Bichinho Virtual - Faculdade de Tecnologia

Learning biology with Gene
Marcos Augusto F. Borges - [email protected] 1
Simony Pelicer de Oliveira - [email protected]
Faculdade de Tecnologia em Processamento de Dados
University of the state of Minas Gerais at Passos (UEMG)
Abstract
Electronic devices that simulate pets (virtual pets or tamagotchis) have become an
amazing success to the children around the world. There are controversies about their use,
but they offer great opportunities of learning to their users.
This work studies a virtual pet-based computational learning environment. The main
goal of this project is to develop and study an interactive and pleasant system (the Gene)
that could help students of secondary school to learn biology while playing a motivating
game. The way of learning we are looking for is the Papert’s construcionism. The user will
model the pet, defining its physical and mental features through the manipulation of its
genes. After the process of modelling, he has the possibility to play with it, similarly to the
games available in the market.
1. Theoretical basis: why a game?
Toys influence in the children development of the cognition is very important. While
playing with a toy, the children have freedom to determine their actions. Toys stimulate
curiosity, initiative and self-confidence, providing the development of language skills,
thinking and attention (Vygotsky, 1989). While playing, children explore and work with
everything around. Games represent effort and conquer, which is a vital need. The game
balance the intern and extern world, directing children energies and transforming their
1
Marcos Augusto F. Borges
address: Rua Marechal Deodoro, 843, ap. 61, Centro, Campinas-SP, 13020-001, Brazil
anguish into pleasure (Araújo, 1992). Games still stimulate social interaction (Grossi, S.D.).
According to Piaget, games have a very close relationship with the intelligence
construction, being a useful tool to motivate the learning process. While playing a game,
the user could be learning some concepts, even having no idea that this is happening. It is
not like the instrucionist paradigm, where the student just listen to the explanations, in a
passive way, practising his new knowledge in exercises. Games could make learning easier
and more motivating, arising the students learning desire. According to Vieira (1994),
while playing games children can exercise: imagination, group interaction process, the
process of knowledge construction, creativity, autonomy and personality expression.
Learning computer games integrate game strategies and learning objectives. They are a
challenge that motivates the students, because of the fantasy and curiosity. The computer
based learning games are developed to improve the opportunities to learn not only
traditional concepts and contents but also organised logic thinking abilities while having
fun. These games could create an imaginary world to be explored, called microworlds.
While exploring this microworld, users can learn a lot without losing the motivation. The
student learn reaching an objective, thinking and discovering the concepts, without having
be presented directly to the contents (Coburn, 1988; Stahl, 1991). It is interesting to learn
something which is needed to solve a problem because this is the moment when the brain
index better the information (Ellis, 1994). It is known that an information which is not used
during the learning process could be difficult to access and use in the future (Schank e
Kass, 1996).
Multimedia software could transform the classes in a pleasant and funny place, turning
the learning process more interesting and motivating, because of the sounds, pictures,
animations, etc. (Hernández, 1990, Thalmann, 1993, Silveira, 1997).
2. The Gene
He authors aim to study the use of a multimedia software that intends to help
secondary students in the learning biology (Genetics).
We have choose the tamagotchis (Besser, 1997) as the basis of the system because
they fascinate children that can be the actors, the subjects that are responsible for the
situation. Children can pretend to be parents, taking care and giving advice to the pets.
While playing with tamagotchis children develop their emotional intelligence having virtual
experiences (Fagundes, 1997). So, why not improve this kind of software with more
opportunities of learning?
The user will work like a genetic scientist that will manipulate the
deoxiribosenucleic acid (DNA) of the pet embryo and test how the pet will be having this
DNA. He can manipulate the DNA, test the resulting pet and return to the manipulation, in
a process called Logo aesthetic (Valente, 1993).
The learning occurs during the modelling and simulation process. First, the user
models his pet (using the gene manipulation). After that, based on the model constructed,
the system simulates a pet life from its born. The benefits of this process in the educational
context are well-known (De Jong, 1991, Pagano, 1992, Hebenstrait, 1991, Baranauskas,
1994), and there are lot of examples of modelling and simulation in computer-based
learning environments like Enxuto-Jonas (Borges e Baranauskas, 1998) and Caça ao
Tesouro (Fernandes et al., 1998).
