In the digital age, chatbots are widely applied in education. chatbots have become prevalent in education, proving to enhance learning outcomes. However, Students often face challenges in time and task management, which simultaneously test their ability to continue learning and cope with setbacks. To address this, we developed a "Learning Butler" chatbot system. incorporating the GPT language model and prompt engineering to support students' task and schedule management. This system fosters grit and a growth mindset through interactive dialogues, boosting their perseverance and adaptability in the face of challenges. thereby enhancing learning outcomes. Experiment results show significant improvements in students' grit, growth mindset and overall learning outcomes. Furthermore, surveys and web usage records also indicate the chatbot's beneficial impact on education.

In the realm of digital education, traditional virtual reality setups often confine students to basic interactions through devices like a mouse and handheld controllers, limiting immersive learning opportunities, particularly in disciplines requiring multi- modal knowledge such as hospitality and teacher training. Multi-modal knowledge encompasses physical actions, gestures, facial expressions, and other non-verbal communication. This study investigates a novel educational approach that synchronizes physical settings with digital reality scenarios, aided by Al Stereo Cameras (e.g., Apple Vision Pro or MetaQuest), to create a more interactive learning experience. A three-group quasi-experimental design involved 103 Taiwanese students practicing hospitality tasks, such as table service in a simulated Japanese restaurant. The groups included: Group A, handling physical utensils in a real-world-like setting; Group B, controlling virtual utensils with a mouse; and a control group, learning through conventional teaching. Findings reveal that Group A reported significantly better learning outcomes and reduced cognitive load compared to Groups B and C. The reduced cognitive load was attributed to the use of real physical utensils, which minimized the need for students to learn how to navigate virtual utensils using a mouse. The findings underscore the benefits of incorporating physical objects into VR environments, bridging the gap between traditional and digital educational modalities. This approach offers a practical framework for situated learning in educational settings, incorporating embodied and multi-modal learning, and suggesting its broad applicability in improving educational practices and outcomes in the digital age.

In service-oriented disciplines such as Hospitality Management Education and Nursing Education, multimodal elements such as bodily movements and facial expressions play crucial roles in addition to learning through oral instruction and written materials. Current digital reality learning systems provide excellent spaces for situated learning and real-time assessment. However, they often lack an environment that simultaneously considers real-time assessments of physical actions and spatial awareness. This omission can prevent students from effectively applying their learned knowledge in real professional settings, thereby reducing the practicality and effectiveness of their learning. To address this issue, our study has developed a teaching assistance system aimed at enhancing learners' experiences through readily available technologies. We established a new learning environment and model that can be used in the classroom, incorporating the concepts of personas and spatial computation proposed by Apple Vision Pro to facilitate real-time assessment and scaffolded guidance in service-oriented learning. This model, which complements traditional learning methods, supports embodied cognition and situated learning, allowing users to interact simultaneously with the physical environment and digital reality. Students can engage in both language and embodied action exercises within this environment. Through the system's real-time evaluation and feedback, students can immediately reflect and adjust their behavior in a nearly real interaction setting, enhancing their practical experience and thus improving their ability to absorb and apply learned skills. Moreover, students' performances in the digital reality are displayed on a large screen in the classroom, allowing peers in the audience area to simultaneously observe each other's acts, thereby creating a theater-style learning environment. This transformation not only allows students to see their own and others' real-time performances but also shifts their role from mere participants to performers. This shift helps build a sense of responsibility and enhances their motivation to learn. This method was tested in the 'Hospitality Practices and Japanese' course at a university of technology, with results showing significant improvements in learning outcomes in practical courses that require physical and verbal interactions compared to traditional digital realities.

This study explores the impact of digital magic mirrors on student engagement and skill development in vocational education, specifically in the hospitality sector. Traditional classroom-based instruction often fails to connect theoretical knowledge with practical application, leading to insufficient preparation for industry demands. To address this, the research integrates a digital magic mirror into a digital theater room to enhance learning through immersive experiences. A quasi- experimental design involved 60 hospitality students divided into an experimental group using the digital magic mirror and a control group using a general digital learning approach. Learning achievement, engagement, and self-efficacy were measured through pre- and post-tests and a questionnaire. Results showed that the experimental group had significantly higher learning achievement compared to the control group. The digital magic mirror also improved student engagement and skill development. However, no significant differences were found in perceived learning motivation and self-efficacy, with both groups reporting positive experiences. These findings suggest that digital magic mirrors effectively bridge the theory-practice gap in vocational education by providing dynamic learning environments. The study concludes that the proposed digital magic mirror approach can significantly enhance student outcomes and recommends further research on their long-term impacts and broader applicability.

Educational robotics research endeavors to develop companion robots that can engage students in learning activities. However, existing educational robots are not always well-suited for use outside of the classroom and may struggle to sustain compelling interactions. To address this, this study proposes a new model for educational robots that leverages interdependence theory, which explains how mutual dependence can lead to lasting relationships. The pet-owner dynamic, in which the pet relies on the care and attention of the owner and provides emotional support in return, served as inspiration for this model. The proposed model features a digital pet-like robot that students must train and empower to perform a drama presenting their final learning results in front of the class. In an experiment with 60 students in a Japanese Hospitality course in Taiwan, the study found that long-term relationships between students and pet-like robots emerged, and these relationships significantly improved learning performance compared to ordinary robots. This study highlights the potential of integrating interdependence theory with advanced technologies such as robots, mobile devices, and virtual reality to enhance student learning and foster long-term relationships between students and robots.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of embodied learning (EL) approaches in classrooms to improve students' learning effectiveness. A drama-based learning strategy was used to investigate the gap in creating an authentic learning environment for classroom learners and facilitating them to be situationally embodied in the learning context and perform hands-on activities. A total of 76 undergraduate-level students were randomly selected for either the experimental group ($\mathrm{n}=31$) or the control group ($\mathrm{n}=44$). The experimental group used the learning system to immerse and situationally embodied in a drama-based virtual scenario for EL activities where real-time speech, objects and images, body motion and gesture recognition techniques were provided to them as self-evaluation techniques while performing, and the control group used immersion technologies to situationally embody in a virtual fictional context and the teacher and peers did evaluation after the activity. Results showed an improvement in learning effectiveness for both groups, but the approach used for the experimental group outperformed the control group. This study impacts that EL approaches focusing on situatedness can enhance learning effectiveness and provide a useful guide for educational practitioners. Educators can facilitate the effective transfer of knowledge and skills to learners through engaging and immersive learning experiences.

This study investigates the effectiveness of a simultaneous multi-situational learning system with embodied recognition to enhance learners' outcomes. Traditional situational learning systems provide a single situation for knowledge explanation or application, which limits learners' ability to fully immerse themselves in the learning environment and receive immediate feedback. To address this, a simultaneous multi-situational learning system was proposed to create a digital space with multiple situations, allowing learners to immerse themselves in different scenarios simultaneously and facilitating reflective learning. An experimental study with 60 undergraduate students in a Hospitality Japanese course compared a control group using the traditional situational learning system with an experimental group using the proposed simultaneous multi-situational learning system. Results showed the proposed system significantly improved learning outcomes, understanding, and interest in learning. It enables the prompt creation of situational learning environments, contextualizes knowledge, and fosters reflective learning with real-time feedback. Overall, this study contributes to the field of education by providing a more effective approach to situational learning that can be easily implemented in classroom settings.

Educational robots have shown promise in enhancing learning performance; but, many of these robots function solely as companions or tutors and rely on novelty to attract attention, making it challenging to maintain long-term relationships. Although pet robots have been utilized to create relationships with users, their potential in education remains underexplored. This study addresses this issue by designing a robot as a pet, applying the interdependence theory to establish lasting relationships and improve learning performance. The interdependence theory suggests that relationships between individuals can be strengthened through mutual dependence and the fulfillment of each other's needs. In this study, learners were prompted to engage in continuous care for their pet robots, receiving emotional reinforcement from them seamlessly across both virtual and tangible forms enabled by the ChatGPT API. To culminate their learning process, learners presented their ultimate learning outcomes alongside their pet robots, enacting situational dramas for their classmates. To evaluate the effectiveness of this approach, a quasi-experiment was conducted with 100 undergraduate learners enrolled in a Japanese for Hospitality and Tourism course in Taiwan. Results indicate that robots designed as pets, leveraging interdependence theory, significantly yield positive effects on learners, encompassing improved learning outcomes, extended interaction rates, and heightened satisfaction with their study journey compared to conventional robots. The study concludes by discussing research limitations and offering suggestions for further enhancements to this approach.

