Real-Time Howling Detection for Hands-Free Video Conferencing System
Mi Suk Lee and Do Young Kim
Future Internet Research Department ETRI, Daejeon, Korea
{lms, dyk}@etri.re.kr Abstract:
This paper presents howling detection method in two-way hands-free communication system. Though hands-free communication is convenient for multi-user system such as audio/video conference, it is very common for the open microphones and loudspeakers produce acoustic feedback in a closed loop, which results in howling. This obviously prevents any useful conversation between participants.
In this paper we propose a real time howling detection method based on the long-term average spectral power and howling information of the previous frame. Performance tests show that the proposed algorithm provides quick and stable howling detection results.
Keywords-component; howling detecion; howling suppression; hands-free video conferencing
I.
I
NTRODUCTIONAs high speed internet connectivity has become more easily available, video conferencing is being used more and more everyday life for business and educational purpose, not just for the personal use. Recently, many educational institutions including universities are interested in distance education by using the video conferencing technology for students who are separated by time and distance. In the fields of business, various types of video conferencing system has been adopted, because it enable individuals in distance locations to participate in meetings with time and money saving.
In video conferencing system, hands-free communication is more convenient for users. But it is very common to produce acoustic feedback in a closed loop, resulting in howling. This obviously prevents any useful conversation between participants. A typical closed loop path (dashed line) can exist when both parties are using hands-free video conferencing system is illustrated in figure 1. This type of closed loop which includes microphone, network, and loudspeaker is most common in real time hands-free communication system. If the loop gain is greater than unity at one or more frequencies the system becomes unstable and produces oscillations. If the oscillation signal has the frequency in the audible range of human hearing, it is called howling or squealing. It not only disturbs normal communications, but also damages power amplifier for overload.
In two-way hands-free communication, acoustic feedbacks from loudspeaker into the microphone are traditionally cancelled using acoustic echo canceller (AEC). When it has reached enough convergence, it provides protection against howling because it reduces acoustic feedback. Until then, or when the acoustic path is changed or high loudness is required, the system exposed to howling because of improper function of AEC[1,2]. One of This research was funded by the MSIP (Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning), Korea in the ICT R&D Program 2013. The most popular techniques for supplementing the AEC to prevent howling in hands-free communication systems is notch filter based howling suppression (NHS) methods.
based on the howling information of the previous frame and long-term average spectral power for real time twoway hands-free video conferencing system.
This paper organized as follows: Section 2 briefly reviews a notch filter based howling suppression method. In section 3, we discuss characteristic of howling signal recorded in our two-way hands-free video conferencing system. Section 4 introduces a proposed howling detection method for NHS and Section 5 presents performance test results.
A B
Figure1. Acoustic feedback in packet based video conferencing system II.
N
OTCH FILTER BASED HOWLING SUPPRESSIONNotch filter based howling suppression (NHS) is one of the most popular methods for acoustic feedback control in public address and hands-free communication systems[3]. The NHS methods consist of howling detection and howling suppression by using a notch filter. And NHS can be divided into two categories, i.e., onestage and two-stage, depending on whether the howling detection and notch filtering are performed jointly or separately. The adaptive notch filter (ANFs) based methods are typical one-stage method.
Two-stage NHS methods are the most popular method for acoustic feedback control. The two-stage NHS in hands-free communication system can be outlined as shown in figure 2. The microphone signal is first processed by a howling detection algorithm, which forwards a set of design parameters of notch filter. When howling has been detected, a notch filter has been activated to suppress the howling signal before transmit the input signal to the remote site. In the two-stage NHS method, howling detection is crucial to get reliable howling suppression results because the notch filter design method is well defined.
Figure 2. Two-stage notch filter based howling suppression
III. HOWLING SIGNAL IN TWO
-
WAY HANDS-
FREE VIDEO CONFERENCING ENVIRONMENT In order to analyze the howling signal in two-way hands-free video conferencing environment, we set up an experimental environment as shown in figure 1. The hands-free video conferencing system consists of personal computer, display, microphone and loudspeaker. The characteristic of the microphone and loudspeaker is as follow:o Loudspeaker: BOSE Companion 2 multimedia speaker
o Microphone: ETM-003 of Edutige
o Condenser / Omnidirectional / Boundary microphone
o Sensitivity: -23dB
Figure 3 shows a block diagram for audio signal processing in our video conferencing system. The microphone signal of site A is processed by AEC and encoded with G.711.1 wideband encoder [4] and transmitted to remote site B after RTP packing. In site B, the received packet is unpacked and decoded by G.711.1 decoder. The decoded signal is played out through a loudspeaker. Since the loudspeaker and microphone are located in same room, the speaker output is captured by a microphone again and transmitted to site A.
A B
Figure 3. Audio signal flow in two-way hands-free video conferencing
Figure 4 and 5 present time domain signal and frequency spectrum of howling signal recorded at 16 kHz sampling rate without AEC block both in site A and B, respectively. The frequency range of each spectrum in those figures is limited to 1,000 Hz. From the figures, we can see the amplitude of howling signal is globally increase with time but has some fluctuation.
Figure 5. Howling signal recorded in site B IV.
P
ROPOSEDH
OWLINGD
ETECTIONM
ETHODFigure 6 presents the high-level block diagram of the proposed howling detection method. Basically, it is operated in a 10 msec frame based manner. The microphone input signal is stored in a buffer and this time domain signal is transformed into a frequency domain signal by a FFT analysis. FFT is run once every 10 msec and the FFT window size is 16 msec (corresponding to 256 samples at 16 kHz sampling). After howling candidate selection and detection, the related parameters are update for the next frame processing.
Figure 6. High level block diagram of the proposed howling detection A. Howling Candidate Selection
The magnitude of the howling signal is globally increased over time, but it can be locally fluctuated by the delay caused in communication environment. In this case, it is difficult to detect howling signal consistently in some segment which have relatively decreased magnitude. In order to solve this problem, we use the howling information of the previous frame when selecting howling candidate.
