PARTICIPATIVE LEARNING WITH G-SCANNER AND iDE'LITE

Participative learning enables students to actively shape and share their learning experience, in achieving the goals of reflection and transformation. The learning process is accelerated through e-learning as students are able to learn better with audio and visual multimedia elements. Some problems do arise with e-learning that was not present in textbook learning though. They are: e-learning navigation are not intuitive; students are lost in the maze of information, students losing attentiveness and concentration after staring at the computer monitor too long, students are unable to link up the information properly with the topics and sub-topics. Most students prefer a handy hardcopy textbook for quick overview and reference. Staffs from the Info-Comm Technology Department of ITE College West have created a technology enabled “Interactive Book” concept to capitalize on the advantages and eliminate the problems. Students are able to draw out internet or movie from the text or picture prints in their textbooks by pointing it with an electronic device called a G-Scanner with software application which the dept has created to provide the interface on the computer. By pointing the G-Scanner on any text or diagram in the booklet and the computer will retrieve and display the multimedia explanation. For practical sessions, students are able to log into a web portal known as iDe’Lite. From there they view videos created for topics that were taught. They can also annotate in the videos and view their teacher’s annotations. From the annotations, the teacher can provide comments or correct their mistakes. Students doing practical can also be video recorded and uploaded to iDe’Lite web portal for future references by students and teachers. With authentic activities, and social interaction and negotiations, comes more effective learning for students. This paper presents the participative learning framework enabled by technologies developed by ITE College West and discusses issues related to its implementation in teaching the core module in IT Essential & PC Support using G Scanner for the delivery of the theory portion and iDe'Lite for lab and demo sessions.