Reviews Matter: How Distributed Mentoring Predicts Lexical Diversity on Fanfiction.net

Fanfiction.net provides an informal learning space for young writers through distributed mentoring, networked giving and receiving of feedback. In this paper, we quantify the cumulative effect of feedback on lexical diversity for 1.5 million authors.Comment: Connected Learning Summit 201

How can I produce a digital video artefact to facilitate greater understanding among youth workers of their own learning-to-learn competence?

In Ireland, youth work is delivered largely in marginalised communities and through non-formal and informal learning methods. Youth workers operate in small isolated organisations without many of the resources and structures to improve practice that is afforded to larger formal educational establishments. Fundamental to youth work practice is the ability to identify and construct learning experiences for young people in non-traditional learning environments. It is therefore necessary for youth workers to develop a clear understanding of their own learning capacity in order to facilitate learning experiences for young people. In the course of this research, I attempted to use technology to enhance and support the awareness among youth workers of their own learning capacity by creating a digital video artifact that explores the concept – learning-to-learn. This study presents my understanding of the learning-to-learn competence as, I sought to improve my practice as a youth service manager and youth work trainer. This study was conducted using an action research approach. I designed and evaluated the digital media artifact – “Lenny’s Quest” in collaboration with staff and trainer colleagues in the course of two cycles of action research, and my research was critiqued and validated throughout this process

The book an adaptation from the film: technology, narrative, business & how the book industry might adapt the film

This paper proposes that the book, both its form and the book publishing industry that support it can make reference to how the film industry have reacted to technological change since the 1980 's. This can be done in such a way to transform how a book is marketed, published and perhaps read. Epstein (2010) describes how the film industry profited despites its best efforts, from technological advances. The book industry has an opportunity to learn both from the film and record industries using both industries as case studies to support the book's transition to a supporting digital format. There is an opportunity to make the debate not about Kindle versus Ipad, open-source ePub format versus locked down Kindle but about how to use non-linearity, choice vs control, structure and storytelling in a creative fashion. What is the book? It is more than its physical form. It is an experience. Current industry marketing practices, for instance the book review, the audio book, speaking tours all lend themselves to a multimedia approach that can reinforce the position of the book and the reading of the book in today's creative cultural environment

Narrative Visualization: Sharing Insights into Complex Data

This paper is a reflection on the emerging genre of narrative visualization, a creative response to the need to share complex data engagingly with the public. In it, we explain how narrative visualization offers authors the opportunity to communicate more effectively with their audience by reproducing and sharing an experience of insight similar to their own. To do so, we propose a two part model, derived from previous literature, in which insight is understood as both an experience and also the product of that experience. We then discuss how the design of narrative visualization should be informed by attempts elsewhere to track the provenance of insights and share them in a collaborative setting. Finally, we present a future direction for research that includes using EEG technology to record neurological patterns during episodes of insight experience as the basis for evaluation

Gamification of research methods: an exploratory case

This work investigates the benefits of gamification in the taught research methods unit within the Business Management course. It utilises an exploratory design where the team attempted to use a gamified approach to teaching research methods. Two consecutive cohorts were chosen; both cohorts were studying research methods and had the same assessment, in the same format, and were taught and marked by the same teaching team. The first cohort studied the subject without any attempts in gamifying delivery, the second cohort engaged with a gamified curriculum. The latter cohort exhibited stronger final results and a higher level of engagement thus suggesting that a gamified approach to curriculum delivery enhanced the grade results. This first pilot then led to the development of a bespoke software that is imbued with the philosophical streaks from educational pedagogy and the learning literature to support a gamified approach to education

The Forking Paths revisited: experimenting on interactive film

Based on the triad film-interactivity-experimentation, the applied research project The Forking Paths, developed at the Centre for Research in Arts and Communication (CIAC), endeavours to find alternative narrative forms in the field of Cinema and, more specifically, in the subfield of Interactive Cinema. The films in the project The Forking Paths invest in the interconnectivity between the film narrative and the viewer, who is given the possibility to be more active and engaged. At same time, the films undertake a research on the development of audio-visual language. The project is available at an online platform, which aims to foster the creation and web hosting of other Interactive Cinema projects in its different variables. This article focusses on the three films completed up to the moment: Haze, The Book of the Dead, and Waltz.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modeling functional requirements using tacit knowledge: a design science research methodology informed approach

The research in this paper adds to the discussion linked to the challenge of capturing and modeling tacit knowledge throughout software development projects. The issue emerged when modeling functional requirements during a project for a client. However, using the design science research methodology at a particular point in the project helped to create an artifact, a functional requirements modeling technique, that resolved the issue with tacit knowledge. Accordingly, this paper includes research based upon the stages of the design science research methodology to design and test the artifact in an observable situation, empirically grounding the research undertaken. An integral component of the design science research methodology, the knowledge base, assimilated structuration and semiotic theories so that other researchers can test the validity of the artifact created. First, structuration theory helped to identify how tacit knowledge is communicated and can be understood when modeling functional requirements for new software. Second, structuration theory prescribed the application of semiotics which facilitated the development of the artifact. Additionally, following the stages of the design science research methodology and associated tasks allows the research to be reproduced in other software development contexts. As a positive outcome, using the functional requirements modeling technique created, specifically for obtaining tacit knowledge on the software development project, indicates that using such knowledge increases the likelihood of deploying software successfully

Audiences, Intertextuality and New Media Literacy

This article explores intertextuality as a technique that can be used to bridge old and new media literacies for teachers and students who hope to move beyond the textbook model of instruction into a world of online resources, flexible pedagogies and innovative designs for learning. These include the uses of online archives, media studies techniques, participatory knowledge creation, and multimedia analysis and production.Radio-Television-Fil

Supporting Story Synthesis: Bridging the Gap between Visual Analytics and Storytelling

Visual analytics usually deals with complex data and uses sophisticated algorithmic, visual, and interactive techniques. Findings of the analysis often need to be communicated to an audience that lacks visual analytics expertise. This requires analysis outcomes to be presented in simpler ways than that are typically used in visual analytics systems. However, not only analytical visualizations may be too complex for target audience but also the information that needs to be presented. Hence, there exists a gap on the path from obtaining analysis findings to communicating them, which involves two aspects: information and display complexity. We propose a general framework where data analysis and result presentation are linked by story synthesis, in which the analyst creates and organizes story contents. Differently, from the previous research, where analytic findings are represented by stored display states, we treat findings as data constructs. In story synthesis, findings are selected, assembled, and arranged in views using meaningful layouts that take into account the structure of information and inherent properties of its components. We propose a workflow for applying the proposed framework in designing visual analytics systems and demonstrate the generality of the approach by applying it to two domains, social media, and movement analysis