To select a howling candidate, first, N frequencies which have highest spectral power are chosen by using peak picking. We select a frequency which has maximum spectral power from N as a howling candidate of the current frame. However, if the selected howling candidate is different from the howling frequency of the previous frame, the howling candidate can be replaced with the howling frequency of the previous frame according to the following procedure.
spectral power at previous howling frequency is greater than the weighted spectral power of current howling candidate. Here, the weighing factor is set to a value less than 1.
B. Howling Detection
The howling detector judges that the howling candidate is a true howling signal. We use not only the peak to short-term (frame) average spectral power ratio but also long-term average spectral power ration of the howling candidate of current frame and howling frequency of the previous frame.
We detect the howling candidate as a true howling signal in two cases. First, it is decided the howling frequency candidate is true howling signal when both ratio of the spectral power of the howling candidate to a short-term average spectral power and the long-term to short-term average spectral power ratio of the howling candidate is greater than the predetermined threshold values. Second, it is detected the howling candidate is a true howling signal when the previous frame has howling signal and the long-term average spectral power of the howling candidate is greater than the weighted long-term average spectral power of the howling signal of previous frame. The weighing factor is set to a value less than 1.
V. E
XPERIMENTAL RESULTSIn order to test the performance of our proposed method, we recorded two types of signal without AEC operation at 16 kHz sampling rate. One is a pure howling signal without speech activity and second is a howling signal with a speech activity from one of the sites. Figure 7 shows a test result for a pure howling signal in time domain and frequency domain with a limited frequency range.
A microphone input signal (blue wave) and howling suppressed signal (green wave) by using a 2ndorder IIR notch filter is shown in figure 7. And the howling detection results also depicted with black line overlapped with the waveform and spectrum. Figure 7 shows that the proposed method is able to detect the howling signal very quickly and consistently even though the magnitude of howling signal is fluctuated.
Figure 7. Experimental results for a pure howling signal.
Figure 8. Experimental results for a howling signal mixed with speech signal.
VI. C
ONCLUSIONIn this paper, we propose a howling detection method based on the howling information of previous frame and long-term average spectral power. The performance of the proposed method is tested with the sample data recorded in real-time two-way hands-free video conferencing environment. The test results shows that the proposed method quickly detect the howling frequency and also gives stable results for the howling signal mixed with speech.
REFERENCES
[1] Senthil Kumar Mani and Sowmya Mannava, “Robust and High quality Howling Suppression for Real Time Hands-Free Communication systems”, IEEE 2011
[2] Franck Beaucoup, “ A Novel Loop Stabilisation Technique for Full-Duplex Speakerphones”, IEEE CCECE/CCGEI, May, 2006, pp.771-774.
[3] T.van Waterschoot and M.Moonen, “comparative spectral analysis of howling detection criteriia in notch filter based howling suppression”. AES 126thconv., Munich, Germany, May, 2009
Applying Delphi Methodology for Lifelong Learning Activities
Miguel Doctor, Rafael MompóEuropean University of Madrid Madrid, Spain
[email protected], [email protected] David de la Mata, Judith Redoli
University of Alcalá Alcalá de Henares, Spain
[email protected], [email protected] Abstract :
Nowadays we are immersed in a highly competitive job market where demonstrating good technical skills is not in most cases a guarantee of a success. In addition, the economical context is provoking a diaspora of high-qualified workers from their countries to others with lower unemployment rates. In this scenario, applicants need to demonstrate not only a strong background in their specialization fields, but also, a set of soft skills and abilities, which allow them, highlight themselves in the hard task of finding a job. In this paper we present an evolution of a methodology supported by a web tool, aims to helping working adults trainers and university professors to develop soft-skills in engineering, as well as technical competencies provided by classical engineering training programs. Delphi Learning Package (DLP) tool is based on Delphi strategic consulting. Firstly, a short introduction about what the Delphi method consist of, will be performed. Then, a description about the adjustments and modifications made on the methodology in order to fix it to educational environments will be discussed as well as an evaluation of the effects triggered by them. Afterwards, the technological environment created for hosting the tool and supporting the methodology is described. A justification about why a tool to automatize the methodology is required will be provided. Also, how students develop different soft skills such as critical thinking, synthesis ability, inference, and argumentation following our method is discussed. Finally, we assess the methodology and the tool by discussing about the results obtained during two pilot projects that have been developed involving both, students with a major in Telecommunications Engineering and software engineers from a software department of, a well known food company. This tool can be downloaded and used freely by contacting the authors of this article or by accessing the website www.noveltelecoms.com.
Keywords-component; Delphi, lifelong learning, e-learning, collaborative/cooperative learning
I.
Introduction
The methodology proposed aims to force students and professional workers to develop personal skills in order to solve intricate problems, to manage large amounts of information and to get the ability to extract useful knowledge from huge amounts of available documentation [2]. Collaborative/cooperative learning is the approach we have chosen as axe of our methodology. Since the proposal was to develop technical and soft skills at the same time, it was considered necessary to investigate how to adapt classic methodologies of strategic consulting based on making forecasts, to be used for engineering learning purposes. Among the different methodologies analyzed (such as Genius Forecasting [3], Trend Extrapolation [4], Consensus Methods (e.g., Delphi) [5], Simulation Methods [6-7], crossed impact matrix method [8], scenario [9], or decision trees [10]) one of them, which belongs to the group of consensus methodologies, was chosen. The most famous method from this group is the Delphi [11-12] one. The reasons to choice this methodology over other previously mentioned is because Delphi allows us, in a flexible way, to structure the communication flow efficiently.
II.
