Designing an IoT-Based 3D Pop-Up Book to Engage Children in English Vocabulary Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to use the Internet of Things (IoT) technology to engage elementary school children in English vocabulary learning through a pet-care game. An IoT system consisting of a three-dimensional (3D) pop-up book, a toy character, an educational robot, and a near-field communication wire network was developed. Based on this proposed IoT-based language learning environment, interactions among individual learners, an educational robot (accompanied by a tablet), and the 3D pop-up book augmented by a sensor network were induced. Two fourth graders followed the English robotic prompts, which were simple sentence structures embedded with target vocabulary, to interact with the 3D pop-up book so that each learner carried out daily life tasks under robotic guidance and human facilitation. A video analysis revealed that the IoT-augmented 3D pop-up book game effectively provided a learning environment for behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement. It is thus concluded that creating an IoT-based game environment for young learners and engaging them in interactions can enhance their performance in English vocabulary learning. Instructional designers may find the outcomes of this study useful for creating language learning opportunities with the support of IoT-based technology.