Three Social Classroom Applications to Improve Student Attitudes

The paper presents results of a quasiexperiment where the three social classroom applications Post-It, WordCloud, and Categorizer were used in software architecture lectures. Post-It and WordCloud are applications that allow students to brainstorm or give comments related to a given topic. Categorizer is a puzzle game where the students are asked to place a number of terms in one of two correct categories. The three applications are multimodal HTML5 applications that enable students to interact in a classroom using their own digital devices, and the teacher’s laptop is used to display progress and results on the large screen. The focus of this study was to evaluate how the difference of these applications and how their integration into the lecture affected the students’ motivation, engagement, thinking, activity level, social interaction, creativity, enjoyment, attention, and learning. In addition, the study evaluated the usability and the technical quality of the applications. The results of the experiment show that the way such applications are integrated into a lecture highly affects the students’ attitude. The experiment also showed that the game-based application was on average better received among the students and that the students’ attitude was highly sensitive to the difficulty level of the game. 1. Introduction The introduction of technology in classrooms has opened new ways of interacting in lectures. More and more classrooms are being equipped with smart boards or video projectors, and it is becoming common to have access to wireless networks throughout school campuses. Teachers usually have access to laptops or tablets used for teaching, and some schools even provide every student with a tablet or laptop. For schools where students are not provided with tablets or laptops, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach is an alternative. A survey from 2013 showed that more than 85 percent of 500 educational institutions in UK and US allowed some form of BYOD [1]. The survey also showed that the devices were increasingly being integrated into the classroom and learning experience. Introduction of technology into the classroom can provide many benefits if it is done correctly. Success depends on the teacher’s knowledge, skills, and motivation, what applications are being used, the managerial and technical infrastructure and support, and how the applications are implemented and integrated into lectures. Further, users’ perception factors such as environmental characteristics, environmental satisfaction, collaboration activities, learners’