ARGarden: Augmented edutainment system with a learning companion

Abstract

Recently, many researchers have studied on agent-based edutainment systems to improve students' learning experiences. In this paper, we present ARGarden which makes users experience an interactive flower gardening with a learning companion squatting on an augmented picture. The companion perceives users' actions as well as situations in the learning environment and appraises the perceived information autonomously. Then, it presents peer support to help participants' problem-solving through anthropomorphic expressions. We developed our system on a mobile device and visualized a learning companion as an animated bluebird. We also demonstrated the implemented system at an exhibition and evaluated the effectiveness of our system through the observation of participants' responses to the demonstration. In this evaluation, we found that the bluebird as a learning companion helped users to experience how to properly grow the flower in our edutainment setting. Finally, we expect possibilities that an augmented learning companion is one of the key factors for developing effective edutainment applications. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.