ST. PÖLTEN, Austria ,
April 17,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- People like to tell and
listen to stories. They do this not only to entertain and be
entertained, but also to convey content and information. Thoughts
and communication processes are connected to form stories in order
to better express ideas and views and to render processes happening
in the world tangible for themselves and for others. In the
research project Comixplain, researchers of the St. Pölten UAS use
this human tendency for storytelling and create comics that help
students to better understand scientific concepts.
"Many studies show that comics are very useful for conveying
teaching and learning content to both children and adults – not
only because it is a familiar medium, but also due to their unique
combination of characteristics. Apart from a narrative structure
usually found only in instructional videos, they contain
visualisations and infographics and allow for a flexible spatial
arrangement of elements. Readers can consume the content at their
own pace, which is often not possible in a video", explains UAS
lecturer Victor Adriel de Jesus
Oliveira from the St. Pölten UAS' Institute of
CreativeMedia/Technologies who manages the project.
New Didactic Format
Comixplain has developed a new
didactic format that uses comics to introduce students to content
from the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering,
mathematics).
"To do this, we focused mainly on teaching units where students
are known to struggle with the content or where abstract concepts
are supposed to be communicated. Comics can be helpful as
supporting teaching material in these cases", says Oliveira. The
content for the comics was developed by students and teachers
together.
Instructions Available for School Teachers
At the
end, the teams wrote instructions for how to use and where to apply
the comics. All results and materials are available online free of
charge at https://fhstp.github.io/comixplain. School teachers are
free to use them in class as well.
Next Step: Community Engagement
For their next step,
Oliveira and his colleagues intend to create a community that will
provide new comics, translations, and applications.
Part of the community's contributions is made up of Augmented
Reality apps. They are available for download directly from the
Comixplain offer at
https://fhstp.github.io/comixplain/mediasummerschool.html.
Hundreds of Illustrations
The latest contribution is
a brand new search interface that is supposed to help visitors
search hundreds of illustrations by Comixplain made available free
of charge. The search tool was developed by student Anna Blasinger
and can be found at
https://fhstp.github.io/comixplain/catalog.html.
Project
Comixplain
https://research.fhstp.ac.at/en/projects/comixplain
Media contact: Mark
Hammer, +43 (0) 2742 313 228 - 269,
mark.hammer@fhstp.ac.at
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SOURCE St. Polten University of Applied
Sciences