Animating eco-education: To see, feel, and discover in an augmented reality-based experiential learning environment
Introduction
Modern economic and human development trends has increasingly created a polluted environment, thus highlighting the urgent need for ecological education. While many Asian countries stress ecological education, they perform poorly in instituting affective education (Chang et al., 2011, Gurevitz, 2000) and elementary and middle school ecological and environmental education is still carried out in classroom. This lack of real-world interactions and exploration makes it difficult for students to develop an emotional attachment for or interest in ecology, thus limiting their enthusiasm for practicing environmental protection (Hautecoeur, 2002). In addition, numerous studies of human interaction with real ecological environments have found that “emotion” is an important learning factor, but is frequently overlooked. Reis and Roth (2009) pointed out the importance of emotion in ecological environment education, and the problems that can arise when such emotion is lacking.
Botanical gardens help maintain plant diversity in urban areas and provide opportunities for learners to experience complex ecosystems. Rich ecological and learning resources make botanical gardens a suitable outdoor informal learning environment (Chang et al., 2014, Chiou et al., 2010, Liu et al., 2012). However, traditional display cards at such gardens typically only render information via text or graphics, often providing only a very limited introduction to specific plants. This approach makes it provide the rich information learners need to truly explore their environment, and limits the learning effectiveness of outdoor teaching (Sommerauer & Müller, 2014). Although audio tours have become quite common in recent years, and provide users with more in-depth explanations than conventional signage, such systems still cannot provide systematic and interactive learning in outdoor learning environment (Chang et al., 2014). Theoretically, assistive technology that can provide learners with expanded access to practical real-world information could provide a more effective approach to implementing ecological educational activities in contexts such as botanical gardens.
The development of information technologies has led to many innovations in modern teaching and learning methods. Integrating new technologies into instruction allows teachers to transform learning materials from a fixed combination of texts and graphics into more interactive multimedia material. The integration of digital learning with convenient and fast internet technology has further lowered the barrier of differentiated teaching and helped to overcome time and space constraints in traditional teaching models, thereby moving students from the passive reception of knowledge to more active learning approaches (Liu et al., 2012, Mohammadyari and Singh, 2015). Smart phones and tablet computers have recently emerged as mainstream devices for use in mobile learning. Harris (2001) believed that the convenience and immediacy of mobile learning provides more learners with additional learning opportunities. Mobile learning allows teaching/learning to be carried out in authentic outdoor learning environments, providing learners with a broader range of opportunities to acquire knowledge. Moreover, authentic learning environments do more to evoke affective feeling than classroom learning environments (Gulikers et al., 2005, Sommerauer and Müller, 2014).
Given the limitations of real world education in ecological environments and regular disregard for emotion factors, this study uses botanical garden-based outdoor ecological learning as an experimental situation, integrating experiential learning theory to strengthen real-world exploration, and adopts augmented reality (AR) technology to create an mobile learning system to break through real-world information limitations, thereby exploring learning effectiveness and learners' emotional conversion process.
The present work designs and implements a coordinated actual and AR virtual action ecological learning system based on experiential learning theory. Furthermore, an AR system is developed to apply the experiential learning model to ecological education. In addition, this study examines the impact of learner emotion on experiential learning and learning performance using the AR action ecological learning system.
Section snippets
Augmented reality in education
Milgram and Kishino proposed that the actual and virtual environment are on a continuum (Milgram's Reality-Virtuality Continuum, Fig. 1) and defined AR as a sort of display device that allows for the visualization of virtual objects in a real world environment. AR can be defined as any case in which an otherwise real environment is “augmented” by means of virtual objects (Milgram, Takemura, Utsumi, & Kishino, 1994). This technology allows users to interact with virtual images in real world
Eco-discovery AR-based experiential learning model
The beneficial effect of authentic outdoor environment on ecological learning outcomes is often limited by the lack of on-site information. Therefore, to allow students to become immersed in environmental exploration and interaction with AR-enhanced ecological information in a botanical garden setting, this study developed an innovative learning model, the eco-discovery AR-based learning model (EDALM) (Fig. 2). EDALM integrates AR technology with the four stages of Kolb's experiential learning
Results
In this study, the goal is to explore the impact of different learning tools and different experiential approaches on learners' emotional affection and learning effectiveness in an ecological experiential learning environment. A pre-test and post-test design was used to examine the impact of learning tools based on the post-test emotional affect and learning effectiveness.
Tech-and-human model is the most effectiveness for ecological learning
The AR plus Commentator Group (Group B) exhibited the best learning performance. One student commented, “(I) feel that participating in activities makes me perform better in biological quizzes.” The integrated learning model imposes no additional cognitive burden for students, but rather produces a complementary effect. The friendly guidance of staff helped compensate for potential alienation resulting from use of unfamiliar technologies, while the personalized technology overcomes problems
Conclusions
Experimental results and student feedback suggests that, although students in Taiwan are largely familiar with tablet computers, they are not accustomed to using digital products in outdoor environments for learning purposes. Due to the high cost of such equipment, the difficulty of requiring all learners to prepare devices with similar specifications, or parental resistance to the use of such products in learning, few students have actually used tablet computers for personalized learning in
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of China for financially supporting this research under Contract No. MOST 104-2511-S-025-002-MY3, MOST 104-2511-S-005-003, MOST 103-2511-S-025-001-MY3, and MOST 103-2622-S-005-001-CC3.
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