Blended context aware ubiquitous learning in museums: environment, navigation support and system development
With the rapid development of wireless networks, mobile technology and sensing technology, context aware ubiquitous learning (u learning) which allows anytime and anywhere learning, has been widely discussed and investigated in recent years. It has been proven by several studies that situating students to learn from the real world, such as in museums, with u learning systems is beneficial to them. However, the traditional context aware ubiquitous learning environment suffers from some physical limitations. For example, the capacity of the learning targets is limited, and moving time for reaching the learning targets is required. These physical limitations may affect students' learning efficiency. To create a more efficient ubiquitous learning environment, a novel learning framework, namely blended context aware ubiquitous learning (b learning) is proposed in this paper. A navigation algorithm, B MONS, is also proposed for the novel learning framework to guide students to learn efficiently in the b learning environment. Based on the proposed b learning framework, a blended context aware ubiquitous learning system, BCAULS, with a navigation support mechanism based on B MONS was designed and developed. To compare the efficacy of this new proposed framework with other learning platforms, a field experiment of the learning activity, "Rocks and Fossils," was conducted in the National Museum of Natural Science, Taiwan. The experiment results indicate that the students performed better in the b learning environment than in the u learning and e learning environments.
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing