Edvertisements: Adding Microlearning to Social News Feeds and Websites

TL;DR

This paper introduces Edvertisements, a browser extension that integrates microlearning quizzes into social news feeds and websites, enhancing vocabulary learning by embedding interactive tasks directly within users' browsing experience.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel method of embedding microlearning quizzes into social feeds and websites, demonstrating increased engagement and learning effectiveness.

Findings

Embedded quizzes increase user engagement.

Users learn more effectively when quizzes are integrated into feeds.

Embedded microlearning tasks outperform links to external quizzes.

Abstract

Many long-term goals, such as learning a language, require people to regularly practice every day to achieve mastery. At the same time, people regularly surf the web and read social news feeds in their spare time. We have built a browser extension that teaches vocabulary to users in the context of Facebook feeds and arbitrary websites, by showing users interactive quizzes they can answer without leaving the website. On Facebook, the quizzes show up as part of the news feed, while on other sites, the quizzes appear where advertisements normally would. In our user study, we examined the effectiveness of inserting microlearning tasks into social news feeds. We compared vocabulary learning rates when we inserted interactive quizzes into feeds, versus inserting links that lead them to a website where they could do the quizzes. Our results suggest that users engage with and learn from our embedded quizzes, and engagement increases when the quizzes can be done directly within their feeds.