AI-Powered Smart Book: Enhancing Arabic Education in Palestine with Augmented Reality

Abstract

The global outbreak of COVID-19 has had a major impact on the education of millions of children, hindering their involvement in educational settings and negatively affecting their academic progress. This situation highlights the need to reassess teaching methods and find ways to encourage student involvement in different learning scenarios. Specifically, elementary-level students studying the Arabic language have faced significant challenges in comprehending academic subjects. To tackle this issue, we propose a cutting-edge and creative proposed application called SBAR (Smart Book Augmented Reality), which leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to support students in their interaction with stories from their Arabic textbook curriculum in the State of Palestine. Our proposed application utilizes augmented reality to create a 3D environment featuring book characters that interact with students, inspiring them to learn in a unique and stimulating manner. The app can be run on smartphones and tablets and has been designed to maintain student engagement. It provides two key features: a 3D augmented reality representation of the story that presents the tale through voice and animation, and an interactive component that allows students to respond to questions through natural speech. The interactive component relies on AI and deep learning algorithms to analyze student answers, evaluate them, and provide feedback through interactive voice. Our proposed application is user-friendly, efficient, resource-friendly, and innovative compared to other interactive educational apps. It has been trialed in local schools in Palestine and received positive responses from both students and teachers. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Keywords: Augmented Reality, COVID-19, Interactive Learning, Smart Book, Voice Recognition