Effects of Employing Learning Analytics-backed Multi-touch Educational Games in Teaching Computer Science

Devices with support of multi-touch input are on the rise, both in professional and private environments through smartphones, tablets and notebooks with touch-display. Even in public spaces they are present i.e. in information systems or ticket machines.

They also reached the educational system. Most schools already use interactive whiteboards, some even started evaluation projects with tablet classes. Touch displays with sizes of 20 inch or more are affordable and can be found in many extracurricular learning facilities.

The didactical advantages are obvious: In constructive group work the control doesn’t stay in a single students hand, represented by mouse and keyboard but is divided equally among those around the display. Those advantages can be employed to teach CS contents. During various projects RWTH students develop learning games to playfully convey problems, solutions and concepts of CS.

Those multi-touch learning games are in the center of my research. By distributing control over all active learners new ways of collaboration are possible. This collaboration can be supported and enforced by giving both individual and group feedback. This feedback should be dynamic, adaptive and fitted to the target audience. The central research question will be how feedback can encourage participation and interaction of learners in collaborative multi-touch learning situations.