ABSTRACT

Education has the explicit task in society of developing cognition. This

study has explored the cognition effects in four different aspects: The first is
the psychological implications and effects of visualization applied to
educational purposes and successfully guiding the learner to engage in
cognitive processes essential for comprehension, the second aspect is
prototyping data structure visualization platform, third aspect is
implementation of prototype in real time environments like a classroom, the
fourth and last impact is the feedback from students through a survey. Our
research has showed the effectiveness of using visualization and animation
techniques during lessons to engage people’s attention towards cognitive
learning. From the survey that we have conducted, we get to know that
majority of people are unaware of the use of education visualization platform.
All these observations motivate a critical look at visualization to facilitate
learners in cognitive learning.

Visualization, E-Learning, Cognitive Learning, Human Computer Interaction

During the last few decade new strategies in science, multimedia, technology,
education and even learning processes have been developed. This paper
presents an analysis and design study in the application domain of Computer
Based Learning (CBL). CBL is a multidisciplinary field investigating the design
of user-friendly computer learning systems. The term cognitive relates to
psychology, it’s all about mental abilities related to knowledge, decision
making and problem solving [1]. There is a big relation between educational
policy makers, teachers, general public and the parents, to analyze the
important factors that influence student achievement. For example, effectively
delivered high quality professional knowledge can be a main factor to
influence student outcomes [2]. For learning different things consciously we
use cognitive abilities. Cognitive process use previous knowledge and
learning to perform different tasks in practical life. In psychology the concept
of cognitive directly relates to mental thoughts and intelligence [1]. So if we
talk about learning then visualization is a very important term for better
learning knowledge. Visualization or animations of different problems make
the learning process easy and it affects cognitively on mental thoughts [1]. It is
technique which enables people’s consciousness, abilities, perceptions and
motivates them to gain knowledge [5]. Graphic representations, such as
pictures, graphs, charts and diagrams help people to get the meaning and
understanding of information more easily and quickly [3]. Computers have
been used for graphing, charting, animating and visualizing purposes in the
last few decades. Children show more interest during watching cartoons than
reading story book [5], because it affects like a real time environment.
Meanwhile it increases their learning process and builds their perception
cognitively. As concerns to animation and visualizations, it works cognitively in
analysis of exploratory visual data [11]. Animations can be developed in any
field, for example in business for intelligent decision making [7], in education
for better & easy learning and in medical for better treatment etc. But in our
study, we took one very important course of computer science “data structure
and algorithms”. We developed and implemented a visualization prototype in
real time environment like classroom during lectures, to let students interact
with this application directly. Animations provide an attractive environment for
actively exploring algorithms and data structures [4]. Algorithm visualizations
applications are widely viewed in technology as having the potential, for the
major impact on computer science education, but the applications quality is
highly variable [19]. However, in this area our research is concerned with the
effects of instructional media and technologies that include computer screens,
human interaction, learning cognitively, animations and survey about cognitive
effects of visualization on education. The visualization platforms for different
courses support education and provide the easy learning platform for students
[3]. The possibility of creating an online educational visualization platform
provides learners as well as instructors the best opportunities to improve the
learning and teaching techniques. Visualization is a great step in the world of
IT and most of the visualization software are open source and free of cost.
[19] After an extensive review of cognitive learning techniques and
visualization technologies that make interaction with education, we have
identified and explored many deficiencies in the current world of visualization.
In the past decade, the high quality and graphical user interfaces have
become a standard, especially in area of games. [5] We found that different
kind of visualization platforms are helping people in different aspects of life.
Data visualization is very important and hot research area in this decade [6].
There are some visualized tools in business intelligence fields, used by
professionals for intelligence decision making [7]. And still there are bundles
of visualization platform for students and for learners about different courses
of science, administration and technology [19]. As you know currently the
world is moving to E-Learning platforms and so as for it concerns HCI (Human
Computer Interaction) which is focusing to facilitate teachers and student to
provide them the most interactive and user friendly platform [5]. The exciting
new method and approach to the study of algorithms was done by Marc H
Brown in algorithm animations [8]. In year 2003 Rainer Koschke conducted a
survey on “software visualization”; this survey was designed and conducted
through e-mails. The survey paper was sent to researchers, in software
maintenance departments and reverse engineering [6]. These kind of surveys
have been published also elsewhere [7], [17]. Keller and Bassil did the similar
survey but this survey was about cost, quality and little bit focused on
cognitive aspects of already available visualization tools [12. In the
background study of data structure and algorithm visualization, we found
some visualized platform serving students in this course [9]. we have explored
multiple visualization platforms some of them are O-Matrix, Algolist, David
Galles (Visualization), Jeliot3, TRAKLA2, NZACDITT, John Morris
(Visualization), CATAI, TANGO etc. [9]. Where NZACDITT is a platform [10],
which is a collection of ppt slides, lectures animations, explanations and
different visualization methods and comparison between them using different
techniques especially about sorting algorithms. Another good website of Data
Structure visualizations was developed by Duane Jarc in the university of
George Washington [13]. A famous data structure and algorithms online
visualization platform was developed by Professor David Galles [14]. There is
another very famous and good learning environment tool TRAKLA2 for data
structure and algorithms [15]. Through this a student can practice and do
exercises simultaneously. Open DSA, a web application which provides, It’s
an active e-book project to develop a complete online text book for DSA
course [16]. During our study, analysis and survey, we found some short
comings of these applications as listed below. The visualization level is very
detailed that it made, it’s a little bit difficult to understand for a beginner
student. In some platforms java applets also make trouble and every time
asks to update, even after updating it displays the same error.