Interactivity
QTIMaps: A Model to Enable Web Maps in Assessment
This article by Toni Navarrete, Patricia Santos, Davinia Hernández-Leo and Josep Blat was published on the online journal Educational Technology & Society, volume 14, issue 3, in 2011.
Test-based e-Assessment approaches are mostly focused on the assessment of knowledge and not on that of other skills, which could be supported by multimedia interactive services. This paper presents the QTIMaps
model, which combines the IMS QTI standard with web maps services enabling the computational assessment of geographical skills. We introduce a reference implementation of the model, with Google Maps as the web map service, comprising both an editor and a runtime system, which have been used in two learning situations. The tooling developed and the real use results demonstrate that the QTIMaps model is usable and provides educational benefits. We describe three other assessment activities, showing that the model can be applied to a variety of educational scenarios.
L@-KOLOK : 1ère web-fiction interactive et pédagogique
Destinée avant tout aux jeunes de 14 à 20 ans, la web-fiction L@-KOLOK.com met en scène quatre colocataires d’une vingtaine d’années. En les voyant vivre, le spect’acteur est confronté avec eux aux grands enjeux de notre époque : l’environnement, la santé, la consommation, l’énergie, l’alimentation... Chaque épisode explore un sujet de société particulier.
GeoHCI 2013 - Geographic Human-Computer Interaction
GeoHCI 2013 aims to provide a much needed venue for members of the human-computer interaction and geography communities to create and share knowledge on topics that span this disciplinary boundary.
For the increasing number of HCI researchers and practitioners whose work has a geographic component, GeoHCI 2013 will offer a unique opportunity to discuss best practices and open research questions with like-minded members of the HCI community and with geographers, whose field has a rich understanding of spatial phenomena. For geographers, GeoHCI 2013 is a chance to do the same with experts in HCI-related areas such as online communities, mobile and online maps, location-based social networks, crisis informatics, ubiquitous computing, and augmented reality.
Researchers and practitioners in HCI, geography, and related disciplines who are interested in participating should submit a two-page position statement as described in the call for papers. Position statements are due January 11, 2013 and should be submitted through our EasyChair site. The workshop, co-located with CHI 2013 in Paris, will be on April 27.
On April 28, we are hosting an optional second workshop day that will consist of various "in the field" activities. We are actively seeking proposals for participant-led field trips. Have a great new citizen science app you want to demonstrate? Want to lead an OpenStreetMap data collection activity to bring everyone at the workshop up to speed on the OSM state-of-the-art? Can you guide us on an augmented reality tour of Paris? Let us know! Position statements that are accompanied by field activity proposals will receive extra consideration.
Leveraging Trust to Support Online Learning Creativity – A Case Study
The insights shared through this article build on data collected in real life situations. The work described here attempts to understand how trust can be used as leverage to support online learning and creative collaboration. This report explores this understanding from the teacher perspective.
It examines trust commitments in an international setting within which learners from different European countries collaborate and articulate their learning tasks and skills at a distance. This research endeavour aims to recognize both individual and group vulnerabilities as opportunities to strengthen their cooperation and collaboration. We believe that by understanding how to assess and monitor learners’ trust, teachers could use this information to intervene and provide positive support, thereby promoting and reinforcing learners’ autonomy and their motivation to creatively engage in their learning activities.
The results gathered so far enabled an initial understanding of what to look for when monitoring trust with the intention of understanding and influencing learners’ behaviours. They point to three main aspects to monitor on students: (1) their perception of each others’ intentions, in a given context, (2) their level of cooperation as expressed by changes in individual and group commitments towards a particular activity; and, (3) their attitudes towards the use of communication mediums for learning purposes (intentions of use, actual use and reactions to actual use).
International Workshop on the Interplay between User Experience Evaluation and System Development
We understand the relationship between UX and usability as the latter is subsumed by the former. Usability evaluation methods (UEMs) and metrics are relatively more mature. In contrast, UX evaluation methods (UXEMs) which draw largely on UEMs are still taking shape. It is conceivable that feeding outcomes of UX evaluation back to the software development cycle to instigate the required changes can even be more challenging than doing so for usability evaluation (UE). It leads to several key issues.
- UX attributes are (much) more fuzzy and malleable, what kinds of diagnostic information and improvement suggestion can be drawn from evaluation data. For instance, a game can be perceived by the same person as a great fun on one day and a terrible boredom the following day, depending on the player's prevailing mood. The waning of novelty effect (cf. learnability differs over time in case of usability) can account for the difference as well. How does the evaluation feedback enable designers/developers to fix this experiential problem (cf. usability problem) and how can they know that their fix works (i.e. downstream utility)?
