Using Multi-touch Multi-user Interactive Walls for Collaborative Active Learning

Abstract

Active learning has been advocated for enhancing students’ higher order cognition in social constructivist learning settings. However, with the increasing use of student-owned computing devices in face-to-face classrooms, there are risks of limited student-student interactions. Students are likely to be distracted by non-academic activities, hence becoming inactive with regards to the learning tasks. This article presents a technology enhanced learning approach, in which students perform group learning tasks using shared digital workspace while in a physical classroom. The workspace comprises of a 9-m wide screen wall with multi-touch, multi-user interfaces supporting multimodal interactions with and among learners through tactile, visual and auditory perceptions. While using the interactive wall to support group learning activities, the learners also perform various motoric actions, including gestural communications about the learning content as well as full body motion. An investigation into the role of interactive learning surfaces for supporting in-class collaborative learning and the user experience was conducted at University of Agder. The findings indicate that, through the use of the shared workspaces, students were more actively involved in collaborative learning. The practice of using an interactive wall contributed to increased interactions among students, critical thinking abilities and creativity. The study participants expressed satisfaction with regards to the usefulness of the interactive wall as a technology solution. It is suggested that designing relevant learning tasks for optimum technology use could potentially increase student engagement and the quality of user experience in collaborative learning.

1 Collaborative Active Learning in a Digital Age

Active learning has been advocated to increase the achievement of intended learning outcomes in general and develop higher order cognitive skills in particular. Christie and de Graaf (2017) argued that, philosophically, active learning would be considered as a tautology given that the learning does not happen unless the learner is actively engaged in meaningful activities. There are several approaches to active learning in higher education, whereby learners get engaged in learning activities that require reification of the learning. Some of the popular approaches consist of group learning activities, with clear indications of roles and responsibilities of each individual learner in a learning activity. Group activities can include tasks such as finding relevant learning materials, trying out different techniques and using appropriate tools to solve a real-world problem. Fundamentally, active learning stems from the constructivist learning theory which suggests that learners can make sense of the existing knowledge as well as create new meanings of their own. Learners carry out activities which require them to interact with the learning materials and explore diverse possibilities while devising ways of understanding phenomena or tackling challenging enough yet solvable tasks. Active learning through group works and problem-based learning has been successfully implemented in traditional brick and mortar learning environments, where students had limited or no access to personal, Internet connected devices. However, during the last 10 years, many institutions of higher learning are rapidly adopting the “bring-your-own-device (BYOD)” approach to technology enhanced teaching and learning. Despite the claimed benefits of BYOD (Song and Kong 2017), it can be challenging to keep the attention of all students and get them fully engaged with the learning activities while interacting on individual devices. It is quite common to observe students getting distracted by applications which are not necessarily educational, hence reducing their engagement in learning. On one hand, it can be argued that students may not have sufficient intrinsic motivation to prioritize the learning activities while using their own devices; on the other hand, it is challenging to maintain collaboration within the group without a common, shared user interface.

2 Multitouch Interactive Surfaces in Education

The last two decades have seen an increased use of interactive surfaces, commonly referred to as “Smart whiteboards” or “Interactive whiteboards”. The key interest of using such surfaces in education is to increase in-class student collaboration, learner-to-content interaction through direct manipulation of digital learning materials. The interactive surfaces also help teachers to better present the content, with support for multimedia content. However, room size interactive learning surfaces are not yet very common, even though they may present additional learning opportunities and improved in-class learning experience. Stoodley et al. (2017) observed that learners interacting with a large screen were actively engaged as they learned through exploration. Collaborative learning took place as learners directly communicate with each other, engaging in activities to advance the learning. The interactive wall supports active learning through multiple functionalities. Depending on the size of the interactive surface, multiple resources can be shown and interacted with at the same time. Those resources can have different modalities, as well as interaction possibilities. Although large sizes may present educational benefits, it is important to take into consideration certain usability aspects (Nutsi and Koch 2015): keeping different interaction zones in mind, digital workspace and physical personal space, accessibility and readability, audio sources and noise levels. This work attempts to answer the following research questions:

• Which teaching and learning activities can be supported through the use of interactive learning surfaces?

• What are the affordances of large interactive surfaces to mediate learning for both on-site and off-site students?

3 Methodology

3.1 Research Approach

This work is an action research carried out during Autumn semester of 2018. It is based on the “Interaction Design” course for master students in Multimedia and Educational Technology programme at University of Agder. Learning tasks included the design of an interactive system (high fidelity prototype). An online survey instrument was used to collect data from students who used an interactive wall and other interactive boards during the course. The survey comprised of closed-ended questions with net promoter scores (NPS), users’ opinions on 6-points Likert scale and open-ended questions. 20 out of 30 students responded to the survey shared through the learning management system (LMS) and student e-mail. Respondents (10 men and 10 women, 18–54 years old) could remain anonymous, but 7 out of 20 respondents did not choose that option. Additionally, classroom observations and interviews were conducted with 3 teachers.

3.2 Study Setup: The Future Classroom

Future Classroom is an integration of physical and virtual learning spaces for enabling high quality learning experiences. This facility at UiA campus Grimstad, supports both on-campus and off-campus learners using a combination of Internet-connected large-sized multi-touch multi-user interactive learning surfaces and personal computing devices. The classroom offers many possibilities to increase meaningful interactions for effective collaborative learning and co-creation of knowledge. It is equipped with multimodal digital collaboration and communication tools as well as movable furniture for flexible classroom arrangements. With a 25 people sitting capacity, the classroom features among other things, a 9-m wide interactive wall, the “Nureva Wall¹”.

