CIRT Newsletter--September 2011

This issue contains: Faculty Spotlight: Capturing Student Attention with Animated Character VideoTeaching Online Seminar and Distance Learning at UNF Upcoming Events Digital Thinking: New Media Consortium Summer Conference Best Practices Online: Using Communication to Build a Rich, Engaging Learning Environment Blackboard News: New Timer and StudyMate Class App Review: Jump Start Your iPad With Appstart and Swype for Android News from ITS: Survey Tool Upgrad

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research

Privacy-preserving and fraud-resistant targeted advertising for mobile devices

Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) enables Ad-Networks to capitalize on the popularity of digital Publishers in order to target users with contextaware promotional materials from Advertisers. OBA has been shown to be very effective at engaging consumers but at the same time presents severe privacy and security threats for both users and Advertisers. Users view OBA as intrusive and are therefore reluctant to share their private data with Ad-Networks. In many cases this results in the adoption of anti-tracking tools and ad-blockers which reduces the system's performance. Advertisers on their part are susceptible to financial fraud due to Ad-Reports that do not correspond to real consumer activity. Consequently, user privacy is further violated as Ad-Networks are provoked into collecting even more data in order to detect fictitious Ad-Reports. Researchers have mostly approached user privacy and fraud prevention as separate issues while ignoring how potential solutions to address one problem will effect the other. As a result, previously proposed privacy-preserving advertising systems are susceptible to fraud or fail to offer fine-grain targeting which makes them undesirable by Advertisers while systems that focus on fraud prevention, require the collection of private data which renders them as a threat for users. The aim of our research is to offer a comprehensive solution which addresses both problems without resulting in a conflict of interest between Advertisers and users. Our work specifically focuses on the preservation of privacy for mobile device users who represent the majority of consumers that are targeted by OBA. To accomplish the set goal, we contribute ADS+R (Advert Distribution System with Reporting) which is an innovative advertising system that supports the delivery of personalized adverts as well as the submission of verifiable Ad-Reports on mobile devices while still maintaining user privacy. Our approach adopts a decentralized architecture which connects mobile users and Advertisers over a hybrid opportunistic network without the need for an Ad-Network to operate as administrative authority. User privacy is preserved through the use of peer-to-peer connections (serving as proxy connections), Anonymous- download technologies and cryptography, while Advertiser fraud is prevented by means of a novel mechanism which we termed Behavioural Verification. Behavioural Verification combines client-side processing with a blockchaininspired construction which enables Advertisers to certify the integrity of Ad-Reports without exposing the identity of the submitting mobile users. In comparison to previously proposed systems, ADS+R provides both (1) user privacy and (2) advert fraud prevention while allowing for (3) a tunable trade-off between resource consumption and security, and (4) the statistical analysis and data mining of consumer behaviours

Integrating e-learning technologies into conventional teaching and learning in the school and higher education system with scarce resources: a case study of Mzuzu University

The main aim of this study was to investigate how secondary schools and tertiary education institutions in Malawi can sustainably integrate e-learning technologies into traditional teaching and learning environments. The study was conducted in Malawi at Mzuzu University (MZUNI) and four secondary schools within Mzuzu City. Data were collected in two phases. Phase-one was a baseline study of the status of technology at MZUNI and in four conveniently sampled secondary schools in Mzuzu City. The rationale for conducting the baseline study was to ascertain the status of e-learning before conducting the intervention study. This phase used self-administered questionnaires, focus group discussions (FDGs) and in-depth individual interviews as tools for gathering data. Phase Two was interventional in nature because the researcher tried to implement some solutions which were observed during baseline study. This study used a longitudinal qualitative research approach. A mixed methods approach was used because the nature of the research questions required the use of different data gathering strategies. Study findings revealed that educational institutions that have limited resources can integrate technology in education by using resources they have. This study discovered that the following five media were sustainable and the most used technologies: The Internet, Facebook, memory sticks, personal computers and ordinary cell phones. Furthermore, challenges that institutions are likely to face when implementing technology integration included: intermittent electrical power supply; lack of resources for e-learning; resistance to use recorded e-resources; challenges with e-module production and using WhatsApp for educational purposes. The study recommends the following strategies to ensure that electronic technologies are integrated into the teaching and learning environment: MZUNI and other institutions which have limited resources for teaching and learning purposes should integrate technology in education using the most ubiquitous teaching and learning resources around them by making use of the Teaching and Learning Using Locally Available Resources (TALULAR) concept instead of solely relying on proprietary resources