- Emphasis is put on conducting UE in the early phases of a development lifecycle with the use of low fidelity prototypes, thereby enabling feedback to be incorporated before it becomes too late or costly to make changes. However, is this principle applicable to UX evaluation? Is it feasible to capture authentic experiential responses with a low-fidelity prototype? If yes, how can we draw insights from these responses?
- The persuasiveness of empirical feedback determines its worth. Earlier research indicates that the development team needs to be convinced about the urgency and necessity of fixing usability problems. Is UX evaluation feedback less persuasive than usability feedback? If yes, will the impact of UX evaluation be weaker than UE?
- The Software Engineering (SE) community has recognized the importance of usability. Efforts are focused on explaining the implications of usability for requirements gathering, software architecture design, and the selection of software components. Can such recognition and implications be taken for granted for UX, as UX evaluation methodologies and measures could be very different (e.g. artistic performance)?
- How to translate observational or inspectional data into prioritised usability problems or redesign proposals is thinly documented in the literature. Analysis approaches developed by researchers are applied to a limited extent by practitioners. Such divorce between research and practice could be bitterer in UX analysis approaches, which are essentially lacking.
While the gap between HCI and SE with regard to usability has somewhat been narrowed, it may be widened again due to the emergence of UX.
The main goal of I-UxSED 2012 is to bring together people from HCI and SE to identify challenges and plausible resolutions to optimize the impact of UX evaluation feedback on software development.
Quijote interactivo
ed@d - Enseñanza Digital a Distancia. Libros digitales interactivos para la ESO
Con el proyecto ed@d (Enseñanza Digital a Distancia) el Ministerio de Educación de España presenta un nuevo modelo de libro interactivo, que permite a los estudiantes aprovechar las ventajas de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación para mejorar su aprendizaje autónomo y agilizar la comunicación con sus tutores, en un entorno tecnológico avanzado.
T-learning for social inclusion
It reports also the main evidences arising from the Beacon project, funded on the last call of the 6th framework program. BEACON (Brazilian European Consortium for DTT Services) is a three years innovative research project on Digital Terrestrial Television with three core objectives:
- the development of interoperability between the European (DVB) and the Brazilian (SBTVD) Digital Terrestrial Television standards;
- the study of a methodology for distance learning through digital television; and
- the delivery of t-learning services related to social inclusion in Sao Paulo, Brasil.
The term t-learning can be related to the fruition of interactive training materials, contents and services using a digital decoder. The t-learning usability features and their ability to spread on a lager scale than eLearning open up new scenarios for teaching addressed to a broader number of potential users, in terms of both formal and non formal training. The real development of the t-learning system and its applications is based on the integration of the opportunities and functionalities of both Digital Terrestrial Television and eLearning, especially in terms of increasing interactivity, bringing up opportunities for more engaged learning and virtual communities.
The development of new value added services based on the Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) technology will make it possible to address a large amount of end users. The main goal is to offer learning services to users that can’t afford – for economic or cultural causes – an internet connection and a PC, but are TV owners, and to let them acquire knowledge in many sectors, favouring the improvement of their working competitiveness. The new digital broadcasting platforms will contribute to media diversity in many countries’ future and will increase the possibility of learning activities and governmental and cultural services for citizens.
Microtraining as a support mechanism for informal learning
In practice, it is shown that this framework helps to collectively develop solutions for workplace related learning with ample opportunities for information transfer. Microtraining supports informal learning close to the workplace, thereby increasing the learning capacity of the company.
The Microtraining concept is being developed in the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci program of the European Union.
Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors
Virtual communities of practice (CoPs) and virtual learning communities are becoming widespread within higher education institutions (HEIs) thanks to technological developments which enable increased communication, interactivity among participants and incorporation of collaborative pedagogical models, specifically through information communications technologies (ICTs) They afford the potential for the combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication, access to -and from- geographically isolated communities and international information sharing.
Clearly there are benefits to be derived from sharing and learning within and outwith HEIs. There is a sense of connectedness, of shared passion and a deepening of knowledge to be derived from ongoing interaction. Knowledge development can be continuous, cyclical and fluid. However, barriers exist in virtual CoPs and these are defined by the authors and illustrated with quotes from academic staff who have been involved in CoPs.
Critical success factors (CSFs) for a virtual CoP are discussed. These include usability of technology; trust in, and acceptance of, ICTs in communication; a sense of belonging among members; paying attention to cross-national and cross-cultural dimensions of the CoP; shared understandings; a common sense of purpose; use of netiquette and user-friendly language and longevity.
The authors recognise the enormous potential for the development of CoPs through e-mail discussion lists and discussion boards but have themselves experienced the difficulties inherent in initiating such a community. These are corroborated and illustrated with text from interviews with academic staff. Much of the literature on CoPs emanates from outside Europe, despite the fact that e-learning articles have a large diffusion around Europe. The authors suggest further exploration of this topic by identifying and studying CoPs and virtual learning communities across EU countries.