TRUSS: Tracking Risk with Ubiquitous Smart Sensing

We present TRUSS, or Tracking Risk with Ubiquitous Smart Sensing, a novel system that infers and renders safety context on construction sites by fusing data from wearable devices, distributed sensing infrastructure, and video. Wearables stream real-time levels of dangerous gases, dust, noise, light quality, altitude, and motion to base stations that synchronize the mobile devices, monitor the environment, and capture video. At the same time, low-power video collection and processing nodes track the workers as they move through the view of the cameras, identifying the tracks using information from the sensors. These processes together connect the context-mining wearable sensors to the video; information derived from the sensor data is used to highlight salient elements in the video stream. The augmented stream in turn provides users with better understanding of real-time risks, and supports informed decision-making. We tested our system in an initial deployment on an active construction site.Intel CorporationMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Media LaboratoryEni S.p.A. (Firm

Building a Strong Undergraduate Research Culture in African Universities

Africa had a late start in the race to setting up and obtaining universities with research quality fundamentals. According to Mamdani [5], the first colonial universities were few and far between: Makerere in East Africa, Ibadan and Legon in West Africa. This last place in the race, compared to other continents, has had tremendous implications in the development plans for the continent. For Africa, the race has been difficult from a late start to an insurmountable litany of problems that include difficulty in equipment acquisition, lack of capacity, limited research and development resources and lack of investments in local universities. In fact most of these universities are very recent with many less than 50 years in business except a few. To help reduce the labor costs incurred by the colonial masters of shipping Europeans to Africa to do mere clerical jobs, they started training ―workshops‖ calling them technical or business colleges. According to Mamdani, meeting colonial needs was to be achieved while avoiding the ―Indian disease‖ in Africa -- that is, the development of an educated middle class, a group most likely to carry the virus of nationalism. Upon independence, most of these ―workshops‖ were turned into national ―universities‖, but with no clear role in national development. These national ―universities‖ were catering for children of the new African political elites. Through the seventies and eighties, most African universities were still without development agendas and were still doing business as usual. Meanwhile, governments strapped with lack of money saw no need of putting more scarce resources into big white elephants. By mid-eighties, even the UN and IMF were calling for a limit on funding African universities. In today‘s African university, the traditional curiosity driven research model has been replaced by a market-driven model dominated by a consultancy culture according to Mamdani (Mamdani, Mail and Guardian Online). The prevailing research culture as intellectual life in universities has been reduced to bare-bones classroom activity, seminars and workshops have migrated to hotels and workshop attendance going with transport allowances and per diems (Mamdani, Mail and Guardian Online). There is need to remedy this situation and that is the focus of this paper

The design and development of E-textbooks to support problem-based learning in secondary school science classrooms

Problem-based Learning (PBL) is widely used in education and extensive research has been conducted into the use of PBL to improve student learning. E-textbooks are a relatively recent development and represent the next stage of evolution of print media with improvements in the presentation of information. They also offer the possibility of being used as a learning tool rather than just as a store of knowledge. This thesis attempts to develop a set of design principles that allow the development of e-textbooks to promote PBL in secondary school science students. This research presents the results of a four-year study, between 2013 and 2016 with different classes, that aimed to investigate the development and use of e-textbooks to facilitate PBL in secondary school science classrooms. It involved identification of constraints that limit the implementation of PBL and measurement of their effect on learning through PBL. These included learning, pedagogical and technical constraints. An investigation was conducted into the use of e-textbooks to augment PBL and ameliorate these constraints. Through a process of Design-based Research, a set of principles was established that might promote the successful use of PBL and e-textbooks in secondary science contexts. A review of the research literature revealed that PBL can have a powerful impact as an educational tool if the learning environment is well managed. However, certain constraints to using PBL, especially in secondary schools, require investigation. E-textbooks may also be able to improve student learning using PBL while ameliorating some of these constraints. The three research questions developed for this research aimed to identify such constraints and identify factors that could increase the impact of PBL on student learning using e-textbooks. This study used a qualitative approach to investigate the use of e-textbooks to support PBL in secondary school science classrooms with some quantitative data used to support one aspect of the study (student knowledge). Data collected from a PBL Evaluation Tool before and after each intervention were used to measure student knowledge, planning, monitoring and evaluation and student engagement. In addition, data were collected through focus group interviews and observations of students in class. The four-year time span of the study allowed the collection of a large amount of data that provided opportunities for triangulation. The three research questions guided the development of a set of design principles that will be useful in the future development of e-textbooks that support PBL. The results of the study were several design principles that could be used by teachers and schools to develop e-textbooks to support a PBL program. These principles are presented using a road map analogy that illustrates the journey undertaken in this research. The design principles involve the pedagogy of the teacher, the design of the e-textbook and the facilitation of the students in the PBL environment

