ISSN
International Conference on
Computational Science and Information Management
(ICoCSIM 2012)
Visual haptic teaching and learning tool framework for
Jawi handwriting skills
a
Maizan Mat Amin,
bHalimah Badioze Zaman, and
cAzlina Ahmad
Institute of Visual Informatics. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
a*
Abstract
Jawi is another variant of the Arabic script based on Malay language. Jawi handwriting skills are essential to be acquired by Muslim pupils in the Malaysian educational system as the textbooks and examination in Islamic Education are developed using Jawi scripts. The conventional methods need a new approach to enhance the learning process and to reduce the reliance on teacher. The visual haptic approach is considered as a very promising potential to aid primary school pupils in teaching and learning method of cursive Jawi handwriting skills. This paper will present the components involve in constructing the content framework for Haptik-Visual Jawi (HV-Jawi) application.
Keywords : Jawi; handwriting skill; visual haptic; teaching and learning; framework
1. Introduction
Haptic systems are new additions to multimodal systems with a great prospective. Haptic systems have been applied in various fields such as teaching and learning tools, medical procedures, training simulation, assistive and rehabilitative devices, and scientific visualisations. The combination of haptic technology with visual displays can be exploited in learning or training that requires visual motor integration or hand eye coordination, such as handwriting [1-2], surgical operations, and learning [3-4]. Our focus will be more on the adaptation in learning cursive Jawi handwriting skills. Several visual haptic applications have been developed for training or teaching and learning handwriting of various language characters such as for cursive Latin, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Tamil and Persian, but not yet in Jawi script.
Jawi is a script derived from Arabic alphabets and have been adopted for Malay language writing [5]. . Jawi handwriting skills are essential to be properly written by pupils to enable them to read and study in Islamic Education, besides in learning the language of the Al-Quran. Pupils need to master writing and reading Jawi, as the textbooks and examinations in the Islamic Education are constructed using Jawi script [6] in the Malaysian educational setting. A review by Nik Rosila has demonstrated that the mastery of writing and reading Jawi skills among pupils are weak and it is significantly correlated with pupils’ achievement in Islamic Education [7]. The situation is very worrying because the pupils will experience the drop-out and it will be difficult for them to understand the syllabus in the higher Islamic Education. The failure or inability of some primary school pupils in acquiring basic skills in Jawi especially in handwriting, is among the challenges in education today.
Hence, the aim of our study is to is to develop a visual haptic teaching and learning aid for a proper writing Jawi character called Haptik Visual-Jawi (HV-Jawi). This article will highlight our application’s content framework. The remainder of this paper is organised as follows: Section 2 presents related works on potential of visual haptic technology in teaching and learning handwriting skills. In Section 3, the components of the framework are discussed. Section 4 highlights our conclusions and future works.
2. Related works
Handwriting is an activity of writing by using hand. Hand movements involved in handwriting support the visual recognition of letters and contributed to low level reading skills. The handwriting was part of an important experience for each student. Handwriting mainly involves 30 to 60 percent of the time allocated to primary schools and writing fine motor activities of students [8].
The learning process of Jawi handwriting have similar learning stages with other languages. As pupils have gone the pre-writing stages, they will have the capacity to start writing on letters. So the early education on handwriting will affect pupils for many years to come. Writing skills should be controlled by emphasising standards or basic aspects of writing, right from the beginning. Trajectory or the movement of the letter is important. It emphasis the dynamic aspects of letters such as way letters are formed, their point of entry and direction of stroke, than their static shape [10]. The pupils having difficult and tend to make mistakes in learning Jawi writing as most of the characters in Jawi have various curvatures and forms. Besides, Jawi letters are written right to left and based on distinct shapes that vary according to their connection to preceding or following letters [11]. The learning of correct movement and sequences of writing basic Jawi letters is essential before the further lesson.
In handwriting, the pupil has to graphomotorically form each letter. Pupils need to produce a graphic shape similar to as much as possible the standard shapes of specific letters [9]. Mastery of writing skills is important to allow children to write with neat, beautiful and organized; a chance to learn proper techniques and writing; ability to understand what was written by them and be able to read what is written.
Several visual haptic applications have been developed for training or teaching and learning handwriting of various language characters such as for cursive Latin [12-16], Japanese [17-20], Chinese [21-22], Arabic [19], Tamil[23] and Persian [24]. Yet, none study had been done to Jawi script. A preliminary study has been conducted to determine the current process of teaching and learning Jawi handwriting skills [25] in Malaysian educational setting, and the potential of the haptic visual approach in the process. The results show that less emphasis of the Jawi character formation creates mistakes. It also shows that the current approach is too reliant on skills and presence of teachers either in the learning or/and assessment process. Figure 1 depicts the conventional and a haptic approach in learning handwriting skills. There are potential contributions provided by the visual haptic approach in writing, practice and the assessment processes during the Jawi handwriting skills learning. These three components are discussed in detail in the proposed application contents’ framework in Section 3 below.