This study aims to address the limitation of existing chatbots in education, which are designed only for learners and do not account for the needs of instructors. To solve this problem, the study proposes a learning chatbot called the "Learning Butler," which integrates resources for optimal learning outcomes and is developed based on the situational theory for mobile and classroom learning environments. The effectiveness of the Learning Butler in improving learning outcomes was evaluated through an experiment conducted at a university of science and technology. The results demonstrated that the Learning Butler significantly improved learners' performance compared to the general chatbot, and learners and instructors provided positive feedback on its ability to offer instant suggestions and feedback during dialogues and interactions. This research contributes to the development of effective educational technology by exploring the potential of chatbots in enhancing learning outcomes, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of education through the application of advanced technologies and innovative pedagogical approaches.

Nowadays, most programming languages support multiple programming paradigms, enabling the choices between them for different application scenarios and even using them together, for example, object-oriented programming for system modeling, event-driven programming for graphical user interface, and functional programming for wrapping actions. However, learning different programming paradigms is quite difficult, especially when they are given as a whole. Recursion is a typical example since it originated in functional programming but was also included in most structured programming languages. As Dijkstra pointed out, learners who are familiar with structured programming tend to think about the control flow of recursion and get confused by how the recursion can be implemented. To address this issue, we developed a methodology along with system software to help novices think of recursive solutions from the definition rather than the implementation.

One of the ways of thinking about how to finish the learning task is through self-dialogue. Doing so enables learners to ask themselves what should they do and evaluate whether it is appropriate from another point of view. However, learners might have difficulties imagining the scenario and interacting with an imaginary person. They may need a scaffolding tool or a person as a partner to practice the self-dialogue. Besides, the ventriloquist phenomenon in education has been noted as beneficial for learning as it could make the learners understands the idea through dialogue. This study proposed a learning approach that allows the learners to use a robot as a ventriloquist doll for practicing self-dialogue and knowledge application to enhance their learning effectiveness. The experiment was conducted by participating 104 undergraduate learners who enrolled in a Japanese Hospitality Management course. The results showed that the approach used a ventriloquist robot to facilitate learning through self-dialogue exhibited significant effects on motivation, anxiety, and better learning outcomes. This study provides a novel area of insight into the use of robots in learning, by integrating digital technology with pedagogical approaches to create an immersive intelligent learning environment and offer a self-dialogue mechanism to foster collaborative learning tasks.

In the current digital situational learning, such as digital game-based learning or Second Life, learners use virtual characters to enter the situational learning, instead of using their own bodies. In addition, many subject matters requiring situational learning need a combination of subject knowledge, body language, and emotional expression, and require students to conduct group learning. However, most of the current situational systems can only provide evaluation and feedback on text or language, and cannot provide feedback on body movements and emotional expressions. To address these issues, this study establishes a situational learning system that enables students to enter the learning situation with their whole body and in small groups. Furthermore, the cognitive services of artificial intelligence are also adopted to conduct immediate evaluation and feedback on students’ learning performance, such as language, body movement, and emotional display, and students’ learning outcomes can be displayed in front of their peers. The experimental results show that the proposed situational learning system can improve students’ learning effect for subject matters that need to combine body movements and emotional expression.

To promote language learning performance, a realistic speech mission-based digital learning theater, which integrates with real-time spoken language evaluation and interactive switching of scenario and virtual costumes, was proposed in this study. Regarding evaluation, an AI chatbot is integrated into the digital learning theater to assign speech tasks to learners and evaluate their performance in terms of pronunciation and grammar, and then provide immediate feedback for improvement. Regarding interaction, with Kinect motion detection technology, learners can immerse themselves into the digital scene of drama with their whole body and wear various virtual costumes that can automatically match learners' body size and motions, to strengthen learners' interest and engagement in learning. This study was conducted on a Japanese language course for university students. The results suggest that students' learning outcomes and motivation can be enhanced with realistic speech mission-based digital learning theater.

Student audiences in drama-based learning classrooms must concentrate on the learning content of drama performance. Teachers spend much effort on teaching and classroom management, but less on student audience participation. To address this issue, this study proposes a digital theater environment with a robot to explore how the robot can interact with students while performing drama-based activities in the digital theater to improve students' engagement and help them to learn. A quasi-experimental study was conducted and 50 third-grade students from a local junior high school were involved in this study for six weeks. The results show that the learning performance of the experimental group is significantly better than that of the control group. Moreover, the results of questionnaires reveal that the interactive robot can enhance students' interest in learning and help them put concentration more on learning in digital learning theater.