Figure 1 shows a teaching scenario where a teacher presents the learning materials using the interactive wall. The wall is equipped with three short-throw projectors connected to two computers supporting multipanel connectivity. This interconnectivity allows presentations from multiple sources of content, for instance slides presentation and web content in multiple browser windows. The supporting software (“Span Workspace”²) provides possibilities to move content from one area of the wall to another, as well as direct manipulation of the visual content. This helps to better present and discuss content with leaners.

Fig. 1.

Teaching/lecture scenario with the teacher as sole user of the interactive wall

Applying a social-constructivist approach, student-centred learning effectively achieved, whereby students are invited to learn through group tasks. The technology solution caters for visual collaboration, and given the possibilities to directly manipulate content, student groups use the interactive wall to mediate group discussions for collaborative learning. The interactive wall has 15 touchpoints, which can allow up to 15 people to use it simultaneously, for example writing with their fingers. Figures 2 and 3 illustrate students working with group tasks. Assuming that a group size of 3 would allow effective participation of each student, and the size of the interactive wall, up to 4 groups are working on the wall. The rest of the class use the three smartboards provided in the classroom.

Fig. 2.

Small group work: 3 students per group.

Fig. 3.

Students visual collaboration.

Once students are done with working in small groups, each group presents their work to the entire classroom as shown in Fig. 4. This increases student-student interactions as the audience asks questions and give feedback to the presenting group, hence increasing engagement.

Fig. 4.

Students group presentations

In addition to collaborative learning within the physical classroom, there are also learning scenarios in which some of the students are off-campus. Using Span Workspace solution, all students are engaged in collaborative learning as those in the classroom directly interact with the Span wall, whereas those off-campus interact through a web interface and note application as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5.

On-campus and off-campus group collaboration

Further on, using the Span Workspace solution, students using the interactive wall can share their work with students on other interactive boards and vice-versa as indicated in Fig. 6. Furthermore, it is noted that the interactive boards support proprietary solutions to share workspaces for in-class and off-campus (cloud-based) visual collaboration.

Fig. 6.

In-class visual collaboration with multiple interactive surfaces

4 Findings and Discussions

This study explored how large size interactive surfaces could support teaching and learning activities, focusing on the usability of the technical tools and collaboration learning. On the question of familiarity with interactive whiteboards, 16 out of 20 respondents to the survey were detractors whereas 4 were passive (−80 NPS). It is suggested that users may need at least a short training for optimum use of the tools. Common challenges for teachers and students include getting the technology to work properly, finding the right modality and cases of losing work in progress as a result of experimenting new tools/features. Students expressed noticeable level of dissatisfaction with regards to the expected interface designs and system responsiveness.

The survey results suggest that it was challenging for the students to use the interactive wall as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7.

Students’ opinions on the interactive wall usability

Working with the interactive wall has proven to be rewarding yet challenging for teachers. They mostly use it as a standard projection screen. However, it was also said that using the interactive wall, it was possible for the course teacher to see group works of 3–4 groups at the same time. The teacher was able give quick feedback on the learning progress, seeing the performance of each group in relation to the assessment criteria but also in comparison with the achievements of other students’ groups. It was also observed that students from different groups had opportunities to discuss about the task and give each other some hints. The interactive wall facilitated increased interactions within and among the student groups. The interactions were enriched by both verbal and written communications. However, in peer review process, students provided direct oral feedback supplemented by written feedback via other communication channels such as Facebook Messenger. Students also used GoogleDocs platform to co-create, and comment on the same document streamed from one of the students’ computers to the group interactive surface. Everyone could make a contribution from their computers while the changes were visible to the entire group. This way of working stimulated critical thinking abilities and gave each group member the possibility to contribute. The teacher could keep an eye on the learners, providing guidance and engaging students through socratic questioning (Paul and Elder 2007) and provoking techniques.

While the interactive wall is mostly perceived as useful in educational scenarios as indicated in Fig. 8, the focus should not be on the technology but “what lectures and assignments actually require such technology, and how it can be most efficiently utilized. In other words, not making a technology room just for the technology, but rather for the tasks it’s meant to assist.”

Fig. 8.

Perceived usefulness of the interactive wall in educational scenarios

The results in Fig. 9 suggest that the interactive wall can play an important role as a medium to support interaction. However, this study also found that the interactive wall should only be considered as a supplement to other tools.

Fig. 9.

Students’ opinions on supporting interaction and learning

5 Summary and Future Directions

This article discussed an investigation into the use of large-size interactive surfaces for collaborative learning. The presented scenarios of use include the majority of students being in face-to-face teaching and learning on campus, while a few students could be off-campus. A wall-wide multi-touch multi-user interactive screen has been in use over one semester and proved to be useful for group learning. Students’ interactions are increased through multimodal communication, with possibilities of direct manipulation of learning content as well as human-human verbal and gestural communication. Three additional multitouch interactive surfaces were also used in the same physical classroom, allowing the sharing of workspaces for multiple student groups and off-campus students through cloud-based solutions. The study suggests that the use of shared workspaces can encourage students to discuss ideas and concepts together with others, while the teacher serves as a course facilitator, hence supporting student-centred learning. The results show a potential to use the interactive wall in collaborative creative work, such as graphics design and user interfaces design. However, the technology solution still presents several usability problems, and more tailored learning tasks are necessary for optimal use.

Future research should focus on group learning tasks design, to use the natural user interfaces and multimodality support for increased interactions. Further on, it would be interesting to study the impact of using such advanced technology tools on the learning performance over more than one semester.