A development of learning widget on m-learning and e-learning environments

This article describes the development of learning widget on m-learning and e-learning environments. A widget is a small, simple and useful application supporting user-oriented contents. The user may select and install widgets that are convenient as well as an auto-updating application including weather or calendar. These widgets are especially more useful, because they are able to be installed on a mobile device, a website or a desktop computer. If we take advantage of widgets for education, we may use this learning tool for delivering and pulling learning contents, essences of lessons or word learning. To that end, we developed an effective learning widget and then verified its usability, usefulness and effectiveness for m-learning and e-learning. That is, we evaluated the learning widget with a heuristic evaluation method. We identified 72 interface problems by using a set of 10 usability criteria or heuristics. In addition, we considered how to design the learning widget with consideration given to devices on m-learning and e-learning. Moreover, we experimented by conducting a pilot test with 34 students, a field test with 60 teachers and technology acceptance model (TAM) analysis with 15 teachers. We verified the effectiveness and usefulness of learning with a questionnaire, a quiz and TAM, where the subjects, after using the learning widget in real learning activities, rated the widget's efficacy. The result shows that the learning widget is useful for m-learning and e-learning environments.