Special Issues Regarding Working Adults Learning
Every year huge amounts of money are invested in programs and activities oriented to keep updated workers’ knowledge and skills in many engineering companies around the world [13]. Nevertheless, it is estimated that no more than 10% of this investment is returned to the companies like a real transference of knowledge or improvements in their production procedures [14]. The explanation of this low success ratio could be find in the techniques and methods used in the training courses and also, in the gap existing between programs or services offered by the training provider organizations (universities or training consultancy companies) and the real requirements demanded by the engineering companies [15]. The dynamic world in which engineers develop their activity presents them with new demands and provides new challenges almost everyday. This vertiginous technological evolution provokes that technical competencies and skills could become obsolete even before that recent graduated engineers could find their first employment. Because of that, technical background is losing importance compared to other kind of skills or abilities. This change started to be observed at the end of the 20th Century. In those years an evolution started from a hard-engineering model to a soft-engineering one. In the past, engineers were focused only in technical issues about projects, but today they are more interested in a softengineering working model, in which engineers need assume management resources tasks as well as marketing and commercial responsibilities [16]. This tendency (the importance of soft-skills as a part of engineers background) has risen on the first decade of the 21st Century, and currently an engineer has to demonstrate basic competencies in the next transversal areas [17]:
• Social Science: Communication skills, Social skills, Presentation skills, Interpersonal skills.
• Business/Management: Leadership skills, Business management skills, Team-working skills, Financial skills
• Computer/Technology: Computer skills, Programming skills, Design skills
• Mathematics/Science: Problem solving skills, Research, self-learning and development skills, Analysis/synthesis skills
• Synthesis skills, Communication and presentation skills, Argumentation Capacity, Critical Thinking, Inference Capacity, Building Customized Knowledge from a Certain Amount of Information, Self-learning by discovery.
III. Delphi Methodology Background
Initially, the Delphi methodology was designed to support forecast Escalation Dynamics on different conflict scenarios [20], but it was quickly applied to other fields, such as medicine, information systems, or company organization [21–23]. Delphi methodology aims to make future forecasts to improve decision making in the pre-sent. In this article, the use of Delphi methodology as a collaborative learning methodology to solve complex problems approached daily by engineering professionals and students is proposed.
A Delphi process consists of selecting a group of experts that are asked about their opinion on certain matters pertaining to future events. The group could be made up by experts on the matter, affected or/and with an interest, in such a way that because of their level of information and extent of knowledge they can contribute different ideas and points of view to the problem at hand. The experts are asked about the topics by filling in the basic element within a Delphi process: the questionnaire. In this way we avoid experts’ meetings, or face-to-face debating which means that we can increase significantly the number of consulted experts. Between rounds, the experts are given controlled feedback, which results from all experts’ forecasts. The product we really get with a Delphi method is a collective vision built on each group communication structure. In other words, at the end of the process we will obtain a set of opinions with different levels of consensus.
IV. Delphi Methodology Based Learning
In this section our proposal of adaptation of the Delphi methodology to collaborative learning is described. First of all, a coordinating group (professors or trainers) is set. This group is in charge of summarizing the concepts and contents that will be studied during the course, creating questionnaires that efficiently contribute to obtain results and defining the group of people that will compose the panel of ‘experts’. This panel of experts will be the students enrolled in the subject. It is considered that the prior knowledge acquired in the first years of the university program qualifies them sufficiently to analyze the information that the professor provides and to propose ideas, key aspects, or solutions to the case study presented, according to the focus determined by the professor. The questionnaires are the core elements of the process: initial questions and feed- backs are generated by the coordinating group (professors), that are sent to the panel of experts (students, or professionals attending to a training program) so as they can express their ideas and opinions. This process makes it possible to reach a consensus and to obtain conclusions that help solve the problem under study. Nevertheless, it is necessary to make certain adjustments to the method, as certain limitations are en- countered when applying it to a teaching environment, for example, the time of application (a semester or a number of hours purchased), or the selection of the panel of experts (always composed of students). Thus, Delphi methodology applied to learning establishes the following line of work:
First step: previous study of the state of the subject matter by the participants. The learners receive information on the theme to be studied. Some of the information will be provided by means of attending class, but it is fundamental that the learners have access subsequently to the material presented in class, as well as to additional information (documents, presentations, etc.).
Third step: closed questionnaire (feedback). Subsequently, the professor carries out a selection of the better ideas contributed. With these ideas the professor generates a closed questionnaire (feedback) in which the students, by means of allocation of a score to each idea of the closed questionnaire, assess the degree of importance. It is a matter of sorting the ideas according to its importance taking into account a criterion previously established by the professor.
Fourth step: public discussion. Subsequently, a public discussion is opened through virtual forums, in which the students argue their points of view on the importance of the ideas. The professor should promote that discussion.
Fifth step: final feedback. After the debate of the fourth step, students can modify the scoring assigned in the third step, taking into account the arguments that have prevailed as more serious and coherent in the debate.
Sixth step: evaluation. Depending on the scenario (university students or working adults attending to a course) the evaluation can take different ways. For university courses an evaluation grade for each student is generated automatically. This grade is calculated taking into account the deviation of each student’s answers from the aver-age in the third and fifth steps, as well as the number of proposed ideas by the student in the second step (which were chosen by the professor due to their quality). This evaluation could be omitted in working adults learning programs, because in some cases the goal of the training is not to score the workers, but to demonstrate that the team is capable to build a work planning using the concepts and skills learned during the course.
All these steps an their elements are related among themselves as it is indicated in Figure 1. In this manner, a process of communication is established, according to the phases of a Delphi method.
Figure 1. Delphi learning communication process
We have to pay attention to the number of questions included into the questionnaire. In practice, for a group of fifty students, the application of this methodology means that between 100 and 400 ideas are generated in the second step. From them all, the professor should select between 10 and 40 to generate the feedback questionnaire of the third step. It has been proven that a questionnaire with more than 30 questions is not effective due to the loss of concentration in the answers as the length of the questionnaire increases [24].
V.
