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Paper—Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for German Language Acquisition Based...
Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for
German Language Acquisition Based on Learning
Analytics Measurements
https://doi.org/10.3991/ijai.v2i1.12317
Markus Friedl, Markus Ebner (), Martin Ebner
Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria
markus.ebner@tugraz.at
Abstract—The use of digital media is increasingly being promoted in school
teaching. Since this aspect changes the interaction between teachers and pupils,
this research is concerned with the development of a prototype of a mobile ap-
plication for Android and iOS, in which different learning applications for lan-
guage acquisition are offered on the basis of learning analytical measurements
provided by experts in the field. By logging and collecting interactions of the
user, it is possible to create a variety of statistical evaluations and thus respond
to the needs and weaknesses of students. For the evaluation of the application, a
user experience test was carried out, whereby the child-friendly operation of the
application was tested. Due to the very positive feedback, the design was found
to be good and can therefore be further developed.
Keywords—Learning Analytics, Language Acquisition, Mobile Learning Ap-
plication, Digital Media in Teaching, Technology Enhanced Learning, Educa-
tional Data Mining
1 Introduction
In this day the use of digital media in school is steadily growing (Robin, 2008) and
will play an ever-greater role in the future than it already is today. Instead of using
classical learning materials, electronic aids such as computers are increasingly being
used. Through the development of tablets and their widespread use, a new way of
consuming digital media has been created. Due to their simple operation, most chil-
dren of the youngest primary school age have already mastered the use of such devic-
es, so that their use in the classroom is very obvious.
But s big problem is the changed communication between teacher and student. By
solving tasks in digital form, they are usually corrected digitally, and the result is
returned. This means that students often only see the result of their tasks without an
oral explanation. It is also difficult to generate and provide individual tasks for classes
or even individuals as platforms do not support this.
In order to counteract this aspect, a prototype of a mobile application for Android
and iOS was developed in the course of this research. With the help of the application
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Paper—Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for German Language Acquisition Based...
different exercise formats and different tasks will be offered to learn the German lan-
guage based on Learning Analytics Measurements.
The exercises will be used by the IDeRBlog platform (Aspalter, Edtstadler, and
Martich, 2017), which will be created and maintained by experts and teachers respec-
tively. This platform provides an intelligent dictionary containing different data of
each user, which will also be used in the app in the future.
Since all exercises and tasks are loaded by an API from an external server, the
main focus of the app was a simple handling and comprehensible presentation of the
contents. Particular attention was paid to child-friendly operation, as the main target
group of the app are children of primary school age. In order to realize this aspect, a
User Experience (UX) test with children from Austria was carried out. The task was
that each child tried out all exercise formats and completed a short questionnaire after
each exercise. In addition, a discussion was held about which things might be unclear
or badly formulated and whether there were any suggestions for improvement. Since
the feedback from the test was very positive and the children had a lot of fun practic-
ing, the user-friendly design was confirmed and for this reason the prototype can be
further developed in this way.
2 Related Work
2.1 Digital media in teaching
In general teaching can be explained as a process of interactions between teachers
and their pupils. This process is supported by various activities by teachers with spe-
cific skills (Tulodziecki, Herzig, and Blömeke, 2017). The effect of digital media in
teaching is influenced by different potential factors. These factors can be divided into
following points (Herzig, 2014):
The digital media and the content which is contained by the media
Media offerings integrates different teaching processes
The different persons which are involved in this process, in this area these are
teachers and their pupils
According to (Herzig, 2014) the context of these factors there are four categories
which serve to fulfil the factors. A digital media can have individual meanings, or an
offer also can cause an interaction which have specific characteristics. These charac-
teristics have more or less influence on the teaching process. Teachers usually have
different areas of knowledge in which they are experts, and their expertise influences
the way they teach and learn. Students also differ greatly in their knowledge, recep-
tiveness to new knowledge and educational proximity. These factors show that the
effect of digital media does not only depend on their content.
By using such media, the learning performance is to be increased in comparison to
classical media, whereby an added value can be achieved. If, however, these media
are too monotonous, this impairs the motivation of the learners and causes the oppo-
site of a worse performance. The aim is to increase the learning performance and the
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Paper—Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for German Language Acquisition Based...
success with unvarying effort or have a constant success in learning with less exertion
(Kerres, 2002).
2.2 Learning analytics
With LA, large amounts of data are collected and evaluated so that the results can
have a positive influence on the teaching process in the future. The terms Technology
Enhanced Learning (TEL) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) are often associated
with LA. LA can be seen as a subdivision of TEL and has been a new trend since it
was mentioned a few years ago (Johnson, Adams, and Cummins, 2012). EDM deals
with the storage of data and should answer the question of which data is important
and meaningful in order to gain added value from LA (Duval, 2011).