Education ICT assemblage: encounters of discourses, emotions, affects, subjects, and their productive forces

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is part of everyday life. It is not different in the education field. However, its use has implications for what it means to teach and learn effectively in contemporary education. When ICT is used in the classroom, things happen through divergent forces, components, and mechanisms, according to different contexts, and evidencing a complex environment. The purpose of this study is to show how complex the use of ICT in education is by analysing different components and their productive forces. Assemblage ethnography is the methodology adopted and a range of data collection tools are used. The thesis explores five case studies generated from different settings: Primary, Secondary and Post-secondary education. The analysis offered shows how discourse, policy-making, budget, and CPD are not enough to account for all of the ICT-related situations that happen on a daily basis inside schools. ICT in education evidences a diverse and fragmented field of policy, money, and practice, pedagogy and many other elements. This study concludes that there are three main productive forces emerging from the education ICT assemblage which: evidenced unsolved issues of the schooling process, enhanced or made emotions emerge; opened possibilities for other subjectivities to happen

Retrieval Enhancements for Task-Based Web Search

The task-based view of web search implies that retrieval should take the user perspective into account. Going beyond merely retrieving the most relevant result set for the current query, the retrieval system should aim to surface results that are actually useful to the task that motivated the query. This dissertation explores how retrieval systems can better understand and support their users’ tasks from three main angles: First, we study and quantify search engine user behavior during complex writing tasks, and how task success and behavior are associated in such settings. Second, we investigate search engine queries formulated as questions, and explore patterns in a large query log that may help search engines to better support this increasingly prevalent interaction pattern. Third, we propose a novel approach to reranking the search result lists produced by web search engines, taking into account retrieval axioms that formally specify properties of a good ranking.Die Task-basierte Sicht auf Websuche impliziert, dass die Benutzerperspektive berücksichtigt werden sollte. Über das bloße Abrufen der relevantesten Ergebnismenge für die aktuelle Anfrage hinaus, sollten Suchmaschinen Ergebnisse liefern, die tatsächlich für die Aufgabe (Task) nützlich sind, die diese Anfrage motiviert hat. Diese Dissertation untersucht, wie Retrieval-Systeme die Aufgaben ihrer Benutzer besser verstehen und unterstützen können, und leistet Forschungsbeiträge unter drei Hauptaspekten: Erstens untersuchen und quantifizieren wir das Verhalten von Suchmaschinenbenutzern während komplexer Schreibaufgaben, und wie Aufgabenerfolg und Verhalten in solchen Situationen zusammenhängen. Zweitens untersuchen wir Suchmaschinenanfragen, die als Fragen formuliert sind, und untersuchen ein Suchmaschinenlog mit fast einer Milliarde solcher Anfragen auf Muster, die Suchmaschinen dabei helfen können, diesen zunehmend verbreiteten Anfragentyp besser zu unterstützen. Drittens schlagen wir einen neuen Ansatz vor, um die von Web-Suchmaschinen erstellten Suchergebnislisten neu zu sortieren, wobei Retrieval-Axiome berücksichtigt werden, die die Eigenschaften eines guten Rankings formal beschreiben

Redefining Attention (and Revamping the Legal Profession?) for the Digital Generation

With computers, text messages, Facebook, cell phones, smartphones, tablets, iPods, and other information and communication technologies (“ICTs”) constantly competing for our attention, we live in an age of perpetual distraction. Educators have long speculated that constant exposure to ICTs is eroding our ability to stay focused, and recent research supports these speculations. This raises particularly troubling implications for the practice of law, in which being able to pay sustained attention to the task at hand is crucial. Research also indicates that the brains of today’s young people, the “Digital Generation,” may function differently than the brains of their elders because the Digital Generation have grown up immersed in digital technology. This suggests that the techniques today’s legal professionals might use to cultivate attention in the face of technological distraction could prove to be inappropriate for future generations of lawyers. When the Digital Generation are both the attorneys and the clients, it may be the practice of law — rather than the lawyers — that needs to change. This paper explores the science of attention and explains why attention is important. Next, it introduces the Digital Generation and their relationship with digital technology. It then examines the connection between ICT exposure and attention and reviews several suggestions that others have made about how legal professionals should respond to the challenges ICTs pose to focused attention. This paper then takes the conversation in a new direction: It predicts ways in which the legal profession, rather than the legal professionals, will necessarily have to adapt to technology in the future. Finally, it offers thoughts about how the legal profession should view its relationship with technology going forward