A software Tool is necessary: DLP
and maintains each idea associated with the participant who has proposed it. Likewise, the software tool simplifies the preparation of the questionnaires to be answered by the students. Finally, the tool should show the professor the progress of the learner along the diverse steps and should facilitate the generation of final grading for the evaluation, according to the contributions of each participant.
Therefore, a collaborative learning software tool has been developed based on the Delphi methodology applied in learning called DLP (Delphi Learning Package) and developed with PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor). The interface is user-friendly and fast for both the professor and the student. The DLP software has been developed as a two separated modules WEB application. The first module is a common web application that implements the MVC (Model View Controller) [25] pattern through the framework CakePHP (cakephp.org). The principles followed for its design and subsequent development have been the following: sturdiness, efficiency, scalability, and usability. The second module, named interface module is a piece of software, which allows us running the application within a LMS (Learning Management System), concretely Moodle (www.moodle.org). This layered architecture aims to allow install the application in other Web platforms (Learning Manager Systems like Sakai, other Web Portal Solutions like Liferay or Drupal, or even Social Networking sites like Facebook) just creating a new interface module to connect with the new platform.
There are two objectives in using the selected technology. On one hand, to integrate the tool developed within a LMS (Learning Management System), which results in all the Delphi activity being carried out in the Virtual Class, and on the other hand, to obtain independence from the e-learning platform that is to be utilized. To carry out the Delphi activities both the DLP tool and LMS (or other community support application) are necessary. The solution adopted is an application based on CakePHP technology working on Apache Server (www.apache.org) that communicates with a LMS Moodle also based on PHP technology. The platform makes use of a version of MySQL with which they form a self-sufficient architecture, entirely interoperable and modular.
VI.
Experimentation
Learning activities cannot be considered as isolated products with well-defined con- tents and duration, but as a permanent process, which should be linked to the professional activity of the learner and adapted to their professional needs and challenges [26]. Since this process should start before young engineers get access to the job market, the proposed methodology has been applied to two groups of engineers involved in two different stages of their professional careers [16][27].
The first pilot experience has been performed with students of fourth year of Telecommunications Engineering program. The objective of this experiment was to verify in practice the functionalities of the tool, its suitability to the needs of professors and students, as well as the adequacy of the methodology for the attainment of the educational objectives. When it was finalized, a poll among the students was conducted and gathered feedback from the professors.
From the functional point of view, the purpose was to:
• Verify whether the tool is user friendly to carry out each one of the activities both by professors as well as by students.
• Detect improvements in the evaluation functionality both for the professor as well as for the students. The goal is to generate grading along the process, which will allow a continuous monitoring of the students’ performance.
From the educational methodology point of view, the purpose was to:
• Verify the suitability of the Delphi activities to attain the learning objectives proposed by the professor. • Design different types of activities that are adequate to be carried out by means of an educational Delphi
activity.
The second pilot was developed with a software development team working for a software development department of a food company. They had to approach the maintenance of a web portal developed using PHP technology but they didn’t have background using it. In this case, the purpose from the functional point of view was to:
• Test whether the tool is flexible enough to be used with working adults, considering the special features of this target population (training combined with professional tasks, family responsibilities, etc.)
• Detect how to improve the learning experience by making the access to the learning activities and tasks easier. From the educational methodology point of view, the purpose was to:
• Provide them with enough knowledge about PHP in order to allow them make the maintenance of a real application. The different roles of the participants were considered in order to offer a useful training. • Test the methodology for lifelong training in a real software development team.
• Evaluate if the Delphi methodology improves some of the soft-skills in a real software development team. • Detect improvements in the methodology and in the tool in order to avoid dropout cases during the course.
VII.
Results
The results of both experiments proved that the Delphi method adapted to the learning environment for the development of skills in engineering useful. After analyzing the pool of students and also after a discussion meeting with the engineers enrolled in the second pilot, it can be concluded that, in addition to the technical skills gained from the specific study content (which will vary with the subject), the Delphi method allows developing a series of soft skills that are discussed below.
Inference Capacity, Argumentation Capacity and Critical Thinking: The inference capacity allows to establish relations among the available information (that initially is not related), and to use it to resolve certain approaches or problems. In the Delphi activities, the participant has multiple documents and sources of information to approach the problem, and he/she is challenged to propose creative solutions based on them. Likewise, in the debate phase, he/she is obliged to confront his/her opinions with those of his/her colleagues. This exercise develops his/her inferential capacity at the same time than his/her argumentation capacity, because the participant has to defend his/her proposal. Regarding the second pilot, the debate phase became a typical kick-off project meeting, in which participants with different roles tried to convince the others about the best way to approach the project. It was detected how participants with the same role, presented closer opinions than members of different role groups. Finally, critical thinking abilities were worked out by reasoning the pros and cons of different proposals.
VIII.
Conclusions and future work lines
The results of both experiments proved that the Delphi method adapted to the learning environment for the development of skills in engineering useful.
The pilot experience performed in the context of university programs made it possible to demonstrate that the methodology encourage the participation and collaboration among students. It was observed that some soft skills were exercised during the process (a poll offered to the students at the end of the pilot reveals that critical thinking, learning by discovery and capacity of argumentation are skills that the students consider promoted because of using this methodology). It also proved that for the practical implementation of the methodology, a software tool that allows easy processing and managing of information contributed by students, as well as monitoring of students, is needed. The support of a software tool is essential; it would be very difficult to apply the methodology without the help of a software tool. Moreover the experience reveals that the evaluation procedure followed in the methodology is fair and represents properly the amount of work performed for each participant.