3. Content Framework for Haptik Visual -Jawi (HV-Jawi)
The aim of our study is to develop a visual haptic teaching and learning tool for a proper writing Jawi character called Haptik Visual-Jawi (HV-Jawi). Haptic device named Phantom Omni will be used to help pupils in different level of guidance and control during the learning. (Refer to Figure 1(b)). Phantom Omni is a serial 6-DOF (x,y,z and pitch, roll, yaw) input, 3-DOF (x,y,z) output device. The lesson scope will be on the basic formation of Jawi character. The components involve in constructing the content framework for HV-Jawi application is shown in Figure 2. These components will be discussed in detail in the following subsections: Writing Activities, Practice Activities and Assessment Activities.
Fig. 1. (a) Conventional approach and (b) visual haptic approach in handwriting skills learning
Fig. 2. Content framework for Haptik Visual Jawi (HV-Jawi) application
3.1. Writing Activity
Copying and tracing are used by kindergarten and elementary school children in their introductory courses of writing, drawing, and graphic art [26]. This visual haptic application will focus on curvature tracing and copying as most of the Jawi characters are cursive. Tracing requires hand-eye coordination in joining lines between adjacent points; and copying activities engage visual motor integration in writing the given letter. Copying is a common handwriting procedure used to foster letter formation, an important aspect of legibility [27]. Both will occupy visual and haptic part. Lack of proper handwriting, early handwriting skill can make many movement faults. When the basic character formed with the incorrect movement or direction, pupil will face difficulties in connecting them in further lesson. This situation will give effect to the Jawi handwriting system. Hence, visual haptic technology will guide pupils the correct movement and sequences through these activities with the help of control and guidance from haptic force feedback.
3.2. Practice Activities
A computer is an effective environment in which to practice as the user doesn't need to be supervised but can be still monitored. Visual haptic technology and force feedback capabilities also can be a strategic tool to learn and practice handwriting. Pupils can keep practicing without or less supervision from the teacher as the haptic application can be developed to guide and evaluate the learning of Jawi handwriting skill. The teachers’ guide can be replicated using a new tool such as haptic technology and it will be very helpful to the teachers and pupils. Visual haptic approach and scaffolding can be implemented in the current practice of teaching and learning Jawi handwriting skills.
This application will make use of modeling, coaching and scaffolding support as a strategy in designing a constructive learning environment [29]. Modeling and coaching can be a part of a scaffolding process. Modeling supports are employed by providing an example on how the desired trajectory of the Jawi letter forms including their point of entry, direction of the stroke and the shape. The goal is an imitation of the teacher’s performance that has been recorded by haptic device, by the pupil. When the model is fading, which means that pupils should follow their own thoughts instead of following the example. In coaching, pupils perform the required performance by themselves. A haptic application will provides force feedback haptic and prompts to a pupil. It focused on pupil’s performance. Scaffolding provides temporary frameworks to support learning and student performance. When these supports are faded, so that the learner will become self-reliant. Practice through repetition, feedback and reinforcement also essential if the skill of letter formation is to be mastered [28]. These elements are part of acquisition model in theories of learning that will be employed in the this application too.
3.3. Assessment Activities
The handwriting lesson should be emphasized in the process of forming the correct formation and sequence of each letter. Dix et al. also stated that the most significant information in handwriting is not the forms but the stroke information [30]. Teachers are able to check pupils’ handwritings through the forms of the letters produce by the pupils. However, teachers cannot assess the correct stroke order, unless they are present during the process of writing. Haptic and other computer application can be utilized to help in assessing the process of writing, to help in reducing the errors in writing and improving writing speeds [31]. In this case, haptic technology can mimic the role played by teachers in teaching and evaluating the correct way of writing.
One of the assessment of improvement in handwriting is comparing ‘before and after samples’ [10]. It is good for morale to see improvement and important to help pupil developing self-advancement. This application will employ online handwriting recognition for the assessment activities. It is because the learning in handwriting is happening during the process not as the product. It is important to pupil to know their mistakes during the process of writing. In addition the application will provide visualisation part to show the trajectory done by the pupil.
4. Conclusion
An effort to help pupils in learning Jawi handwriting skills has prompted the researchers to develop a visual haptic application called Haptik-Visual Jawi (HV-Jawi). Based on previous works, visual haptic applications can be a good learning medium to support the learning of handwriting skills. It is expected that the visual haptic application can enhance teaching and learning in Jawi handwriting skills. Hence, we present the components involve in constructing the content framework for HV-Jawi application based on a review and findings of the relevant literatures, and our preliminary study results. These three components in the proposed framework: Writing, Practice and Assessment activities will be employed in developing effective visual haptic teaching and learning tool for Jawi handwriting skills.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the UKM under the grant of Projek Arus Perdana entitled Multi-Display Interactive Visualisation Environment on Haptic Horizontal Surface (Grant No: UKM-AP-ICT-16-2009) by the Institute of Visual Informatics. Their support is greatly appreciated. Special thanks to Ministry of Higher Education (KPT), Ministry of Education (KPM), and UNISZA for the help and support in this research.
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