MARKER: A Tool for Building Interactive Applications for
T-Learning
Sttiwe Washington F. de Sousa
Programa de Pós-graduação em Informática
Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB)
João Pessoa, Brasil
[email protected]
Ismênia Mangueira Soares
Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação
Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB)
João Pessoa, Brasil
[email protected]
Abstract
The growth of distance education has been enhanced by Massive
Open Online Course and by the production of content broadcasted
on television. The type of learning undertaken by Interactive
Digital Television (iDTV) is also called Television-Learning (Tlearning). Due to the possibilities of interactivity emerged with the
creation of middleware Ginga, the T-Learning can cover a large
number of learners. The marking video is a set of techniques used
to insert additional interactive content in a video. As the
development of applications for iDTV is still a costly process,
because it requires a multidisciplinary team of developers to
create tools for producing interactive applications for iDTV is a
promising solution. The need for specific knowledge of
technology or programming language should not be a prerequisite
for this team. This paper presents a tool, called MARKER, for
building interactive applications for iDTV whose main actors are
the teacher (content creator) and student (interactive video user).
Keywords
T-learning, marking video, iDTV, distance education.
1. INTRODUCTION
The TV, over time, is undergoing a constant evolution, not only in
the TV set itself, but also the various technologies that surrounds
and makes possible further its viability in the propagation and
dissemination of information. These developments turned the TV
on a medium that can carry a plethora of information. Thus, we
can transmit data with greater complexity and take analog TV as a
reference for data transmission. The infrastructure of the Digital
TV (DTV) has brought itself a new model of television, changing
the paradigm of "watching TV" [3]. This new model is essential
for the implementation of technological change TVD [3With it,
we can send any type of information such as text, audio, video or
software. This can expand the market for television stations.
Another paradigm shift has been caused by Social TV [14].
The development of applications for Interactive Digital TV
(iDTV) is not a trivial process, since it requires multidisciplinary
teams consisting of project managers, systems analysts,
programmers, designers, and other professionals in the field to
which you want to direct an application. For example, the area of
Ed Porto Bezerra
Departamento de Informática
Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB)
João Pessoa, Brasil
[email protected]
Edna Gusmão de Góes Brennand
Centro de Educação
Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB)
João Pessoa, Brasil
[email protected]
education require the accompaniment of a teaching team [11].
However, the costs to keep this team can be high. Therefore, the
adoption of tools for creating applications for iDTV can be a
solution economically and technologically feasible.
2.
MARKING
INTERACTION
ON
VIDEO
FOR
The marking on video consists of a set of techniques used to enter
information into video seamlessly. Furthermore, the marking
techniques can provide the video content increased, as is the case
of entering a URL into a video for subsequent access to a site or
other types of information [15].
Among the advantages of using video techniques markings on
building interactive narratives, we highlight the lack of
dependency between context and technology, and greater
autonomy in the creative process and copyright [15].
Marking video provides a simple and efficient interactivity
because it offers the user greater control over the media viewed,
no longer limited to copy them or pause them [10].
According to its application, we classify the markings on video in
visible and invisible. Each relates to the permissible access type
for that content can be viewed [13].
The visible markings are displayed to showcase and raise the
existence of complementary content. A marking visible on
television context can be represented by any content (text,
symbols, geometric shapes and any type of image or
representation). Dimensional barcodes known as QR-code [9] are
also visible markings digital because they can store a variety of
data such as numeric digits, alphanumeric, byte Kanji characters
and other symbols.
The invisible markings involve the study of techniques used in
information hiding in digital media. One of the most widely used
techniques for data hiding is steganography [1]. The
steganography is widely used in the field of security to hide
information, as in the case of the watermark that tries to prevent
forgery, concealing copyright information. The use of
steganography as a way of marking the digital video TVDI
navigational can improve the user experience. The Ginga
middleware supports this type of marking: through the tags
<meta> and <metadata> it is possible include information or
content [6].
The association of an object with the content accessed by it, can
be expressed through the use of icons representative of multiple
intelligences (MI) [18]. Figure 1 shows icons of spatial
intelligence.
Building an application for iDTV requires three aspects: the
profile of teachers, choosing a video source, and the choice of
other media and other technological resources [17].
To choose the profile of teachers, we consider the goals of your
educational content, and identify the particular aspects with regard
to IM to be awakened.
The choice of the source video is in accordance with the
identification of the application content to the needs raised by the
teacher.
Figure 1 Icons representing the multiple intelligences
The representative icons are classified as: musical, bodily
kinesthetic, logical mathematical, spatial, interpersonal and
linguistic. For each symbol a study observing the percentage that
best represents intelligence. For example, spatial intelligence can
be well represented (100%) by the symbols of the compass, globe
and astronaut.