Learning Analytics (LA) can be seen as a process with iterative steps. These steps
can be divided into the following steps (Chatti et al., 2013):
Data collection and pre-processing: In the first step, the data is collected and con-
verted to a uniform format. The final result is influenced by the quality of the data.
Analytics and action: With the aim of various techniques the collected data is ana-
lyzed and visualized. This step is aimed at increasing the effectiveness of learning.
Post-processing: If the result obtained is not satisfactory, new data is collected in
this step and the process starts again with the first step.
In addition, there are various drivers that can be used to better explain LA in the
learning area. However, these drivers do not only apply to education, but are also used
in many other areas and describe the complexity of LA. By the use of Virtual Learn-
ing Environment (VLE) systems large amounts of data, which is called big data, are
generated. Therefore, it is important to create systems that can handle, analyze and
process this amount of data within a reasonable time. It is also important that teachers
receive feedback from online courses offered in order to evaluate and, where appro-
priate, improve the teaching process. Conversely, it is also important that students
receive help from their teachers, even if they are not physically present. As a third
major point, it is of crucial importance that this system is supported by politicians, as
this process requires many resources and large investments.
2.3 Mobile language learning applications
Many mobile applications for language learning are offered. In relation to the de-
veloped prototypes, comparable applications were tested to get an overview and pos-
sible design suggestions. The focus was also on whether the applications could be
used in schools.
What was immediately noticed during the research was that most applications offer
very little content without payment. In addition, advertisements are often displayed,
which makes their use in schools impossible. It should also be noted that the main
target group of applications varies greatly. Many applications, which are designed for
children, contain a lot of playful elements and animations, whereby the focus on
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learning often fades into the background and children are easily distracted. Other
applications are mainly made for adults, but the design is often not very understanda-
ble for children.
Furthermore, it is often difficult that the mobile applications can be used in
schools, because teachers rarely have access to the data of their students and can see
or this functionality is not available at all.
3 Research Design
Many applications have been developed at the Graz University of Technology (TU
Graz) in the past (Ebner, 2015). Each application must be evaluated by a field test to
ensure that the application meets the specified requirements. Since all exercise for-
mats and tasks are given by professors, the focus is on testing the design of the devel-
oped application. In order to evaluate the exercise format and its design, a question-
naire is completed after an exercise has been completed. These answers do not pro-
vide representative data in order to obtain a high-quality evaluation. Furthermore, the
application must be tested by several children over a longer period of time in order to
get better results.
In order to start the test, each child was provided with an iPad on which the appli-
cation was already installed and ready for use. The children were then asked to select
an exercise format one after the other and start an exercise. In order not to lose the
overview, all children were asked to start the same exercise format and wait until
everyone had finished the exercise. During the exercise, notes were written down to
document the different reactions or possible problems that occurred. At the end of the
exercise, each child fills in a questionnaire (Fig. 1), where they are asked to answer,
whether the task was comprehensible, could be solved independently, whether the
exercise was fun and whether the exercise would also like to be done at home. In
order to make the evaluation understandable, smileys were used as a scale, whereby
the laughing smiley means very good and the sad smiley not good. At the beginning
of the test it could be noticed that the children felt that their performance was being
evaluated and that the notes written refer to their solutions. Therefore, it was im-
portant to mention several times that only the application should be evaluated and that
the children cannot do wrong. After a short period of familiarization, the children's
nervousness subsided, and the application was tested with full concentration.
In addition to the questionnaire, the children in the group were asked if anything
could be improved in the design or if anything was unclear. Then the same procedure
was repeated with the next exercise format until all exercise formats were evaluated.
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Fig. 1. UX-Feedback questionnaire
4 Prototype – IDeRBlog ii
The IDeRBlog ii application is a native developed application for Android and
iOS, which is designed for the use on tablets. The application is designed to support
the learning of the German language based on LA measurements. In the application
one has the possibility to select different exercise formats and to start tasks with dif-
ferent difficulty levels after the Login by means of username and password. The user
login is required, since the application can currently only be used by members of the
IDeRBlog platform. In addition, this platform provides a separate intelligent diction-
ary for each user, which will be used in the application in the future.
The application provides five different exercise formats as shown in Fig. 2, which
contain any number of exercises in different difficulty levels. The first format in the
upper right corner is called “Match” and in this exercise, pupils must assign a given
word to different word categories. There are two basic types of the exercise of assign-
ing a word. The first is by drag and drop a box to the correct categories. With the
second type, a displayed word must be assigned to the correct categories and typed in
correctly. After checking each task, the user receives feedback as to whether the task
was solved correctly or incorrectly. If everything is correct, this is indicated by text
and the exercise can be continued. If a mistake has been made, the user will be shown
the correct solution as shown in Fig. 3. The user receives such feedback after each
task has been solved, and any incorrect information is transferred to an external server
for evaluation.