Design-activity-sequence: A case study and polyphonic analysis of learning in a digital design thinking workshop

In this case study, we report on the outcomes of a one-day workshop on design thinking attended by participants from the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning conference in Philadelphia in 2017. We highlight the interactions between the workshop design, structured as a design thinking process around the design of a digital environment for design thinking, and the diverse backgrounds and interests of its participants. Data from in-workshop reflections and post-workshop interviews were analyzed using a novel set of analytical approaches, a combination the facilitators made by possible by welcoming participants as coresearchers

Enhancing Free-text Interactions in a Communication Skills Learning Environment

Learning environments frequently use gamification to enhance user interactions.Virtual characters with whom players engage in simulated conversations often employ prescripted dialogues; however, free user inputs enable deeper immersion and higher-order cognition. In our learning environment, experts developed a scripted scenario as a sequence of potential actions, and we explore possibilities for enhancing interactions by enabling users to type free inputs that are matched to the pre-scripted statements using Natural Language Processing techniques. In this paper, we introduce a clustering mechanism that provides recommendations for fine-tuning the pre-scripted answers in order to better match user inputs

Reflections on the Contributions and Future Scenarios in AI-Based Learning

Peer reviewe

Designing scaffolding for personal learning environments: Continuous learning perspective in vocational teacher education context.

The present dissertation examined how to scaffold students when they study in their Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). PLEs give students the freedom to choose their learning environments by themselves and the ability to support their continuing professional development throughout their career once their studies are complete. The examination also concerned what kind of competence vocational student teachers demonstrate in their ePortfolios as a part of their PLEs during their teacher studies in order to design scaffolding. The data was collected from several groups of vocational student teachers. Various pedagogical learning designs, scaffolding models, digital tools and definitions and evaluations of competences were examined. The data analyses were conducted using the qualitative content analysis approach. The results of the study revealed that the Dialogical Authentic Netlearning Activity (DIANA) pedagogical model contains several scaffolding activities and is the most effective when it is presented with students’ personal web tools integrated in the learning process. The study presents a detailed framework for evaluating and studying vocational teachers’ competence and provides instructions for scaffolding the content of ePortfolios. The study revealed that the open badge-driven learning structure provides a method and digital tools for scaffolding students via their PLEs. The results indicate that scaffolding via PLEs is successful when there are several scaffolding providers, such as a lecturer, a workplace training mentor and students, instructions in digital environments and peer-students. Vocational student teachers are motivated to study and make their competences visible through ePortfolios because they are interested in promoting their teaching career and they wish to continue their personal growth. Using an ePortfolio in their studies also enables student teachers see the potential of using ePortfolios with their own students. This dissertation reveals three aspects with practical features which may be used to designing scaffolding PLEs: personal web tools, content and methods. Although the dissertation deals specifically with vocational teacher education, it is hoped that the results will be implemented in every educational sector.Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkittiin, miten opiskelijoita ohjataan, kun he käyttävät henkilökohtaisia oppimisympäristöjään. Opiskelijat saavat itse valita nämä ympäristöt, joiden on tarkoitus tukea ammatillista kehittymistä myös opintojen jälkeen koko työuran aikana. Jotta ohjaamista voidaan suunnitella, tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin myös, millaista osaamista ammatilliset opettajaopiskelijat tekevät näkyväksi ePortfoliossaan, joka on osa henkilökohtaista oppimisympäristöä. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin useasta opettajaopiskelijaryhmästä. Pedagogisia opetuksen toteutussuunnitelmia, ohjauksen malleja, digitaalisia työvälineitä ja opettajan kompetenssin määritelmiä tutkittiin. Aineisto analysoitiin laadullisen sisällönanalyysin menetelmillä. Tutkimustuloksista havaittiin, että pedagoginen DIANA-malli (Dialogical Authentic Netlearning Activity) sisältää useita ohjauksen menetelmiä ja siihen kytkettyjen henkilökohtaisten digitaalisten työvälineiden kautta ohjaus on tehokkaimmillaan. Tutkimus antaa yksityiskohtaisen ja käytännöllisen arviointikehyksen ammatillisen opettajan kompetenssin tarkasteluun. Tämä antaa edelleen ohjeita ePortfolion sisällön tuottamisen ohjaukseen. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että osaamismerkein ohjautuva oppimisprosessi sisältää menetelmän ja digitaaliset työvälineet opiskelijoiden ohjaukseen heidän henkilökohtaisten oppimisympäristöjensä kautta tapahtuen. Tutkimustulosten perusteella voidaan sanoa, että ohjaamisvastuuta henkilökohtaisten oppimisympäristöjen kautta voidaan jakaa eri tahoille, kuten esimerkiksi opettajalle, opetusharjoittelun ohjaajalle työpaikalla, opiskelijoille, ohjeisiin digitaalisissa ympäristöissä ja vertaisoppijoille. Ammatilliset opettajaopiskelijat ovat motivoituneita opiskelemaan ja tekemään osaamistaan näkyväksi ePortfolioidensa kautta, koska he ovat kiinnostuneita oman opettajauransa edistämisestä ja henkilökohtaisen kasvunsa havainnoinnista. Kun he käyttävät ePortfolioita omissa oppimisprosesseissaan, he havaitsevat niiden hyödyntämismahdollisuudet omien opiskelijoidensa kanssa. Väitöstutkimuksen perusteella löytyi kolme elementtiä perusteluineen, joiden avulla voi suunnitella ohjausta henkilökohtaisiin oppimisympäristöihin: henkilökohtaiset digitaaliset työvälineet, sisältö ja menetelmät. Vaikka tämä väitöstutkimus on ammatillisen opettajankoulutuksen kontekstissa, tuloksien implementointia voi suositella kaikille koulutussektoreille

Designing Attention-Centric Notification Systems: Five HCI Challenges

Through an examination of the emerging domain of cognitive systems, with a focus on attention-centric cognitive systems used for notification, this document explores the human-computer interaction challenges that must be addressed for successful interface design. This document asserts that with compatible tools and methods, user notification requirements and interface usability can be abstracted, expressed, and compared with critical parameter ratings; that is, even novice designers can assess attention cost factors to determine target parameter levels for new system development. With a general understanding of the user tasks supported by the notification system, a designer can access the repository of design knowledge for appropriate information and interaction design techniques (e.g., use of color, audio features, animation, screen size, transition of states, etc), which have analytically and empirically derived ratings. Furthermore, usability evaluation methods, provided to designers as part of the integrated system, are adaptable to specific combinations of targeted parameter levels. User testing results can be conveniently added back into the design knowledge repository and compared to target parameter levels to determine design success and build reusable HCI knowledge. This approach is discussed in greater detail as we describe five HCI challenges relating to cognitive system development: (1) convenient access to basic research and guidelines, (2) requirements engineering methods for notification interfaces, (3) better and more usable predictive modeling for pre-attentive and dual-task interfaces, (4) standard empirical evaluation procedures for notification systems, and (5) conceptual frameworks for organizing reusable design and software components. This document also describes our initial work toward building infrastructure to overcome these five challenges, focused on notification system development. We described LINK-UP, a design environment grounded on years of theory and method development within HCI, providing a mechanism to integrate interdisciplinary expertise from the cognitive systems research community. Claims allow convenient access to basic research and guidelines, while modules parallel a lifecycle development iteration and provide a process for requirements engineering guided by this basic research. The activities carried out through LINK-UP provide access to and interaction with reusable design components organized based on our framework. We think that this approach may provide the scientific basis necessary for exciting interdisciplinary advancement through many fields of design, with notification systems serving as an initial model. A version of this document will appear as chapter 3 in the book Cognitive Systems: Human Cognitive Models in Systems Design edited by Chris Forsythe, Michael Bernard, and Timothy Goldsmith resulting from a workshop led by the editors in summer 2003. The authors are grateful for the input of the workshop organizers and conference attendees in the preparation of this document

Depict: A Tool to Represent Classroom Scenarios

A functional version of Depict can be found at www.lessonsketch.orgThis document describes design features of Depict, a web based software that allows users to represent classroom scenarios using comics. The document provides the conceptual bases of the design and a description of the user interface. The document also sketches out a direction for further development.This work has been done with support from NSF grants ESI-0353285 and DRL- 0918425 to Patricio Herbst.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87949/1/Depict_2011.pdf-