Abstract
Online learning has soared in popularity in the educational landscape of COVID-19 and carries the benefits of increased flexibility and access to far-away training resources. However, it also restricts communication between peers and teachers, limits physical interactions and confines learning to the computer screen and keyboard. In this project, we designed a novel way to engage students in collaborative online learning by using haptic-enabled tangible robots, Cellulo. We built a library which connects two robots remotely for a learning activity based around the structure of a biological cell. To discover how separate modes of haptic feedback might differentially affect collaboration, two modes of haptic force-feedback were implemented (haptic co-location and haptic consensus). With a case study, we found that the haptic co-location mode seemed to stimulate collectivist behaviour to a greater extent than the haptic consensus mode, which was associated with individualism and less interaction. While the haptic co-location mode seemed to encourage information pooling, participants using the haptic consensus mode tended to focus more on technical co-ordination. This work introduces a novel system that can provide interesting insights on how to integrate haptic feedback into collaborative remote learning activities in future.
Abstract (translated)
在 COVID-19 对教育领域的推动下，在线学习已经迅速普及，带来了 increased flexibility 和远离培训资源的学习机会。然而，它也限制了同学和教师之间的交流，限制了身体接触，将学习局限于电脑屏幕和键盘。在这个项目中，我们设计了一种新颖的方法来激发学生在合作在线学习中的积极参与，利用触觉传感器实现的可编程机器人 Cellulo。我们建立了一个库，用于基于生物细胞结构的远程学习活动中连接两个机器人。为了探索两种触觉反馈模式如何不同地影响协作，我们实现了两种触觉力反馈模式：（触觉共驻和触觉共识）。通过一个案例研究，我们发现，触觉共驻模式似乎比触觉共识模式更能激发合作行为，这与个人主义和更少的互动有关。尽管触觉共驻模式似乎鼓励信息汇集，但使用触觉共识模式的学生则更多地关注技术协调。这项工作为将触觉反馈融入协作远程学习活动提供了有趣的见解，为未来在线教育的发展提供了新的思路。
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.11876