ÜBUNG: USER:
PC
iPad
Ich wusste, was die
Aufgabenstellung war.
Ich konnte die Aufgabe
selber lösen.
Es hat mir Spaß gemacht
zu üben.
Ich möchte die Übung auch
zuhause machen.
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Fig. 2. Overview of the exercise formats
In the second exercise format (Fig. 2) in the lower left corner, which is called
“Wheel of Fortune”, pupils must type an auditioned word into an input field. The
word can be auditioned as often as needed before it is entered. This exercise can be
made more difficult by setting a timer that limits the time of input. If the word is en-
tered correctly, it will be shown to the Student. Otherwise, the wrong input and the
correct word will be displayed one below the other as feedback.
The third format with the title "Keywords" in the middle of the screen (Fig. 2)
again has two basic configurations of the exercise. In the first configuration, a word is
displayed which is divided into the individual letters or graphemes and the student
must mark difficult places in the word. Once the word has disappeared, it must be
entered correctly. In the second configuration, a timer limits the memorization of the
word before it must be re-entered. The feedback after solving a task is identical to the
previously mentioned feedback.
In the upper right corner (Fig. 2) is the "Insert" exercise format, where sentences
with text gaps are displayed. The task is to fill in these gaps correctly so that the sen-
tence makes sense. A description text can be displayed as an aid. When checking a
sentence, correctly filled gaps are displayed in green and incorrect ones in red. The
pupil cannot continue with a new sentence until all the gaps have been filled in cor-
rectly.
The last format in the lower right corner (Fig. 2) is called "Error locations". In this
exercise, a sentence is displayed again, but this time it contains incorrect words. The
pupil is asked to find and mark these wrong words. If an incorrect word is selected, an
additional window will appear in which the reasons must be given by multiple choice
selection for the correct spelling.
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Paper—Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for German Language Acquisition Based...
Fig. 3. Right answer in green with the wrong answer in red as feedback after evaluating a task.
By correctly solving tasks, the pupil has the opportunity to collect points, which are
displayed in the overview (Fig. 2). These points can be used to unlock tasks within
different exercise formats.
The same database is currently used as the exercise content for all users, which
means there is currently no possibility to create individual exercises for a pupil.
As already mentioned, in the future the intelligent dictionary of the IDeRBlog plat-
form will be integrated, so that every user can practice all individual words and sen-
tences. This ensures that specific weaknesses can be practiced and eliminated.
5 Field Study
As a test group for the evaluation of the application, children from a third-grade el-
ementary school in Austria should serve, which unfortunately did not come about due
to technical problems or a lack of equipment. Therefore, a smaller group with five
children aged between eight and eleven years was chosen as a replacement. The five
children included two girls and three boys. Three iPads were used as test devices, on
which the application was installed and ready for operation. Since the application can
also be used offline, i.e. without an Internet connection, there is no need for an active
Internet connection. Only the data sent to an external server and stored in a database
could not be uploaded. Since not every child had an iPad, the children were divided
into a group of three and a group of two children.
Before the test was started, the reason and the procedure for this evaluation were
briefly explained. It was also mentioned several times that not the performance of the
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Paper—Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for German Language Acquisition Based...
children, but the application should be evaluated, since the question often arose
whether something happened if an exercise was not solved correctly.
After all the questions had been answered, the first group was asked to start the
first exercise format.
It was immediately obvious that all children knew how to operate tablets from
home or school and that the application was quickly understood.
After one exercise was completed, each child was asked to complete the question-
naire in Figure 1. In addition, questions were asked about the design and possible
suggestions for improvement before the next exercise format was started.
The following questions were prepared:
I had understood the assignment definition.
I was able to solve the problem myself.
I had fun to practice.
I would also like to do the exercise at home.
The grading of the individual questions was done with the help of numerical values
and smileys, where 1 or a laughing smiley means very good and 5 or a sad smiley
does not mean good.
During the exercise, notes were written down again and again to document the be-
havior or possible problems which were taken into account in the further development
of the application.
After about 40 minutes the first group was finished with all exercise formats and
then the second group started the same procedure, which lasted about 40 minutes.
At the end a joint discussion was started again, which resulted in only positive
feedback from the children. The question was even asked when the application would
be available for everyone so that the children could continue to use it in the future.
