Our publication at this year ED-Media 2015 conference “Collaborative Learning Through Drawing on iPads” is now online available.
Abstract:
Teamwork and collaboration skills are very important for improving learning efficiency and experience. Therefore an innovative iPad app, called Teamsketch, was developed to provide a collaborative sketch environment for devices with which pupils can simultaneously draw one sketch together. Up to four pupils can take part in a session and train collaboration just by drawing a sketch. First of all different features and issues of state-of-the- art applications were evaluated. Afterwards a prototype from scratch using Apple’s new programming language Swift has been implemented. Additionally, a web service, a web interface and also a web site were programmed in order to provide an evaluation tool for teachers. Furthermore, pupils can upload and download their drawn sketches and profile pictures. A first field test was carried out at the primary school Graz-Hirten. This test showed the potential of the app for training and evaluating team and collaboration skills.
Reference: Spitzer, M. & Ebner, M. (2015). Collaborative Learning Through Drawing on iPads. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2015. pp. 633-642 Chesapeake, VA: AACE.