Title:	INKA: USING FLOW TO ENHANCE THE MOBILE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Author(s):	Daire O’broin , Siobhán Clarke
ISBN:	972-8924-15-1
Editors:	Pedro Isaías, Piet Kommers and Inmaculada Arnedillo Sánchez
Year:	2006
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Mobile learning tool, flow, context-aware systems
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	139
Last Page:	146
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	Many teaching strategies used today are those based on a reward and punishment framework. This has many disadvantages, such as stifling creativity and inhibiting the growth of independent thinking. Csikszentmihalyi’s model of flow offers an alternative approach: instead of doing tasks solely for extrinsic reasons such as to acquire course marks, the flow model maintains that if certain conditions hold, the experience of doing a task is likely to be enjoyable. There are several conditions required for a flow experience to occur. The most important of these is to match the difficulty of a task with the current skills of the student. The problem is how can we create the conditions of flow? We have developed Inka, a mobile teaching assistant tool that helps plan learning sessions for individual students, designed to produce the conditions necessary for flow. When one or more of the conditions of flow are absent, the tool can suggest modifications to the session so that the conditions may once again be present. We are currently evaluating Inka with students from a first year undergraduate Introduction to Java Programming course and the results so far have been promising.
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