Two computer-based learning environments for reading and writing narratives

In this brief paper, two computer-based educational tools are described. They are designed to support children learning the literacy skills of narrative comprehension and creation. We give an overview of these tools, and then discuss the educational hypotheses that we are planning to use them to test

Knowledge Sharing on a Corporate Intranet: Effects of Re-Instating Web Authoring Capability

The web was intended to be a collaborative environment where users could exchange ideas but has turned into a read-only environment. The same is true for corporate intranets. In this paper we examine whether the removal of this read-only limitation can facilitate knowledge sharing. By installing a wiki in a corporate intranet, we intervened in an organisational setting and studied the results of this provocation. We found that the intranet transformed from being a semi-static bulletin board to a dynamic exchange forum for internal information. Our conclusion is that when editing becomes as easy as surfing people who want to share knowledge can indeed do so on a corporate intranet

An Interactive Learning Environment for a Dynamic Educational Digital Library

GeogDL is a digital library of geography examination resources designed to assist students in preparing for a national geography examination in Singapore. We describe an interactive learning environment built into GeogDL that consists of four major components. The practice and review module allows students to attempt individual examination questions, the mock exam provides a simulation of the actual geography examination, the trends analysis tool provides an overview of the types of questions asked in previous examinations, while the contributions module allows students and teachers to create and share knowledge within the digital library.Published versio

Digital libraries to knowledge portals: Towards a global knowledge portal for Secondary Schools in Singapore

For digital libraries to remain relevant in the new millennium where the ability to manage knowledge is critical, this paper explores how digital libraries could strategically be evolved into knowledge portals to encapsulate knowledge creation, management, sharing and reusability, features evidently lacking in most conventional digital libraries. Two digital library scenarios of use in education are described and implemented as knowledge portals using G-Portal and the Greenstone software. We hope that the initial work carried out on these two portal-like DLs will eventually form part of a Global Knowledge Portal for Secondary Schools in Singapore.Accepted versio

The International Children's Digital Library: Viewing Digital Books Online

Reading books plays an important role in children's cognitive and social development. However, many children do not have access to diverse collections of books due to the limited resources of their community libraries. We have begun to address this issue by creating a large-scale digital archive of children's books, the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL). In this paper we discuss our initial efforts in building the ICDL, concentrating on an informal evaluation of innovative digital book readers. Keywords Children, digital libraries, books, book readers, graphical user interfaces. (UMIACS-TR-2002-09) (HCIL-TR-2002-03

Enriching the Digital Library Experience: Innovations With Named Entity Recognition and Geographic Information System Technologies

Digital libraries are seeking innovative ways to share their resources and enhance user experience. To this end, numerous openly available technologies can be exploited. For this project, NER technology was applied to a subset of the Documenting the American South (DocSouth) digital collections. Personal and location names were hand-annotated to achieve a gold standard, and GATE, a text engineering tool, was run under two conditions: a defaults baseline and a test run that included gazetteers built from DocSouth's Colonial and State Records collection. Overall, GATE performance is promising, and numerous strategies for improvement are discussed. Next, derived location annotations were georeferenced and stored in a geodatabase through automated processes, and a prototype for a web-based map search was developed using the Google Maps API. This project showcases innovations with automated NER coupled with GIS technologies, and strongly supports further investment in applying these techniques across DocSouth and other digital libraries

