An Educational Ontology-based M-Learning System

Abstract

Smart devices applications can assist young children in improving their learning capabilities and comprehension skills. However most of learning applications are built without taking into consideration the effective needs and background of Arab users. They are somehow incompatible with their local environment and culture. We propose in this paper a mobile-based educational system that displays illustrations automatically to characterize the content of children’ stories on animal domain, and we use some intelligent technique to answer users’ questions using an educational ontology. The generation of illustrations passes through different phases which include text processing, extraction of word-to-word relationships, building and accessing an ontology, and using Internet search engines for retrieval of complimentary information. The system can be used also by instructors to teach the children in a non-conventional manner. They can customize semantically the structure of the questions and determine how the answers will be displayed. In order to customize questions and answers, we have defined a semantic infrastructure to define the logic of terms, and the workflow of answers. The aim of our system is to improve the children educational skills to grasp vocabulary and grammar using multimedia with a portable smart device which includes observation, comprehension, realization, and deduction. Children will then be able to continue learning outside the limited time of their schools and from any location.