The second pilot worked in a different scenario, and in consequence, led to different conclusions. The software engineers who participated in the working adults training paid more attention to the final average questionnaires, as well as the ideas contributed, than to the evaluations. Since the participants in this experience have different roles (managers, programmers, administrators, designers, etc.), their feedbacks for the different stages of the process were strongly influenced by their role. This is very interesting and indicates that this methodology is an excellent resource for working adults learning activities because each student applies their background and improves their daily work. The participants really appreciated the use of a virtual platform because they could fill in the questionnaires at anytime even after training hours. Nevertheless, some of them mentioned that we should work in order to add more time-space flexibility to the platform. Concretely, they considered that offering a smartphone-tablet compatible version would increase the participation and would allow them to use some useless gap times for learning purposes.
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A pilot e-tutoring program for students of secondary education
Spyros Doukakis, Cleo KoutroumpaThe American College of Greece - PIERCE Athens, Greece
[email protected], [email protected] Abstract :
This paper presents a pilot e-tutoring program on mathematics and ancient Greek realized through Blackboard Collaborate and focusing on the support of 58 students of lower secondary education. Two teachers for each subject provided daily two hour support to students. In addition the results of a research conducted using a questionnaire answered by the students involved in the program after the latter’s completion are also presented. The results show that 6 out of 10 students participated in etutoring sessions. Their satisfaction exceeded 90%, while the program’s acceptance exceeded 94%. Moreover the results indicate no correlations between gender, personal involvement with web 2.0 tools and knowledge of computer use. Finally, the students related their satisfaction to the e-tutor’s role as a facilitator, something that puts forward the need for further investigation of the educator’s role.
Keywords-component; e-tutoring, secondary education, satisfaction I. INTRODUCTION
The integration and incorporation of digital tools to the educational procedure has led educators to the redefining of their way of teaching. Within this framework, e-tutoring (electronic tutoring) is a digital media of supporting students, which utilizes possibilities offered by the internet and web 2.0 tools in order to enhance the cooperation between students and educators. E-tutoring has the characteristics of traditional teaching in a classroom, in the sense that there is a teacher who facilitates students to acquire further knowledge, develop capacities and modify attitudes towards the subject taught [1]. The difference lies on the environment via which the cooperation between teacher and student is realized. E-tutoring is realized via an online environment, where an internet site or platform is used [2]. These environments dispose a series of interactional and co-operational possibilities that contribute to teaching, learning and students assessment. Furthermore, they provide a synchronous discussion system which permits face to face contact in rooms, dispose a multifunctional whiteboard with graphics, chat, application sharing, students’ assessment tools, and offer the possibility of recording the etutoring course for further and later use, etc. [3]. Finally, taking into consideration the easy access to and use of the e-tutoring environment, as well as the fact that teachers and students are at home and not at their work place (or wherever they wish, for that matter), e-tutoring environments modify students’, teachers’ and parents’ perspective of teaching and learning.
In this paper, primarily, the frame of e-tutoring utilization in the international educational community is presented. Afterwards, the pilot operation of the e-tutoring program in the school is described. Sequentially, the research conducted on the students is reported and the data and relative descriptive measures, followed by the research’s results, are shown. Finally, the paper concludes with the outcome and discussion on issues of etutoring implementation, whilst ideas for future research are cited.
II. OVERVIEW
individualized service providing support to a student or a group of students from an educator who uses the internet as their mean of communication [1], [2], [4]. Researcher Prensky supports that e-tutoring can function more effectively than traditional teaching, due to the frequency of interaction, the immediate feedback and the personal style of teaching and learning [5]. Lately, e-tutoring is offered internationally by public, private, and non-profit institutions [6]. A case of integrated e-tutoring is the “Homework Help” program which was created in 2008 by the Ontario Ministry of Education and in 2011 it covered about 236.000 students (https://homeworkhelp.ilc.org/). According to Jopling’s research, several studies of e-tutoring programs have been published [7]. From these, 11 studies concern exclusively elementary and secondary education. Furthermore, 9 out of the 11 study the possible improvement of the students’ school performance. Particularly, from the studies is shown a) the greater students’ involvement in the learning procedure when they participate in an e-tutoring program [8], b) the possibility provided to educators to take into consideration their students’ style of learning and thinking and to students to bring forth their interests [9] and c) the opportunity provided to educators and students to use pedagogical tools which couldn’t be utilized in the traditional classroom [10]. On top of that, from the research of Dekhinet et al. is shown that through e-tutoring the students further develop their initial motives for learning, as their involvement in the program modifies their perspective of learning [11]. According to the results of Beal et al., most benefited was the weakest student of the group that participated in the e-tutoring program [12]. Finally, Gabriel and Kaufield put forward that teaching through an e-tutoring environment provides “bidirectional learning opportunities” for both the educator and the student and contributes to the student’s participation in a community of learning, reinforcing students that were isolated in the traditional teaching and learning environment [13].
However, in the Greek educational community no studies related to e-tutoring environments in elementary and secondary education have been recorded. Thus, in this paper we will try to show the way the available etutoring environment within the educational unit was utilized and, thereafter, the research conducted to students who used e-tutoring as an educational procedure, as well as its results.
III. OPERATION FRAME OF E-TUTORING PROGRAM
The e-tutoring platform used in the educational unit is Blackboard Collaborate (BC). Primarily, during a 6 hour training on the environment and the available tools, the e-tutors discussed with the students the way to utilize and the netiquette for appropriate use of the e-tutoring program. The students were also notified that they needed headphones with a speaker. Daily each student received two internet addresses (one for ancient Greek and one for mathematics) and was able to connect to e-tutoring of the subject s/he wished. The pilot operation of the program lasted seven weeks, during the first of which students’ training was realized. E-tutoring was available for 2 hours per day, 4 evenings per week. The digital tools used for teaching were various. Mostly, suitable
Figure 1. Blackboard Collaborate platform, PowerPoint uploading and Whiteboard utilization
During the pilot operation of the program, students’ participation ranged from 0 to 15 students per two-hour session. Each of the participants was connected to the program for a time period ranging from 10 minutes to 2 hours. Nonetheless, sometimes the program lasted more than two hours, since there were still questions unanswered or issues unresolved. Overall, 22 e-tutoring meetings for every subject and 137 students’ connections took place. With the completion of the program’s pilot operation, students were asked to fill anonymously a questionnaire in order to a) research the degree of their satisfaction from e-tutoring, b) relate their answers to gender, grade, knowledge of computer, internet and web 2.0 tools use.
