Extending Real-Life Stories and Achieving Independent Reading——XR Assisted Self-directed learning Program of Electronic Picture Books for Hong Kong Primary School Students
Submitted by:
Paisley, tsz mei Cheung
Abstract:
In the digital age, especially during the pandemic, Hong Kong students read more online books than before, but it is doubtful whether it can improve students' reading ability, especially self-learning ability. How to make better use of technology to help students’ reading ability is the focus of this research. Picture books are rich in pictures and plain text, which can provide students with comprehensible input in reading. The research uses digital interesting picture book stories, teaches different reading strategies and self-directed learning theory work as a scaffolding, and combines with the extended reality (XR) of technology. The research wishes to find out if XR Electronic Picture Books can help students build up self-directed learning ability in reading.
This research design is based on TPACK and self-directed learning theory. Mishra & J. Koehler’s 2006 TPACK framework, which focuses on technological knowledge (TK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and content knowledge (CK), offers a productive approach to many of the dilemmas that teachers face in implementing educational technology. We believe that technology being implemented must communicate the content and support the pedagogy to enhance students’ learning experience. Self-directed learning process often involve interactions with the teacher as well as with other learners (Brockett & Hiemstra, 1991). Students’ personal responsibility in learning involves students taking ownership of their learning, setting learning goals, and accepting responsibility for their thoughts and actions (Hiemstra & Brockett, 1994). Two Hong Kong primary schools and over 240 primary students joined the research project. With the collaboration of teaching material design, technology and teaching theory, the self-study ability of Chinese language will be enhanced.
XR is a collective technology name between reality and illusion (Rori Duboff, 2022), and the academic community has also begun to explore XR to be an effective teaching tool. This research develops extended reality (XR) picture books. XR includes three modes, namely Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR). After two months of implementation, it was shown that even a small number of quality XR digital picture books with teaching design might also help students develop language literacy and improve reading ability by mastering reading strategies and metacognition.