Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences

On 19 December 2018, ALLS hosted a team from St. Paul’s College Pasig, including Ms. Paola Grajo, and five Grade 12 students, Jenny Lim, Theresa Magsajo, Bea Mallari,Bianca Mallari, and Althea Manansala. They consulted with Dr. Rodrigo about their senior thesis project that aims to develop a  hypermedia learning system that will be used for teaching ratio and proportions to Grade 6 students.

We are pleased to announce that the paper “Portraits of Underprivileged Filipino Second Language Learners: Towards the Development of Computer-based Educational Game” has been accepted as a short paper.

Congratulations to Rex Bringula, Jaclyn Ocumpaugh, and the JOLLY team!

The CSP organized this conference to enable local and neighboring computing educators, researchers, ICT professionals and students to interact and to share their work in computing, computer science, computer engineering, computational science, and information and communications technology (ICT). The conference features special lectures by prominent researchers and educators in the field of information and communications technology (including computing, computer science, computer engineering, computational science, and related disciplines). It also features contributed research papers on computing and ICT.

ICE 2018 is organized by the Computing Society of the Philippines (CSP)– Special Interest Group in Computing Education (CSP SIG-SpICE) and Cebu Institute of Technology University (CITU), Cebu City, Philippines. ICE2018 will be hosted by Cebu Institute of Technology University, Cebu City, Philippines, this coming October 4-6, 2018.

We are pleased to announce that 4 submissions from ALLS have been accepted for the ICE 2018. Below is the complete ALLS lineup:

• Melquizedek Borbon and Ma. Mercedes Rodrigo . A Mobile Augmented Reality Application With User-defined Virtual Elements. [PDF]
• Jonathan Casano, Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo and Eric Cesar Vidal. Using an Alternative Bluetooth Low-Energy Fingerprinting Algorithm to Position Augmented Reality Game Models in a Signal Dense Environment [PDF]
• Rejeenald Flores, Ma. Mercedes Rodrigo and Jenilyn Agapito Wheel-spinning in a Novice Programming Context within a Meaningful Gamification System.
• Jun Rangie Obispo, Ma. Mercedes Rodrigo and Francisco Enrique Vicente Castro. Incidence of Einstellung Effect among Programming Students and its Relationship with Achievement.

The JSET-AECT 2018 Summer International Research Symposium, to be held on September 7–9, 2018 at the Future University Hakodate and Takuboku-Tei,  aims to advance the work of researchers who are actively involved in the field of educational technology. It will bring together experienced and young researchers in this field to exchange and share their research results and engage in a lively discussion on issues related to their research topics.

At this symposium, the keynote speakers will introduce approaches to the design of learning environments in order to describe the factors in building a learning community and in cultivating their community of practice. These approaches can also be applied effectively to schools and local communities in order to identify the current issues and problems. For example, one approach, in particular, emphasizes the pedagogical concepts of “collaborative meta-learning” and “social motivation.”

During the symposium, Eric Cesar E. Vidal, Jr., ALLS Researcher and Ph.D. Student, will be presenting on his project entitled, Mobile Augmented-Reality Game Engine for jumping castle Instructional Support.

MAGIS (Mobile Augmented-Reality Game Engine for Instructional Support) is an engine for producing location-based augmented-reality (AR) educational games using a smartphone or tablet.  Augmented Reality refers to real-time superimposition of virtual objects on the real world (Azuma, 1997), such as through a smartphone camera feed augmented with 3-D graphics on the smartphone’s screen.  Location-Based AR additionally considers the user’s real-world location (Reitmayr & Schmalstieg, 2003), i.e., using the smartphone’s GPS.  Location-Based AR offers a new form of learning environment where learners physically travel to locations relevant to the learning content, such as historical monuments or museum exhibits. MAGIS facilitates the development of location-based AR educational content, using a narrative-based adventure game format (Neitzel, 2005).

MAGIS has been used in two released games, Igpaw: Intramuros (Rodrigo, Caluya, Diy, & Vidal, 2015) and Igpaw: Loyola (Vidal et al., 2018 {to be published}). MAGIS’s technical framework is composed of a game scripting language, a mapping subsystem to facilitate user location tracking, a device-sensor-based AR tracking module, and an analytics subsystem capable of monitoring users’ learning progress (Vidal, Ty, Caluya, & Rodrigo, 2016). These modules are coupled with Vuforia’s vision-based AR library and the Unity game engine.

MAGIS is currently being upgraded to support newer AR technologies such as Google ARCore and Apple ARKit, as well as integrating Hand Gesture Recognition as a novel way of interacting with AR.  Usability studies are being performed on MAGIS-powered games (e.g., Rodrigo, Vidal, Caluya, Agapito, & Diy, 2016) to measure their impact on student learning and engagement.

The Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences conducted an instructional workshop for the Mobile Augmented Reality Game Engine for Instructional Support (M.A.G.I.S.) Game Engine at the University of San Jose-Recoletos on July 27 and 28, 2018. The M.A.G.I.S. Game Engine was used to create instructional augmented reality games such as Igpaw: Intramuros and Igpaw: Loyola, both of which are available on the Google PlayStore and Apple App Store.

Melvin Luis Mendoza, Japheth Samaco, and JM Santos, three members from the MAGIS development team, conducted the workshop for a total of 17 participants composed of students and faculty from the university. Most of the participants kept up with all of the discussions. They were able to modify the sample game provided with their own content, which was the workshop’s main exercise. In addition, some of the participants were able to deploy their modified games to their phones.

Overall, the workshop was successful in sharing the MAGIS Game Engine to more aspiring augmented reality game developers. ALLS and the MAGIS team would like to thank University of San Jose-Recoletos for their participation in the workshop, and their hospitality during the team’s stay in Cebu.