The user has the total control of the pet features. The system does not teach
anything, working like a learning interactive environment, in the classification presented by
Borges (1997). The design of the system was developed based on the learner centred design
(Soloway et al., 1994).
2.1. Using Gene 2
The first interface of Gene (figure 1) presents an animal cell, with all of the
organelles graphically represented. The user can explore all of them, by clicking the
figures. By clicking an organelle, a message will be presented (text and sound), describing
its function. The goal of this interface is not to teach the organelles function, but give to the
user the opportunity to discover that he can work on the chromatin (nucleo-protein of
chromosomes) to change the pet genotype (its genetic constitution). The user can do this
manipulation or only ask the system to "born the cell", clicking on the "born button".
If the user prefers to work on the chromatin, a zoom will be presented (figure 2),
where the can user manipulate the pet genes (particular piece of chromosomes). The user
can work on some loci of genes (fixed positions in the chromosome always occupied by a
given kind of gene) of two homologous chromosomes. At this point, he will work with
concepts like homozygous and heterozygous organisms, dominant and recessive genes. The
system will not explain anything: the user can test how the genes work or look for help in
biology textbooks. The system does not intend to teach, but to provide opportunities to
understand why it could be interesting to learn the subject (discovering or studying).
There is another window, where the user can explore a more detailed presentation of
the DNA, looking at his chemical structure. At this interface, the user can work with the
chemical composition of the nucleotides (compounds that are the building blocks of nucleic
acids), making the possible combinations of purine and pyrimidine nitrogen containing
bases. Here, again, the system does not teach how to combine it: the user needs to test and
discover the possible combinations.
After manipulating the DNA, the user should return to the first interface, and ask the
system to make the pet born. At this moment, the pet is presented and a game similar to the
commercial one begins. The pet is a baby at the beginning and becomes older gradually.
The student should provide food, water and love to his pet. The user can play football with
it, can help the pet to take a bath, can prepare a birthday party, etc. While playing with his
pet, the user can detect if the pet has the features the user intended him to have. If the user
fails in his genetic manipulation, he can return to the DNA interface, and change another
time the genes, and then, make the new pet born, working in the logo aesthetic described
before.
2
The biology contents was based on (Abercrombie et al., 1963, Sasson, 1991, Sasson et al., 1991)
Figure 1: the first interface of Gene
Figure 2: the genetic manipulation window
2.2. Technical details
The system will work at a microcomputer (at least a Pentium) running Window 95
(or further versions) with common multimedia resources. It is being developed in the
Delphi environment (Borland Delphi 3.0), because it gives us the opportunity to work with
multimedia. The figures are being drawn at Corel Draw and Adobe PhotoShop LE (some of
them were digitalized). The sound track is being recorded in a private studio connected to a
computer (MIDI).
An undergraduate student, who will spend one year and almost one thousand hours
in this project, is carrying the development. We are using computers with common
resources in order to make easier the use of this system in schools (they will not need a
special computer laboratory).
3. Discussion
We are in the final part of the software development process. Now, we are intending to
make experiments with typical users, first in the University laboratory, identifying interface
drawbacks. After the improvements resulting from the first experiments, we will interact
with a secondary school, where the system will be tested in a real learning environment.
During the development of the system some difficulties could be verified and
pointing solutions to them is one of the objectives of the research. One of the worst
problems is the need of interdisciplinary skills, because this turns the development more
difficult and expensive. For example, we will need professionals from arts to prepare
interesting pictures and sound track. On the other hand, we are testing all the potential of
multimedia that could be explored in this kind of non-expensive development of systems
that can be used on computers already available at schools.
This project presents a new and interesting way of using the computer to help the
biology content learning, which used to be done in a theoretical way. In order to have
success using the system in learning process, how teachers and students will be presented to
the system will be studied carefully, because a positive posture with the system is essential
to guarantee its use in a effective way (Diaz et al., 1998). Thinking about this is important
to ensure that it will motivate the students to work with the genes in a practical experience
that could help them in the learning process.
4. References:
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This work has been funded by FAPEMIG and UEMG