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Designing visual models to describe and conceptualize objects and systems requires abstraction skills and a predisposition for visual interactions. Readily available modeling tools rely on the users’ logical-mathematical and visual-spatial abilities to support modeling design. However, they fall short of mechanisms to tap into the users’ bodily-kinesthetic abilities. This research presents a model-driven framework to automatically develop visual editors to work with Domain Specific Languages in tangible interaction environments. The framework is illustrated through the development of an editor of entity-relationship models supported by augmented reality. The editor usability evaluation indicates good acceptance by users as well as potential to support alternative interactions and to learn database concepts.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to face-to-face activities being developed in a virtual format that often offers a poor experience in areas such as education. Virtual Learning Environments have improved in recent years thanks to new technologies such as Virtual Reality or Chatbots. However, creating Virtual Learning Environments requires advanced programming knowledge, so this work is aimed to enable teachers to create these new environments easily. This work presents a set of extensions for App Inventor that facilitate the authoring of mobile learning apps that use Chatbots in a Virtual Reality environment, while simultaneously monitoring of student activity. This proposal is based on integrating block-based languages and Business Process Model and Notation diagrams. The developed extensions were successfully implemented in an educational app called Let’s date!. A quantitative analysis of the use of these extensions in App Inventor was also carried out, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of blocks required. The proposed contribution has demonstrated its validity in creating virtual learning environments through visual programming and modelling, reducing development complexity.