A summary of all questions and the calculated mean value is shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Result of the evaluation questionnaire
I had understood
the assignment
definition.
I was able to solve
the problem
myself.
I had fun to
practice.
I would also like to
do the exercise at
home.
Error
locations
1
1
1.2
1.2
Insert
1.2
1
1.2
1.2
Keywords - Easy
1
1
1
1
Keywords - Hard
1
1
1
1
Match – Drag & Drop
1
1
1
1.2
Match - Write
1
1
1
1.5
Wheel of Fortune
1
1
1
1
Average
1.03
1
1.06
1.16
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Paper—Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for German Language Acquisition Based...
6 Conclusion
This research deals with the use of a mobile application for Android and iOS to
learn the German language based on LA measurement and to address primary school
children in Austria as the main target group. A prototype of the application was de-
veloped, which was designed to be easy to use and child friendly. The design was
evaluated with the help of a UX test of five children, which provided valuable feed-
back and was taken into account in the further development of the application. All
exercise formats were specified by professors from the University College of Teacher
Education Styria and together we developed the design and discussed how each exer-
cise format could be implemented. The chosen design of the application and the user
interface had to be as simply and understandable as possible, so children have no
problems with the use of the application. The exercise data will be provided by the
IDeRBlog platform, and the intelligent dictionary of this platform will also be used in
the future. By this aspect it is then possible to make individual tasks available for each
user together and these in the application, which are to go into the weaknesses of each
individual purposefully and improve these.
Based on the very positive feedback, the decision can be made that the design con-
cept of the first prototype can be described as well-chosen and it can be built on.
However, it should be mentioned that the number of test users should be larger in
order to get more representative data by the UX test.
7 References
[1] Aspalter, Christian, Edtstadler, Konstanze and Martich, Susanne (2017). “Recht-
/schreibdidaktische U
̈berlegungen fu
̈r den Einsatz der Internetplattform IDeRBlog” In:
Open Online Journal for Research and Education (cit. on p. 1-7)
[2] Chatti, Mohamed Amine et al. (2013). “A reference model for learning
[3] Analytics.” In: International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning 4.5-6,
[4] pp. 318–331 (cit. on pp. 9–14)
[5] Duval, Erik (2011). “Attention please!: learning analytics for visualization and recommen-
dation.” In: LAK 11, pp. 9–17 (cit. on p. 7). https://doi.org/10.1145/2090116.2090118
[6] Ebner, M. (2015). Mobile Learning and Mathematics. Foundations, Design, and Case
Studies. Crompton, H., Traxler, J. (ed.). Routledge. New York and London. pp. 20-32
[7] Herzig, Bardo (2014). “Wie wirksam sind digitale Medien im Unterricht.” In: Gütersloh:
Bertelsmann Stiftung (cit. on p. 4)
[8] Kerres, Michael (2002). “Bunter, besser, billiger? Zum Mehrwert digitaler Medien in der
Bildung (Why? On the Benefit of Digital Media in Educa- tion).” In: it-Information Tech-
nology 44.4, pp. 187–192 (cit. on p. 6). https://doi.org/10.1524/itit.2002.44.4.187
[9] Robin, Bernard R. (2008). “Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st
Century Classroom.” In: Theory into Practice 47.3, pp. 220–228. (cit. on p. 3).
https://doi.org/10.1080/00405840802153916
[10] Tulodziecki, Gerhard, Bardo Herzig, and Sigrid Blömeke (2017). “Gestaltung von Un-
terricht: eine Einführung in die Didaktik.” In: 3311 (cit. on p.3)
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Paper—Mobile Learning Applications for Android und iOS for German Language Acquisition Based...
8 Authors
Markus Friedl studied Software Engineering and Management at Graz University
of Technology, Graz, Austria.
Markus Ebner is currently working as a Researcher in the Department Education-
al Technology at Graz University of Technology. He deals with e-learning, mobile
learning, technology enhanced learning and Open Educational Resources. His focus is
on Learning Analytics at K-12 level. In addition, several publications in the area of
Learning Analytics were published and workshops on the topic were held.
Martin Ebner is with the Department Educational Technology at Graz University
of Technology, Graz, Austria. (E-mail: martin.ebner@tugraz.at). As head of the De-
partment, he is responsible for all university wide e-learning activities. He holds an
Assoc. Prof. on media informatics and works at the Institute of Interactive Systems
and Data Science as senior researcher. For publications as well as further research
activities, please visit: http://martinebner.at. Email: martin.ebner@tugraz.at
Article submitted 2019-11-11. Resubmitted 2020-01-07. Final acceptance 2020-01-14. Final version
published as submitted by the authors.
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