Abstract
Sedentary life-style, obesity, and early school leaving have been identified as major causes leading to the biggest health and educational problems in developed countries. This may derive into students showing a not recommended passive role at these ages, which also leads to their lack of interest and motivation in learning and education. This chapter presents an innovation research project which aims to face sedentariness in elementary school by applying an instructional technology-based model with the use of gamification and augmented reality in a bilingual education context. The case study shows several educational advantages, including increase in physical exercise, health awareness, learning engagement, and upgrade in L2 content understanding and linguistic skills.
TopIntroduction
Early school leaving, sedentariness and obesity are documented critical health, social and educational problems in some western countries. Research demonstrates the adverse effects in children's population of modern society's sedentary lifestyle. The picture shows that sedentary habits and routines at home and during children's free time, scarce physical exercise, and sports and an extreme caloric diet and poor nutrition awareness, result in children's obesity, among other diseases. Pedagogical approaches which demand children to acquire a passive role in the classroom remaining unnaturally at their desk for hours every school day do not help improve those habits either. This may lead to students showing a not recommended passive role at these ages, also deriving in lack of interest and motivation in education. Hence, another piece in this puzzle refers to early school leaving due to, among other causes, lack of engagement towards learning, especially in some bilingual education programs. Learning content matter through L2 may represent a cognitive, emotional, and social challenge for some children and their families. This chapter reports on the design, implementation, and results of a case study within an innovative research project which aims to face sedentariness in elementary bilingual education school by applying an instructional technology-based model with the use of gamification and Augmented Reality. More specifically, this research project's overall goals are: (i) Design an innovation project based on a gamified methodology through Augmented Reality; and (ii) Implement the Project in a real bilingual education school context to examine the instructional model effectiveness. To achieve these general aims, the following specific objectives were defined:
- 1.
Design an innovative instructional model and create an IT educational resource based on gamification and AR to enhance motivation and engagement to enhance academic L2 performance in elementary bilingual education students.
- 2.
Implement this resource and analyze its impact in the CLIL (content and language integrated learning) classroom.
- 3.
Delineate future research based on the project case-study findings and its implication in teacher education programs.
Two main research questions formulated to serve as a guideline for this research:
By merging the use of IT and gamification approach, this innovative research project developed a digital game with Aurasma, (now HP Reveal), an Augmented Reality Application. The instructional model designed and implemented in a bilingual education context targeted a three-level development: cognitive, emotional, and social. This gamified methodology with the elementary school students who participated in the small-scale case-study served to assess and check the proposal effectiveness in a real context in Virgen de Navalazarza state bilingual school in San Agustín de Guadalix, a village located in the northern area of Madrid region.
TopBackground
During the early infancy age, psychomotor development, the recommended pedagogical approach implies alternate periods of physically active and resting tasks and activities. In this sense, for example, lesson plans should include the design and implementation of activities such as reading or drawing, followed, or preceded by time slots devoted to more active and playful action or tasks. Spending too many hours seated can lead to passive listening behaviors, little interest in activities, boredom, decreased motivation to learn, and physical restlessness, referring the latter to the natural impulse that children may have to engage in physical movement. The propensity to disease and the tendency to diagnose ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder) seem to result from the collateral damage of specific pedagogical approaches, habits, and lifestyle.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Gamification in Education: The introduction or application of the enjoyable elements of games into education. The term refers to the process of transforming typical academic activities and tasks into gaming topics and ideas.
Content and Language-Integrated Learning (CLIL): A dual-focused educational approach in which an additional, foreign or second language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language.
Augmented Reality (AR): A technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. It is the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time. Unlike virtual reality, which creates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it.