IV. RESEARCH APPROACH
A survey questionnaire was used in this study. It consisted of two sections; the first section required that participants provide demographic and educational information (gender, grade, knowledge of computer use and internet, existence of a Facebook account and/or use of Skype program), and the second section included items which measure the degree of students’ satisfaction from the whole program and the learning benefits they might have gained from it. Satisfaction has been defined as the perception of pleasurable fulfillment of a service [14]. For the development of the questionnaire, questions adapted from previous studies were used [1], [15], [16].
The questionnaire was distributed to the students after the completion of the pilot operation. Initially it was given to two students (a boy and a girl) –one of whom, must be noted, even though given the chance, did not use e-tutoring– who were asked to complete it, in order to track down any problems. The responses showed no misunderstandings. Then, the questionnaire was filled out by the total of students that had the possibility to use etutoring. 58 questionnaires were completed. Students connected at least once to e-tutoring were asked to answer other questions as well, concerning the way of communication during the use of e-tutoring, the degree of satisfaction from the environment, the e-tutors and the material. The questionnaire is included in the appendix of the present paper. The data gathered was analyzed with SPSS software. With its use, both the descriptive statistics of data and the correlations were measured, as well as the reliability analysis (Cronbach’s alpha), in order to evaluate the level of internal consistency of its elements [17].
V. RESULTS A. Descriptive statistics
TABLE I. THE PROFILE OF THE RESEARCH STUDENTS Students’ profile No % Gender Male 33 57% Female 25 43% Grade 1st grade 28 52% 2nd grade 30 48%
According to the research results, 45 students declared excellent or very good knowledge of computer use, whilst 11 declared good or average knowledge (2 students didn’t answer). Also, 54 students declared excellent or very good, while 4 declared good knowledge of internet use.
From the study of the recorded meetings is shown that 23 students (39.6%) didn’t participate or were never connected to the e-tutoring program. From the remaining 35 students, 15 (25.8%) were connected at least once to both subjects; 9 (15.5%) only participated in ancient Greek and 10 (17.2%) only in mathematics sessions. As a sum, 137 students’ connections occurred, from which 49 were in ancient Greek and 88 in mathematics. Only students connected at least once to e-tutoring were called upon to answer questions concerning the environment and the educational procedure in which they took part. The results showed high student satisfaction, of the program in which they participated. More particularly, 32 out of the 35 students who used the program were satisfied (Figure 2), while 33 out of 35 deemed it successful.
B. Reliability analysis
Regarding the reliability, Cronbach’s alpha indicators’ was applied [17]. According to Fornell and Larcker, Cronbach’s alpha value greater than 0.7 indicates a high reliability [18]. The result of the test revealed acceptable indices of internal consistency is 0.889.
C. Correlation analysis
A correlation analysis followed using X2 method, in order to detect substantial statistic differences
between the students’ assertions. In the analysis the correlation concerning gender, grade, knowledge of computer and Internet use, the possession of Facebook and Skype account was investigated. From the data analysis is demonstrated that there is no apparent correlation between the use of e-tutoring and the level of knowledge of computer and Internet use, nor gender and age.
VI. DISCUSSION
E-tutoring programs constitute a contemporary approach to teaching and learning, aiming to the coverage of students’ needs. The present research didn’t detect statistically important differences between the participants’ gender, age and knowledge of computer and Internet use. It appears that the research’s students don’t have differences as far as the use of both digital environments (Facebook and Skype) and educational environment of e-tutoring are concerned. The results agree with resent researches that refer generally to e-learning environments [19], [20]. According to the above mentioned researches, the differences between boys and girls are rare, since digital environments and new technologies have been integrated in young people’s daily routine. Also, from the data analysis was shown that that the students’ participation in the e-tutoring program did not depend on the possession of a Facebook and/or Skype account.
The results show high student satisfaction and great acceptance of the e-tutoring pilot program. Students’ satisfaction and acceptance of similar programs on international level is also high [22]. For the students it was an innovative program they hadn’t used in the past and, according to them, the learning benefits they acquired contributed to the improvement of their school performance. E-tutors provided students with material that met their personal needs, as these were defined by the students themselves. The students connected to the environment informed the e-tutor of the material of the morning course on which they wished to be supported, and the e-tutor with appropriate presentations and targeted questions, tasks and exercises tried to help students overcome the learning impediments they had spotted. In this context, it was very important that students defined their personal needs, which enhanced their self-awareness concerning the knowledge they had obtained during the morning course or their study at home, as well as the deficiencies they had located and wished to be helped to overcome. Nonetheless, from the research’s results it was shown that only 6 out of 10 students thought that e-tutoring helped them control their progress of learning, a fact that demonstrates that the rest of the students considered e-tutoring as a tool that contributes to the overcome of daily learning problems and not to the overall improvement of their learning. The above results are in agreement with the research [12] who state that with e-tutoring programs is succeeded the improvement of some students and especially those with low performances.
abilities, and at the same time qualitative characteristics, such as enthusiasm, support and reinforcement of students, flexibility and easy access to students [21].
However, what appears not to have been achieved to a satisfactory degree through the environment was students’ cooperation with each other, since only one out of two thought s/he could easily communicate with his/her classmates through e-tutoring. Although, during the particular pilot program, the cooperation of students in the Blackboard Collaborate wasn’t cultivated, the results might be useful for further discussion.
VII. CONCLUSION
The present study was conducted as a pilot implementation of an e-tutoring program on students of secondary education. The students declared satisfaction from the program and high acceptance. It appears that during the online support provided to students through the digital environment of e-tutoring, the students didn’t feel they were at a distance from the e-tutor and declared they were supported to overcome their learning impediments. They declared satisfied with the development of a further relationship with e-tutors. Furthermore, they attributed to the e-tutor the role of a facilitator who helped them overcome their learning difficulties.
