An extendible and ubiquitious e-learning software for foreigners to learn Chinese on iOS-based devices

Abstract

The larger screen size, mobility, sensing and multi-touch input features of Android or iOS based devices like the iPad or Android tablet PC offer many exciting opportunities for real-life edutainment applications. An example is the learning of Chinese, especially to write Chinese characters in correct stroke sequences, that is typically considered as a difficult task to most foreigners. In this work, we propose an extendible, easy-to-use and ubiquitous e-learning software that was integrated with mini-games to facilitate the learning of Chinese characters on iOS-based devices such as the iPad. To demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal, a prototype of our proposed e-learning software was built on the iOS-based devices so that foreign students can learn to speak and write Chinese anytime and anywhere. Among the various commercially available iOS-based app for learning Chinese, our proposal represents the first attempt to reduce the complexity of learning to write Chinese characters through mini-games while increasing the extendibility of the e-learning software through component-based design. More importantly, it opens up numerous opportunities for further investigations. © 2012 IEEE.