ENHANCING STUDENTS' SCIENTIFIC LITERACY AND COMMUNICATION SKILL BY CREATING INFOGRAPHICS USING GENIALLY IN LEARNING CLIMATE CHANGE

Berdasarkan hasil penilaian dari Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA), pencapaian siswa/i Indonesia dalam literasi sains masih sangat rendah. Indonesia berada di posisi ke-62 dari total 69 negara yang berpartisipasi dalam penilaian tersebut. Selain itu, nilai rata-rata pencapaian Indonesia di bidang sains juga masih sangat rendah. Hal ini seharusnya mendorong para guru untuk mengakomodasi kebutuhan siswa dengan proses pembelajaran yang sesuai dan tepat untuk mempersiapkan mereka menghadapi abad ke-21 yang ditandai dengan beragamnya inovasi. Terdapat banyak keterampilan yang perlu dikuasai untuk menjadi individu yang berdaya guna di era ini, salah satunya adalah keterampilan berkomunikasi yang menjadi kunci untuk menguasai keterampilan lainnya dan sebagai kompetensi yang diperlukan untuk menjadi individu yang ilmiah. Didasari oleh hal tersebut, penelitian ini dilakukan untuk meningkatkan keterampilan siswa dalam literasi sains dan berkomunikasi dengan penggunaan infografik melalui website Genially pada pembelajaran topik perubahan iklim sebagai salah satu isu sosiosaintifik. Metodologi penelitian yang digunakan adalah pre-experimental untuk meneliti peningkatan keterampilan siswa sebelum dan sesudah diberikan perlakuan eksperimen. Penelitian ini melibatkan sampel 50 siswa dari salah satu sekolah menengah pertama di Cimareme, Bandung Barat. Instrumen penelitian yang digunakan adalah tes objektif, kuesioner, dan rubrik. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan adanya pencapaian signifikan literasi sains siswa dalam menjelaskan fenomena secara saintifik, pemahaman serta penguasaan proses pemanasan global, dampak serta penanggulangannya. Selain itu, siswa juga menunjukkan hasil yang signifikan dalam komunikasi verbal dan visual. According to the assessment of Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA), Indonesia’s ranking in scientific literacy is in the 62 out of 69 participating countries. In addition to that, Indonesia’s average performance in science is also still low compared with those participating countries in PISA. This condition should encourage educators to accommodate students with appropriate learning process in order to prepare them in facing the 21st century with its rapid innovations. There are many skills to be acquired for becoming an empowered citizen in this era, one of them is communication skill which is the key to other capability and demanded competency for being a scientifically literate person. In this case, this study is conducted to facilitate students in increasing those two prominent skills by incorporating infographic in learning climate change topic as socio-scientific issue using Genially website. The research method used is pre-experimental to investigate the enhancement of students’ ability before and after the experimental treatment. The research sample involved 50 students from one of secondary schools in Cimareme, West Bandung and the instruments being used are objective test, questionnaire and rubric. The result for scientific literacy is various and showing significance in explaining phenomena scientifically, the knowledge of global warming process, its impacts and to overcome it. Furthermore, students also show significant difference both in verbal and visual communication

Collaborative synthesis of visual analytic results

Visual analytic tools allow analysts to generate large collections of useful analytical results. We anticipate that analysts in most real world situations will draw from these collections when working together to solve complicated problems. This indicates a need to understand how users synthesize multiple collections of results. This paper reports the results of collaborative synthesis experiments conducted with expert geographers and disease biologists. Ten participants were worked in pairs to complete a simulated real-world synthesis task using artifacts printed on cards on a large, paper-covered workspace. Experiment results indicate that groups use a number of different approaches to collaborative synthesis, and that they employ a variety of organizational metaphors to structure their information. It is further evident that establishing common ground and role assignment are critical aspects of collaborative synthesis. We conclude with a set of general design guidelines for collaborative synthesis support tools

Health Figures: An Open Source JavaScript Library for Health Data Visualization

The way we look at data has a great impact on how we can understand it, particularly when the data is related to health and wellness. Due to the increased use of self-tracking devices and the ongoing shift towards preventive medicine, better understanding of our health data is an important part of improving the general welfare of the citizens. Electronic Health Records, self-tracking devices and mobile applications provide a rich variety of data but it often becomes difficult to understand. We implemented the hFigures library inspired on the hGraph visualization with additional improvements. The purpose of the library is to provide a visual representation of the evolution of health measurements in a complete and useful manner. We researched the usefulness and usability of the library by building an application for health data visualization in a health coaching program. We performed a user evaluation with Heuristic Evaluation, Controlled User Testing and Usability Questionnaires. In the Heuristics Evaluation the average response was 6.3 out of 7 points and the Cognitive Walkthrough done by usability experts indicated no design or mismatch errors. In the CSUQ usability test the system obtained an average score of 6.13 out of 7, and in the ASQ usability test the overall satisfaction score was 6.64 out of 7. We developed hFigures, an open source library for visualizing a complete, accurate and normalized graphical representation of health data. The idea is based on the concept of the hGraph but it provides additional key features, including a comparison of multiple health measurements over time. We conducted a usability evaluation of the library as a key component of an application for health and wellness monitoring. The results indicate that the data visualization library was helpful in assisting users in understanding health data and its evolution over time.Comment: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 16.1 (2016

Placing Birds On A Dynamic Evolutionary Map: Using Digital Tools To Update The Evolutionary Metaphor Of The Tree Of Life

This dissertation describes and presents a new type of interactive visualization for communicating about evolutionary biology, the dynamic evolutionary map. This web-based tool utilizes a novel map-based metaphor to visualize evolution, rather than the traditional tree of life. The dissertation begins with an analysis of the conceptual affordances of the traditional tree of life as the dominant metaphor for evolution. Next, theories from digital media, visualization, and cognitive science research are synthesized to support the assertion that digital media tools can extend the types of visual metaphors we use in science communication in order to overcome conceptual limitations of traditional metaphors. These theories are then applied to a specific problem of science communication, resulting in the dynamic evolutionary map. Metaphor is a crucial part of scientific communication, and metaphor-based scientific visualizations, models, and analogies play a profound role in shaping our ideas about the world around us. Users of the dynamic evolutionary map interact with evolution in two ways: by observing the diversification of bird orders over time and by examining the evidence for avian evolution at several places in evolutionary history. By combining these two types of interaction with a non-traditional map metaphor, evolution is framed in a novel way that supplements traditional metaphors for communicating about evolution. This reframing in turn suggests new conceptual affordances to users who are learning about evolution. Empirical testing of the dynamic evolutionary map by biology novices suggests that this approach is successful in communicating evolution differently than in existing tree-based visualization methods. Results of evaluation of the map by biology experts suggest possibilities for future enhancement and testing of this visualization that would help refine these successes. This dissertation represents an important step forward in the synthesis of scientific, design, and metaphor theory, as applied to a specific problem of science communication. The dynamic evolutionary map demonstrates that these theories can be used to guide the construction of a visualization for communicating a scientific concept in a way that is both novel and grounded in theory. There are several potential applications in the fields of informal science education, formal education, and evolutionary biology for the visualization created in this dissertation. Moreover, the approach suggested in this dissertation can potentially be extended into other areas of science and science communication. By placing birds onto the dynamic evolutionary map, this dissertation points to a way forward for visualizing science communication in the futur

Guidelines For Pursuing and Revealing Data Abstractions

Many data abstraction types, such as networks or set relationships, remain unfamiliar to data workers beyond the visualization research community. We conduct a survey and series of interviews about how people describe their data, either directly or indirectly. We refer to the latter as latent data abstractions. We conduct a Grounded Theory analysis that (1) interprets the extent to which latent data abstractions exist, (2) reveals the far-reaching effects that the interventionist pursuit of such abstractions can have on data workers, (3) describes why and when data workers may resist such explorations, and (4) suggests how to take advantage of opportunities and mitigate risks through transparency about visualization research perspectives and agendas. We then use the themes and codes discovered in the Grounded Theory analysis to develop guidelines for data abstraction in visualization projects. To continue the discussion, we make our dataset open along with a visual interface for further exploration

VOICE: Visual Oracle for Interaction, Conversation, and Explanation

We present VOICE, a novel approach for connecting large language models' (LLM) conversational capabilities with interactive exploratory visualization. VOICE introduces several innovative technical contributions that drive our conversational visualization framework. Our foundation is a pack-of-bots that can perform specific tasks, such as assigning tasks, extracting instructions, and generating coherent content. We employ fine-tuning and prompt engineering techniques to tailor bots' performance to their specific roles and accurately respond to user queries, and a new prompt-based iterative scene-tree generation establishes a coupling with a structural model. Our text-to-visualization method generates a flythrough sequence matching the content explanation. Finally, 3D natural language interaction provides capabilities to navigate and manipulate the 3D models in real-time. The VOICE framework can receive arbitrary voice commands from the user and responds verbally, tightly coupled with corresponding visual representation with low latency and high accuracy. We demonstrate the effectiveness and high generalizability potential of our approach by applying it to two distinct domains: analyzing three 3D molecular models with multi-scale and multi-instance attributes, and showcasing its effectiveness on a cartographic map visualization. A free copy of this paper and all supplemental materials are available at https://osf.io/g7fbr/