Further research on the above mentioned directions, will provide elements for the more thorough evaluation of e-tutoring programs. Also important is the examination and documentation of e-tutors’ opinions for the etutoring program, as well as the knowledge they need to possess in order to offer their students as many learning benefits as possible. Overall, it appears that e-tutoring programs can provide an alternative way of supporting students’ needs, who can gain multiple learning benefits both on knowledge and on abilities and stances.
REFERENCES
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[3] Blackboard Inc., Blackboard Collaborate, Delivering ROI for K-12 Schools, 2012.
[4] A.T. Flowers, “NCLB spurs growth in online tutoring options. School Reform News,” The Heartland Institute, Chicago, IL. Retrieved from http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20426, 2007. [5] M. Prensky, “e-Nough!,” On The Horizon, 11(1), pp. 1–14, MCB University Press, 2003.
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[8] P.J. Pinder, “Exploring and understanding the benefits of tutoring software on urban students’ science achievement: what are Baltimore city practitioners’ perspectives?,” in Regional Eastern Educational Research Association Conference, SC, 2008.
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[19] P. Bruestle, D. Haubner, B. Schinzel, M. Holthaus, B. Remmele, D. Schirmir, and U.D. Reips, “Doing e-learning/ doing gender?
Examining the relationship between students’ gender concepts and e-learning technology,” in 5th European Symposium on Gender & ICT Digital Cultures: Participation – Empowerment – Diversity, 2009.
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[22] S.S. Cheng, Z.F. Liu, H.W. Ko, and C.H. Lin, “Learning with online tutoring: rural area students’ perception of satisfaction with synchronous learning,” Int. J. Comp. Comm., 1(2), pp. 48–54, 2007. APPENDIX
1. Circle the number that indicates how many times you used etutoring in ancient Greek.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
2. Circle the number that indicates how many times you used etutoring in Mathematics.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Α. I didn’t have a computer at home. YES NO B. I faced technical problems I couldn’t solve and I couldn’t use e-tutoring YES NO
C. I didn’t need it in ancient Greek. YES NO
D. I didn’t need it in Mathematics. YES NO
E. I didn’t have time to use e-tutoring. YES NO
F. I didn’t like it. YES NO
G. Other (please specify):……….
Excellent Very good Good Average Poor Very poor 4. Knowledge of computer use
5. Knowledge of Internet use
6. Grade First Gymnasio Second Gymnasio
7. Gender Female Male
8. I have a Facebook account YES NO
9. I use Skype YES NO
Choose the level of your agreement with the sentences below (I totally agree, I agree, I neither agree nor disagree, I disagree, I totally disagree, I do not know/no answer).
1 I use microphone and text during e-tutoring. 2 I use exclusively microphone during e-tutoring. 3 I use exclusively text during e-tutoring.
4 The e-tutoring environment provides the tools I needed for the course. 5 I am satisfied with the easy use of e-tutoring.
6 The e-tutoring environment is friendly.
7 During the use of e-tutoring I didn’t face technical problems. 8 The e-tutoring is a safe working environment.
9 At e-tutoring the teachers provide material that meets my needs. 10 At e-tutoring the teachers provide sufficient material.
11 At e-tutoring the teachers provide additional material to the one provided in the classroom. 12 E-tutoring corresponds to my demands.
13 E-tutoring makes discussion with the educator easy. 14 E-tutoring helps me control the progress of my learning. 15 E-tutoring helps me learn the material taught.
16 E-tutoring makes discussion with other students easy. 17 I liked watching video from an e-tutoring course. 18 E-tutoring provides individualized support of learning. 19 I learned and had fun with e-tutoring.
20 Overall, I am satisfied with e-tutoring. 21 Overall, e-tutoring is successful.
Exploring students’ attitudes to learning mathematics with the use of micro
experiments via Information and Communication Technologies
S. Doukakis
1,
Μ. Vrontakis
2, C. Diamadis
3, G.
Μihalopoulou
4 The American College of Greece-PIERCEAthens, Greece
{1sdoukakis,2mvrontakis,3cdiamadis,4gmihalopoulou}@acg.edu Abstract :
220 students of lower secondary education participated in a research aiming to explore their attitudes related to the utilization of microexperiments via information and communication technologies (ICT) in the classroom. Using a modified scale based on the scale of Pierce et al. (2007) data collected relevant to the students’ confidence in mathematics, confidence with technology, attitude to learning mathematics with technology, and the way of students’ engagement when using microexperiments and ICT. Data analysis shows that the 56% of the students believes that they benefit from the use of microexperiments in the context of the school classroom. Those students expressed that microexperiments helped them in understanding and learning mathematics as well as in exploration of mathematical ideas. It is shown, finally, that the utilization of the microexperiments contributes in developing a group-collaborating climate in the classroom.
Keywords-component; education, mathematics, microexperiments, group collaboration
I. INTRODUCTION
In the framework of teaching mathematics, the utilization of manipulatives, representational means and digital technologies (DT), contributes in students’ experimenting, conjecture developing, mathematical ideas’ discovering and finally in conjecture documentation, by means of mathematical argument. This study focuses on the case of engagement and utilization of teaching mathematics with DT. Recently, the Greek ministry of education launched “Digital School” to be the main component of the vision for the “New School”. In this effort, the school books turned from printed form into a digital one and they were also enriched with digital applications (microexperiments), aiming to become the catalyst for the change of:
• the content of the curriculum and school knowledge • the teaching and learning process
• the relationship between students and teachers • the relationship between parents and school [1].
