A professor at China University of Technology has decided to tackle the issue of students using smartphones during class by having them use their phones to work on class-related activities via a specially designed app.
“Students nowadays are prone to focusing more on their smartphones or tablet computers than listening in class,” professor Tseng You-hung (曾宥宏) said, adding that it is a unique trait shared by students of the modern era.
Tseng said that he developed the app, named “Cloud Education 3.0,” over the past year-and-a-half, adding that education has moved from paper to digital and now to the cloud.
The app features a variety of mini-games that are integrated with course content, such as flipping cards, whack-a-mole and friend-finding, Tseng said, adding that instructors can set different goals, rewards and punishments for the mini-games, as well as setting time limits for answering questions.
All events are conducted simultaneously across the classroom on an individual basis, Tseng said.
Tseng said he has found that the app has greatly improved students’ motivation to learn course material.
Tseng, who has been uploading questions, videos and audio files, as well as other course material, to a cloud server, said the platform has allowed him to educate in a more relaxed manner and allows him to easily grade papers and monitor students’ general performance.
Tseng said he also added a roll-call function to the software, allowing instructors to either manually check off students in class or allow the app to automatically handle attendance, adding that the application also allows for student-instructor interaction by encouraging students to ask questions.
After a trial period of one semester — to the acclaim of the instructors and students who have used it — Tseng said he is offering the program free of charge to all educators and students across the nation, regardless of age.
More than 17,000 people have downloaded the app over the past six months since he made it available for download, Tseng said, adding that lecturers from his own university, Feng Chia University, Chang Jung Christian University and others have applied to use the app.
Tseng said he hopes the app becomes a platform in which instructors enjoy teaching and students enjoy learning.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS