Real Time Charitable Giving

Examines how the ability to send small donations via text message facilitated giving for Haiti earthquake relief efforts, including characteristics of text donors, preferred methods of giving and encouraging others to give, and giving to other disasters

Museum Learning via Social Media: (How) Can Interactions on Twitter Enhance the Museum Learning Experience?

Museums are rich sources of artifacts, people and potential dialogic interactions. Recent developments in web technologies pose big challenges to museums to integrate such technologies in their learning provision. The study presented here is concerned with the potential of how school visits to museums can be enhanced by the use of social media. The Museum of London (MoL) is selected as the site of the study and the participants were a Year 9 History class (13-14 years old) in a secondary school in Milton Keynes. It draws on Falk and Dierking’s (2000) Contextual Model of Learning and considers evidence of meaning making from students’ tweets and activity on-site. Observational data during the visit, the visit’s Twitter stream and post-visit interview data with the participants is presented and analysed. It is argued that use of Twitter, a microblogging platform (http://twitter.com), enhances the social interaction around museum artifacts and thus, the process of shared construction of meaning making, which can enrich the museum experience

Sharing news, making sense, saying thanks: patterns of talk on Twitter during the Queensland floods

Abstract: This paper examines the discursive aspects of Twitter communication during the floods in the summer of 2010–2011 in Queensland, Australia. Using a representative sample of communication associated with the #qldfloods hashtag on Twitter, we coded and analysed the patterns of communication. We focus on key phenomena in the use of social media in crisis communication: communal sense-making practices, the negotiation of participant roles, and digital convergence around shared events. Social media is used both as a crisis communication and emergency management tool, as well as a space for participants to engage in emotional exchanges and communication of distress.Authored by Frances Shaw, Jean Burgess, Kate Crawford and Axel Bruns

Narrative vignettes and online enquiry in researching therapist accounts of practice with children in schools : an analysis of the methodology

This article reviews a research methodology which uses a qualitative, narrative approach to online, in-depth analysis of vignettes. The research sought to investigate the ways in which dramatherapists, based in different countries, understood the nature of therapeutic change in their work with children. The article describes the approach to the generation of data through the internet by a combination of vignettes, aMSN messenger and email. It reports on the approach taken to the analysis of data with samples from the findings. Participants kept a diary of their response to the research and the article draws on this within its analysis of the methodology

2009 Annual Report to Congress

[Excerpt] Enacted in 2004, Public Law 108-375 also created an Office of the Ombudsman (the Office) and urged the Secretary of Labor to take appropriate action to ensure that it be an independent Office within the Department of Labor (DOL), including independence from the other officers and employees of the DOL engaged in activities related to the administration of the provision of the EEOICPA. See 42 U.S.C. § 7385s-15(d). The Secretary of Labor appointed an Ombudsman in February 2005, and the Office submitted its first report to Congress covering calendar year 2005 on February 15, 2006. When initially created, the duties of the Office only extended to Part E. On October 28, 2009, Public Law 111-84, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, expanded the authority of the Office to also include Part B of the EEOICPA. The day to day activities of the Office are driven by two goals; 1) to provide information and assistance to claimants and potential claimants regarding the EEOICPA; (2) to provide opportunities for claimants and potential claimants to express their complaints, grievances, and requests for assistance concerning this program. In achieving these goals, the Office: Engages in outreach – We sponsor town hall meetings, as well as attend other meetings, forums and workshops where we discuss the EEOICPA and its requirements. This year, with the assistance of the efforts of a task force comprised of many of the agencies involved with the EEOICPA we were able to attend 20 outreach meetings in 11 different cities. Clarifies/explains documents and procedures – The EEOICPA can be very complicated and decisions are oftentimes based on very technical medical, scientific and/or legal concepts. We are contacted by claimants who find it difficult to comprehend these concepts. In addition, there are a many nuances to this program – for example for many of the “rules” there is at least one exception. Some claimants need assistance “steering the right course” as they proceed with their claim. Receives complaints, grievances and requests for assistance – Individuals with pending claims; individuals whose claims were denied; as well as some individuals whose claims were awarded, contact the Office or attend our town hall meetings, to voice complaints and grievances with this program. We are also contacted on occasion by claimants who have complimentary comments concerning the program – usually complimenting the services provided by individuals associated with the program. Provides assistance – It is rare when we are contacted by an individual who simply wants to voice a complaint. Most individuals contact us because they are seeking assistance with their claim. In some instances, we are asked to explain a word or decision. On other occasions, we are asked to provide assistance locating necessary records, or our input is sought on how to proceed with a claim. Inasmuch as many claimants do not have access to computers, we also frequently provide public information such as copies the Site Exposure Matrices; Site Profiles; listing of the 22 cancers covered for purposes of Special Exposure Cohorts, etc. Within the limits of our authority and resources, we assist claimants however we can. The report that follows is a synthesis of the many e-mails, letters, telephone calls, faxes, and face to face conversations that members of this staff had over the past year

Seamful interweaving: heterogeneity in the theory and design of interactive systems

Design experience and theoretical discussion suggest that a narrow design focus on one tool or medium as primary may clash with the way that everyday activity involves the interweaving and combination of many heterogeneous media. Interaction may become seamless and unproblematic, even if the differences, boundaries and 'seams' in media are objectively perceivable. People accommodate and take advantage of seams and heterogeneity, in and through the process of interaction. We use an experiment with a mixed reality system to ground and detail our discussion of seamful design, which takes account of this process, and theory that reflects and informs such design. We critique the 'disappearance' mentioned by Weiser as a goal for ubicomp, and Dourish's 'embodied interaction' approach to HCI, suggesting that these design ideals may be unachievable or incomplete because they underemphasise the interdependence of 'invisible' non-rationalising interaction and focused rationalising interaction within ongoing activity