Particularly, the enriched mathematical school books of lower secondary education include hundreds of microexperiments, which can be used as they are or they can be reconstructed by the teachers according to their personal point view or their students’ needs. Microexperiments have been developed through the educational software: GeoGebra, Function Probe, Geometer's Sketchpad and Turtleworld. These constructions have been incorporated in different parts of the syllabus and they may be connected with activities, examples, exercises, as well as with definitions and mathematical properties.
traditional school classroom) by means of an interactive blackboard or a computer and a video projector, in order to explain notions and to investigate mathematical ideas for the whole of the classroom [2].
The enrichment of the school books was a “teaching armamentarium” for the teachers who would like to utilize the DT, but they didn’t know how to construct microexperiments. On the other hand, this enrichment supported the work of the teachers who knew how to construct microexperiments, by giving them the opportunity to add/incorporate them in their own digital library.
In the present work firstly we will (briefly) describe the utilization context of the microexperiments in the school unit and we will continue by presenting the results of a research which took place in our school, with the participation of 220 students, related to the use of microexperiments in the school classroom.
II.
T
HE FRAMEWORK FOR INCORPORATION AND UTILIZATION OF THE MICROEXPERIMENTS In the school unit, educational software programs such as Euclidraw, GeoGebra and the Geometer's Sketchpad, have been used for many years. However, the widespread of Geogebra, the development and the availability of a number of its applications, from domestic teachers and also from the international community, has lead the teachers of the school in the further use of the specific software and develop a large number of applications [3]. All the available microexperiments from the digital school (since the academic year 2011-2012), were studied and they were included in the framework of mathematics teaching, along with the applications that teachers of mathematics of the school had already developed. The selected microexperiments were uploaded at Blackboard platform which is the school lesson management system (LMS), with the citation of the source reference. In this way, microexperiments are now part of the daily teaching process and they are used every time the teacher or a group of teachers believes that it will be helpful for the students.III.
R
ESEARCHM
ETHODIn order to study the aspects and the attitudes of the students for the utilization of the microexperiments in the mathematics classroom, a modified scale was used, based on the Mathematics and Technology attitudes scale (MTAS) of Pierce et al. [4]. According to its developers, the initial scale can be used for the investigation of students’ attitudes and the level of their engagement in the classroom, in relation to DT. The constructors’ scale consists of 20 items. These items are divided into subscales: mathematics confidence [MC], confidence with technology [TC], attitude to learning mathematics with technology [MT], affective and behavioral engagement [ABE] with mathematics. Students are asked to indicate the extent of their agreement with each statement, on a five-point scale (Likert-type scoring format) from strongly agree to strongly disagree (scored from 5 to 1). According to its developers, students will need 15 minutes for the completion of the scale. For details see [4].
The scale was modified so that microexperiments will be inserted into questions, while the phrases referring to scientific/graphic calculators were eliminated from the items, as they are not used by the Greek school mathematical community. For example, the statement: “Mathematics is more interesting when using graphics calculators.” was turned into: “Mathematics is more interesting when microexperiments are used”. Furthermore, there are two items in order to investigate issues of group-collaboration. Through the use of that scale data were collected related to:
• mathematics and technology confidence,
The modified scale was examined for its reliability according to Alpha coefficient (Cronbach Alpha), evaluating the internal consistency of its propositions. According to Fornell and Larcker, Cronbach’s alpha value greater than 0.7 indicates a high reliability [5]. The result of the test revealed acceptable indices of internal consistency is 0.771.
In the present research, 220 students (male and female) from three classes were participated. The female students were 115. The research took place in the beginning of the second semester, when students had already worked with microexperiments in the classroom and had already taken the grades of the first semester. In this paper we present the results of the descriptive statistics, as well as some conclusions from the analysis of the differences between samples, using X2.
IV. RESULTS
A. Students’ aspects related to mathematics
On a percentage of 70% students consider to have confidence with mathematics (Figure 1), while 78.5% consider achieving good results in mathematics.
Figure 1. Students’ answers “I am confident with mathematics”
52.5% of the students consider having a mathematical mind, while 44% (approximately) consider handling difficult mathematical issues. Although 7 out of 10 students declare that they are interested in learning new things in mathematics, only half of them believe that learning mathematics is enjoyable (Figure 2).
Moreover, 76% of the students feel satisfied when they solve mathematical problems. On the other hand, 4 out of 10 students mention that if they have done a mistake in mathematics, they will not try to locate and correct it. On a similar percentage, students will not continue trying to investigate a mathematical issue, with new ideas or a new approach, if they “get stuck”.
Figure 2. Students’ answers “Learning mathematics is enjoyable” B. Students’ aspects related to technology
of other technological tools, such as mobile phone, mp3 etc. However, when they were asked if they can handle any computer program in school, a percentage of 60% replied positively, while 1 out of 4 gave no answer. C. Students’ aspects related to microexperiments
Students, on a percentage of 64% mention that mathematics is more interesting when using computer and explore microexperiments. The percentage of positive answers increases up to 70% when they are asked if they like using computers and microexperiments to do mathematics (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Students’ answers “Mathematics is more interesting when using computer and explore microexperiments” On the other hand, 56% mentions that the microexperiments have helped them in learning better the mathematics that are taught, while in the matter of convenience to the way of investigation mathematical ideas, 55% of the students replied positively, although 1 out of 3 gave no answer (positive or negative). Finally, 52% of the students agreed that the microexperiments increased their willingness to cooperate with their classmates (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Students’ answers “Microexperiments increased my willingness to cooperate with my classmates”
V. CORRELATIONS
A correlation analysis through the chi-squared (X2) method followed, in order to locate statistically significant
differences between the students’ statements. Throughout this analysis the correlation of the use of microexperiments, with the confidence in mathematics and with the confidence in DT was investigated. For that purpose, the answers: “I totally agree” and “I agree” grouped as one variable, and “I totally disagree” and “I disagree” as another variable. From the analysis the following results appeared:
A. Correlation between confidence in the use of computer and in the use of microexperiments
