SLR yielded 23 studies from the most significant academic sources in education and software engineering. The results of the SLR show that the analysed educational websites were proposing a software architecture, developing a system, proposing a model, assessing of a platform, proposing a Folksonomy-Based Ontology Maintenance, reviewing smart home design, and proposing a Web-based platform to aid parallel, distributed and high-performance computing education. Of the 23 selected studies, 13 carried out an evaluation of their research with either students, teachers, professionals or a combination of these. In conclusion, the selected studies present narrated experiments of projects or individuals that seek to improve collaborative learning in the educational area. Finally, an important finding is that the proposed software architectures do not contemplate laws or quality standards for universal access.
Date of Publication: 21 April 2021 Electronic ISSN: 1751-8814
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1049/sfw2.12024 Publisher: IET Software
Towards a New Learning Experience through a Mobile Application with Augmented Reality in Engineering Education
Author(s) Santiago Criollo-C, David Abad-Vásquez, Marjan Martic-Nieto, Fausto Andrés Velásquez-G, Jorge-Luis Pérez
With the rise of information technology and digitization, education has been faced with the need to adopt new learning models using technology to create innovative educational methodologies. In addition, due to pandemic restrictions and in order to help contain the spread of the virus (COVID-19), all educational institutions have been forced to switch immediately to online education. The application of augmented reality (AR) in education provides important benefits, such as increased engagement and interactivity, and can help to minimize the negative effects of the disruption of face-to-face education. Therefore, this paper focuses on describing the effect of an augmented reality mobile application (NetAR) that was developed for engineering students as a complement to traditional education. To achieve this objective, an experimental group and a control group were established to work with the application for three weeks for three hours a day. Moreover, there are a number of usability issues with AR that may impact learning effectiveness and motivation. Therefore, the usability of the application was evaluated with the IBM Computer System Usability Questionnaire (CSUQ) tool. The usability results show that users are satisfied with NetAR, and the statistical data from the control group indicate that the application positively affects learning.
Date of Publication: 24 May 2021 Electronic ISSN: 2076-3417
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/app11114921 Publisher: MDPI – Applied Sciences
Improving Accessibility in Online Education: Comparative Analysis of Attitudes of Blind and Deaf Students Toward an Adapted Learning Platform
Author(s) Batanero-Ochaíta C., De-Marcos L., Rivera L. F., Holvikivi J., Hilera J.R., Otón S.
People with different capacities, such as the deaf and blind, have problems accessing educational content due to lack of accessible technology. Accessibility and usability are closely related concepts that share the goals for a satisfactory user experience. Existing literature establishes a direct relation between accessibility and usability, and reports that there are problems with both in learning platforms, and more generally with most websites. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the accessibility and usability of a learning platform by interrogating its participants. Three groups of students with different capacities (blind, deaf and deaf-blind) used an accessible learning platform prototype to assess the accessibility and usability of the platform and its contents. This article presents a comparative study of the perception and attitude of blind and deaf students towards the use of a learning platform adapted to their personal needs. Results showed that their attitude to the adaptation was very positive but there were differences in the perception of the ease of use of the application and with the level of difficulty to access the learning content. This work contributes to the body of knowledge by showing the effects that adaptations have on learning contents for blind and deaf students in terms of accessibility and ease of use through the analysis of the perceptions of participants. Future work may consider increasing the sample of students, as well as developing and testing new technologies and approaches that address other forms of functional diversity.
Date of Publication: 06 July 2021 Electronic ISSN: 2169-3536
DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3095041 Publisher: IEEE
The use of accessibility metadata in e-learning environments: a systematic literature review
Ingavélez-Guerra P., Otón S. Hilera L., Sánchez-Gordón M.
E-learning environments constitute an essential element in education, as they help students to ensure their pass their courses and graduate on time. Although guidelines, techniques, and methods have been presented in some literature in recent years to contribute to the development of accessible e-learning environments that promote digital inclusion, their implementation is challenging. In this context, the use of accessibility metadata not only provides a way to enhance the description of adapted educational resources but also facilitates their search according to the needs and preferences of students, in particular those with disabilities. In this paper, a systematic review was conducted in order to provide the state of the art regarding the use of accessibility metadata in e-learning environments. A total of 746 documents were found during the period from 2012 to 2019, of which 31 were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria relevant to our review. The findings revealed an intensive use of models and standards of accessibility in e-learning environments, however, using accessibility metadata remains underused. In fact, the evaluation of accessibility and adaptability through the use of its metadata was not found. The findings obtained also helped to establish challenges and opportunities in this research field as well as to provide an overview that could support those who generate educational resources to keep their interest in making them accessible.
Date of Publication: 20 December 2021 Electronic ISSN:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-022-00876-w Publisher: Springer