Communication with other people includes oral language and body language, both of which are important, especially in the workplace. People learn how to react properly by the context and reaction. Therefore, the best way to learn communication is through practical communication exercises. This study proposes an approach where learners can enter digital workplace environment to learn both oral and body language. Meanwhile, with the advance of artificial intelligence technology, the real time assessments of body gestures become feasible. With the proposed digital reality, learns can simultaneously see their performance and get assessments and corrections in real time. The approach was empirically evaluated in a university of technology and the results showed a significant improvement in learning outcomes.

The aim of learning a language is to communicate with each other. In a drama that simulates problems taking place in real world, students can learn how to solve these problems via the communication and interaction with such a drama-based learning environment. On the other hand, besides oral interaction, visual interaction is essential as well. To address this issue, this study proposes a digital learning theater which combines itself with visual interaction learning forms and instant assessment. In this learning environment, students can learn a language by pictures and physical objects via visual interaction, and receive immediate feedback from the instant assessment of their learning performance provided by a virtual character. Consequently, students can realize whether their learning performance in the digital reality learning environment need to be improved. Furthermore, an experiment of the proposed learning environment was carried out in a Japanese language classroom for university students. The results suggest that students' learning performance is significantly improved.

The development of advanced information technologies has opened up new opportunities in the area of digital learning environments (Brandi & Iannone, 2015). A key aspect of this work lies within the...

Existing peer response approaches majorly take place in traditional educational contexts, where students may not be highly motivated. On the other hand, game-based learning takes a joyful way to enhance students’ motivation. Accordingly, we propose a joyful peer response (JPR), where game-based learning and peer response are integrated together. Furthermore, two empirical studies were conducted to investigate how high- and low-ability students perform in the JPR and how their perceptions are associated with their performance. Regarding the former, the findings suggest that the JPR is beneficial to high- and low-ability students. Regarding the latter, the findings imply that the writing performance of the high-ability students is majorly related to their perceptions of game elements. On the other hand, the writing performance of the low-ability students is related to their perceptions of both game elements and peer response.

The spread of drugs causes serious problems recently. To enhance people awareness about drugs, several approaches were adopted to deliver anti-drug materials. However, limitations were observed in these approaches. Thus, this study develops a game-based anti-drug system (GADS), which incorporates game-based learning into anti-drug materials. In order to get a complete understanding of whether the GADS is suitable to both non-addictive users and addictive users, an empirical study was conducted. Drug experience was considered as a target to investigate learners' reactions to the GADS. The results indicated that non-addictive learners had better game performance and learning performance than addictive learners because addictive learners' working memory was negatively affected by drugs.

Most students in Taiwan feel anxiety or suffering when teachers ask them to write compositions in class because writing might be viewed as a complex problem solving process and they often lack self-confidence in their writing abilities. Pre-writing has been recognized as especially relevant to successful writing at the beginning. Therefore, it is important to make students be willing to write something without fear at the pre-writing stage and improve their writing attitudes. The paper presents a computer-supported freewriting system (CSFWS) integrated with extensive reading pedagogy in order to improve their attitudes toward writing and to facilitate students’ writing idea generation. The results show that after participating freewriting activities by the proposed CSFWS system, students become more positive in writing attitudes. Namely, students have more confidence and willingness in writing in their daily school life. The study found that when the difficulty level of writing topic is corresponding to students’ writing abilities, students will be more productive. In addition, students’ diction in freewriting should be further evaluated.

Due to the current method on sentence combining, which results a frustrated and bored outcome on Taiwanese student’s motivation, this study provides an enhancement model for stimulating student’s motivation. Through integrating the in-class lecture with teacher-centered design, this model focuses on an after-class activity with student-centered design which concentrates on the impact of peer pressure. During the after-class learning activity, this study applies a drill-and-practice pedagogy. Student would accumulate personal cognitive knowledge as every student would have generated their self-constructed learning outcome, and s/he would be rewarded for her/his effort. Then the students would return to the in-class activity, and the teacher would allow the students to begin peer-evaluation. Every student starts to rank their peers’ answers; as a result, the students own both a score on their efforts and a score on peer-evaluation. As soon as the peer-evaluation ends, student’s personal identity (score) would be initiated. Student would have an opportunity on comparing their identity with the other students, so that there would be a peer pressure established among students. Students could enhance their self-motivation, and to work harder in the next stage of practicing (after-class activity). This study describes the design on the enhancement model for student’s motivation, and further study would be mentioned at the end of this article.