3. CONCEPTUAL MODELLING
In modeling tool MARKER concepts were applied in the process
of software development known as DSDM [4] together with the
universal modeling language called UML [12].
From the identification of functional requirements that define the
sequence of interaction with external agents, we model the use
case diagram showing the overview of the features of the tool
MARKER (Figure 2).
The choice of other media and other technological resources
(other videos, links to the Internet, animation, audio, text and
games) must be in accordance with the identified potential in the
source video. It will be added to the application as a way to
increase content and interaction.
The generated content is an application (on NCL) for the
middleware Ginga. The main file of the application execution
(main.ncl) is generated from a template.
In designing the templates were initially identified based elements
to form an NCL document. They are needed to assemble a
document NCL 3.0 compliant middleware Ginga. Thus, we can
build an early model common to all applications.
From this initial model, the standardization of the provisions of
the elements on the screen was held. The arrangement of the
elements corresponds to the region where each element must
occupy.
In building the application, the tool will populate this template
with the code of the content produced by the teacher.
4. MARKER PROTOTYPE
The prototype was implemented in Java programming language.
The computing environment of execution was previously
configured with the installation package ffmpeg libraries [7]. So
we can run multiple video formats. Another tool used was
Ginga4Windows [4] which provided the execution of applications
generated at the time of its development. In Figure 3 we have the
home screen MARKER.
Figure 2 Use case diagram
The process of creating a project starts from your request. First the
teacher selects a background for your application. Then he goes
on to display the template that contains metrics to provisions of
the content on the screen, such as the position of a button, viewing
a video and keys triggering events. Finally, he makes the insertion
of the main video that will be worked to insert interactions.
From the start of the project, the teacher can add markings making
use of the insertion of various contents such as video, images,
text, audio and applications gingaNCL Anytime, an inserted
content can be removed from the project in progress.
The implementation consists of viewing content built by
Ginga4Windows [4]. Thus, we can observe the actual state of the
application at the time of its implementation. The construction of
the project consists in deleting configuration files and temporary
files used during the implementation. At the end of the process,
the content can be made available and accessed by the remote
user.
Figure 3 Home screen MARKER
The home screen contains a player (dark part of the screen) where
will be displayed the source video. At the top are buttons
regarding the following features: create a new project, open an
existing project, save project, build the project, TIM (access to a
local page with educational content), run (view contents of the
application in Ginga4windows), start project, insert marking and
out of the tool. On the left side of the player we have an area
reserved for displaying the content inserted where you can delete
it, view the start and end time that content is available for access,
the icon used to represent the content and type of inserted media
(audio, video, image, text or application gingaNCL).
At the end of creation, it will be provided a folder containing all
the files needed to run this application. This folder will contain a
file main.ncl (main file to run the application), a file containing
the connector base ConnectorBase.ncl, and other files that are
generated depending on the inclusion of interactions, and another
folder called "media" containing all media application (audio,
video, HTML pages and files NCL).
5. PRELIMINARY PROOF OF CONCEPT
The application used as source video one video lesson on ecology
of Distance Education Course at the Federal University of
Paraíba. From the selection of the source video, the possible
moments of interactions are identified by the teacher and inserted
through the button "Insert Marking". The icon "Compass Rose ",
displayed at the top right of the screen shown in Figure 4,
represents the complementary content entered by the teacher.
play. If you click on the yellow button, it closes and the video
source remains displayed.
6. RELATED WORK
Celes [2] proposes an approach to creating content for the
teaching area. This proposal consists of the design concepts of
architectural styles to aid the construction of learning objects
resulting in NCL template that will be filled using a language
called Xtyle. Unlike MARKER, this approach requires specific
knowledge of technology or customization of templates. Saade
and Smith [16] proposed the XTemplate language for creating
template describing hypermedia elements. The content authoring
resembles in creating an application using the NCL language, ie, it
is not friendly to a content creator.
7. FINAL CONSIDERATION
Building applications for T-Learning usually requires the
formation of a multidisciplinary team. This has high costs. The
adoption of these tools to create applications for iDTV by a
teacher with basic computer solution is economically and
technologically feasible.
The design of interactive content for TV, from the tool
MARKER, is a pragmatic option, although still contains
limitations, such as the need for greater customization of the
display of the content and its characteristics. In the validation
stage of the tool, we found that teachers with basic computer skills
(opening a file, move on screens, run a video etc.) were able to
create their applications. This seems to differentiate MARKER
other studies analyzed in this article.
The tool also allows access via mobile, tablet and / or smartphone.
However, more tests with students and teachers are needed.
8. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The second author (Bezerra E. P.) is Coordinator of the project
funded by CAPES - Proc. Number BEX 1487/12-4.
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Figure 4 Using the “Compass Rose” icon
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Figure 5 Musical content inserted
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