Multi-Touch Table for Enhancing Collaboration during Software Design

Encouraging collaborative software design through the use of Multi-touch interfaces has become increasingly important because such surfaces can accommodate more than one user concurrently, which is particularly useful for collaborative software design. This study investigated the differences in collaborative design among groups of students working in PC-based and Multi-touch table conditions to determine the potential of the Multi-touch table to increase the effectiveness of collaboration during software design. The literature includes several interesting studies reflecting the role of Multi-touch tables in enhancing collaborative activities. Research has found that Multi-touch tables increase group interaction and therefore increase the attainment of group goals. Although many research efforts have facilitated collaboration among users in software design using Unified Modelling Language (UML), these studies examined distributed collaboration and not face-to-face collaboration. However, existing research that studied facilitating co-located collaborative software design has some limitations such as using technologies that prevent parallel design activities. Collaborative software design using Multi-touch table has not been widely explored. A structured literature review revealed that no Multi-touch collaborative UML design tool is available. Thus, a Multi-touch enabled tool called MT-CollabUML was developed for this study to encourage students to work collaboratively on software design using UML in a co-located setting. Eighteen master’s level students enrolled in the Software Engineering for the Internet module were selected to participate in the study. The participants formed nine pairs. The experiment followed a counterbalanced within-subjects design where groups switched experiment conditions to ensure each group used the Multi-touch table and PC-based conditions. All collaborative UML diagramming activities were video recorded for quantitative and qualitative analysis. Results show that using the MT-CollabUML tool in the Multi-touch table condition enhanced the level of collaboration among the team members and increased their shared contribution. It also increased the equity of participation; the individuals contributed almost equally to the task, and single-person domination decreased in the Multi-touch condition. Results also show that the Multi-touch table encourages parallel-participative design where both group members work in a parallel manner to accomplish the final agreed-upon design. The analysis of verbal communication shows that both experiment conditions encouraged subjects to use collaborative learning skills

Making Tourism Marketing Work for You in the FL Classroom

This paper shares strategies for using advertising, specifically Tourism Marketing, as an authentic source of language in higher education foreign language classes. The various agents, texts and voices in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English demonstrate the relevance and timeliness of authenticity, particularly as connected with teaching adults. Thus, from knowing why something should be learned and valuing error and experience as learning activities to actively planning and evaluating their instruction, problem-centeredness fuels the intrinsic motivation of foreign language users in higher education. The languages and images of commercial goods, like Port wine and Jerez brandy as well as touristic products, services, and iconic images, reveal important considerations not only about theories of visualization that support foreign language users but also about the stereotypes promoted in a number of advertising campaigns. The cultural dimensions existing (or missing) in Tourism Marketing, including the campaigns which have been literally translated, provide a wealth of learning experiences for teaching not only language but also intercultural competence. When promoted effectively in the language classroom, this consideration can lead to greater recognition of cultural variation and promotion of student strategies for developing skills in global effectiveness. This investigative perspective of Tourism Marketing, ranging in selection for the discerning teacher from graphic and semiotic richness to a plethora of cultural and linguistic messages, highlights the potential for cross-cultural understanding

An Online Tutor for Astronomy: The GEAS Self-Review Library

We introduce an interactive online resource for use by students and college instructors in introductory astronomy courses. The General Education Astronomy Source (GEAS) online tutor guides students developing mastery of core astronomical concepts and mathematical applications of general astronomy material. It contains over 12,000 questions, with linked hints and solutions. Students who master the material quickly can advance through the topics, while under-prepared or hesitant students can focus on questions on a certain topic for as long as needed, with minimal repetition. Students receive individual accounts for study and course instructors are provided with overview tracking information, by time and by topic, for entire cohorts of students. Diagnostic tools support self-evaluation and close collaboration between instructor and student, even for distance learners. An initial usage study shows clear trends in performance which increase with study time, and indicates that distance learners using these materials perform as well as or better than a comparison cohort of on-campus astronomy students. We are actively seeking new collaborators to use this resource in astronomy courses and other educational venues.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; Vogt, N. P., and A. S. Muise. 2015. An online tutor for general astronomy: The GEAS self-review library. Cogent Education, 2 (1

Visualizing threat and impact assessment to improve situation awareness

Situation awareness comes from combined knowledge of the environment, friendly actions and adversaries\u27 actions. Impact assessment applies that knowledge to determine the consequences of those actions on specific missions and assets. In domains such as asymmetric warfare and cyber security, impact assessment is critical to provide timely and comprehensive situation awareness. An analyst needs to be able to quickly and accurately assess a situation, see the factors affecting important assets, and come to a conclusion on what the best course of actions are to take. Many attempts have been made to visualize a situation from observed raw data for better awareness. However none have attempted to visualize the impact and threat of observed actions on assets and missions. This thesis investigates critical visual elements that will enhance situation awareness. Our approach leverages results of threat and impact assessment of ongoing situations. These include changes in effects on assets and missions by activities, and the projection of current situations into the future. This set of information is strategically placed and displayed to facilitate analysts to perform forensic and real-time analysis. While other visualization tools have focused on achieving situational awareness through representing raw data in a meaningful way, this visualization attempts to enhance situational awareness though situational assessment