Designing effective animated icons for children

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Information Technology is an essential part of the National Curriculum in the UK, yet despite the growth of IT in schools that this has generated, there is evidence that children are not to be taken into consideration enough when designing aspects of educational software. The functionality available in education software packages tends to be made available through static icons, yet there are problems with their implementation as they can at times cause confusion for the user in terms of the functionality that they are aiming to represent. In order to make icons in educational software more effective, and to meet the needs of children, of the use of animated icons has been suggested. Animating the function of the icon aims to provide a clarification of its meaning and demonstrate its capabilities, as well as explaining to the user the method of use. However, there is little information available on how to support the design of effective animated icons. Focusing on a target age group of 11 to 12 year olds, this thesis argues that some form of support mechanism should be developed for the design of animated icons to ensure that consideration is being given to the types of object that children find useful and accessible. A set of dimensions where guidance on visual aspects of the icon may be useful are developed through analysis of relevant literature and it is highlighted that they do not provide any insight into what types of object may be helpful in designing the animated icons. This thesis then argues that animated icon design can be usefully informed by psychological theories of learning and that using such theories as a base may provide an understanding of how children identify icon functionality. The thesis introduces and critiques Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology theory, Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory and Leontjev’s Activity Theory, identifying aspects of the theories which may be of relevance to the design of animated icons. By investigating the relationships between the dimensions of animated icons and the concepts from the theories of learning, insights are developed into the impact of visual factors on a child’s identification and understanding of icon functionality. The thesis goes on to report a practical study where the sample is a group of 11 to 12 year old children. The practical study consists of three phases. The first phase gathers data related to the children’s familiarity with computers and the types of software packages that they use. The second phase looks at their use and recognition of static icon functionality. The last phase involves using the findings from phases 1 and 2 to create and evaluate a set of animated icons, the development of which is based on the relationships between the concepts from theories of learning and the identified dimensions of animated icons. The analysis of the evidence from the practical study leads to a small set of design principles being proposed that are aimed to provide advice/guidance on how to design animated icons effectively for this target age group, with an emphasis on the types of object that might be used. The principles are underpinned by the concepts from the theories of learning and presented in a manner that aims to be understandable by, and accessible to, designers

A collaborative design process for educational digital resources in African higher education

Within Africa, access to digital library systems is critical in supporting higher level teaching, learning and research. Currently there is a high demand with inadequate resources which often produces poorly supported learning outcomes. The effectiveness of current resources is further limited by poor design processes, which is worsened by stakeholders (academics, e-learning technologists and digital librarians and designers) often working in isolation. Ultimately, designed resources become less user-centred and sustainable. This thesis sought to provide empirically developed collaborative design process guidance for design stakeholders developing educational digital resources within African higher education. Following a Human Computer Interaction research approach, eleven best practice digital library projects identified from three case studies of African universities (in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa) were investigated. Data was drawn from interviews, observations and an examination of documents. This investigation identified three interrelated factors that impacted on the design process (i. e. human relationships, innovative technologies and policies). The human relationships factor comprised multidisciplinary design stakeholders and included a subset i. e. design champions (multidisciplinary and domain champions) whose role changed the facilitation and eventual output of the other stakeholders in the design process. The multidisciplinary champions took on a participatory approach to engagement while the domain champions assumed an approach that was less engaging. The innovative technologies factor comprised universal technologies and `flexible' technologies (i. e. Web 2.0 applications and the Open Source Software) which supported the design process and enhanced user-centeredness and sustainability of the projects. Existing institutional and national policies supported stakeholder collaboration and application of the innovative technologies. The absence of any of these factors in the digital library projects weakened the design process and reduced effectiveness of digital resources. These three factors have been used to develop the Collaborative Educational Resources Design (CERD) process model as a guidance tool to support multidisciplinary design stakeholders indesigning effective digital resources

Children's Interface Design for Searching and Browsing

Elementary-age children are among the largest user groups of computers and the Internet, so it is important to design searching and browsing interfaces to support them. However, many interfaces for children do not consider their skills and preferences. Children can perform simple, single item searches, and are also capable of conducting Boolean searches involving multiple search criteria. However, they have difficulty creating Boolean searches using hierarchical structures found in many interfaces. These interfaces often employ a sequential presentation of the category structure, where only one branch or facet at a time can be explored. This combination of structure and presentation keeps the screen from becoming cluttered, but requires a lot of navigation to explore categories in different areas and an understanding of potentially abstract high-level categories. Based on previous research with adults, I believed that a simultaneous presentation of a flat category structure, where users could explore multiple, single-layer categories simultaneously, would better facilitate searching and browsing for children. This method reduces the amount of navigation and removes abstract categories. However, it introduces more visual clutter and sometimes the need for paging or scrolling. My research investigated these tradeoffs in two studies comparing searching and browsing in two interfaces with children in first, third, and fifth grade. Children did free browsing tasks, searched for a single item, and searched for two items to create conjunctive Boolean queries. The results indicate that a flat, simultaneous interface was significantly faster, easier, likeable, and preferred to a hierarchical, sequential interface for the Boolean search tasks. The simultaneous interface also allowed children to create significantly more conjunctive Boolean searches of multiple items while browsing than the sequential interface. These results suggest design guidelines for others who create children's interfaces, and inform design changes in the interfaces used in the International Children's Digital Library