Group Spinner : recognizing and visualizing learning in the classroom for reflection, communication, and planning

Group Spinner is a digital visual tool intended to help teachers observe and reflect on children’s collaborative technology-enhanced learning activities in the classroom. We describe the design of Group Spinner, which was informed by activity theory, previous work and teachers’ focus group feedback. Based on a radar chart and a set of indicators, Group Spinner allows teachers to record in-class observations as to different aspects of group learning and learning behaviors, beyond the limited knowledge acquisition measures. Our exploratory study involved 6 teachers who used the tool for a total of 23 classes in subjects ranging from Maths and Geography to Sociology and Art. Semi-structured interviews with these teachers revealed a number of different uses of the tool. Depending on their experience and pedagogy, teachers considered Group Spinner to be a valuable tool to support awareness, reflection, communication, and/or planning

Making L2 learners' reasoning skills visible : the potential of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments

AbstractThis paper explores the use of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments (CSCLE) as multimodal spaces for promoting critical thinking for English as Second Language Learning (L2) education from multiple perspectives (Technology, Thinking Skills and Interaction). The exploration focuses on the use of a multitouch tabletop, and an accompanying application called Digital Mysteries, as affordances in CSCLE’s for making reasoning skill-based thinking visible for L2 learning in Higher Education.Despite the worldwide promotion of teaching thinking in L2 education, it is not always easy for teachers to identify the types of thinking skills being targeted in L2 pedagogical tasks. To the authors’ knowledge, little empirical interactional evidence is available to demonstrate critical thinking in L2 learner talk during group work. This paper examines interactions among three groups of Chinese English Language learners at a higher education institution in a CSCLE. Video data were collected of students’ thinking-in-action whilst engaging in multimodal interactions in the environment. Results show that new technologies can provide innovative and empirically driven ways in which L2 learners’ thinking is externalised and how critical reasoning can be tracked, promoted, evaluated and self-regulated. The findings suggest that collaborations in a CSCLE can support the completion of tasks embedding high levels of cognitive complexity by L2 learners with effective use of limited cognitive resources. This leads to a number of recommendations about integrating the teaching of critical thinking skills into the L2 classroom using CSCLE technologies

Classroom Technology Deployment Matrix: A Planning, Monitoring, Evaluating and Reporting Tool

We present the Classroom Technology Deployment Matrix (CTDM), a tool for high-level Planning, Monitoring, Evaluating and Reporting of classroom deployments of educational technologies, enabling researchers, teachers and schools to work together for successful deployments. The tool is de-rived from a review of literature on technology adaptation (at the individual, process and organisation level), concluding that Normalization Process Theory, which seeks to explain the social processes that lead to the routine embedding of innovative technology in an existing system, would a suitable foundation for developing this matrix. This can be leveraged in the specific context of the classroom, specifically including the Normal Desired State of teachers. We explore this classroom context, and the developed CTDM, through look-ing at two separate deployments (different schools and teachers) of the same technology (Collocated Collaborative Writing), observing how lessons learned from the first changed our approach to the second. The descriptive and an-alytical value of the tool is then demonstrated through map-ping these observation to the matrix and can be applied to future deployments

Investigating scaffolding during collaborative reading on the tabletop computer

PhD ThesisThis study investigates the scaffolding process and student interaction, from a sociocultural perspective, in a tabletop assisted language learning environment for collaborative reading. The study furthers understanding of features of traditional conceptualizations of scaffolding as a learning construct in the context of technology-mediated social interaction. This scaffolding manifests when learners interact with one another in different user (verbal and non-verbal) modes, and with elements or attributes of tabletop technology during collaborative reading tasks. Tabletop technology is seen to add an extra dimension to the scaffolding metaphor, and this study is an attempt to explore features of this metaphor and how scaffolding is applied in this new learning platform. To achieve this, a design-based approach as adopted, resulting in a multi-touch tabletop application for digital collaborative strategic reading (DCSR). The DCSR application is designed to lead students through several digital reading stages: previewing, brainstorming, prediction, click and clunk, get the gist, and wrap-up. DCSR was trialled with four students of English as a second language (ESL) over five instruction sessions. The sessions were video-recorded, and at the end of the five sessions students were interviewed to provide self-reports of their experiences of the learning environment, the nature of assistance they received, and how they viewed their performance in this environment. Analysis of verbal, non-verbal, and system/technical modes of interaction provided an overview of the learning context for examining scaffolding processes and student interaction. Findings reveal a range of interactions (student–student, student–tabletop, and student–tabletop–student interactions). These were brought together under a taxonomy of functions employed to assist the students’ reading comprehension and demonstrate that the tabletop computer can provide scaffolding for reading comprehension via user (verbal and non-verbal) scaffolding strategies and system/technical scaffolding tools.Jazan University

Evaluating Digital Tabletop Collaborative Writing in the Classroom

International audienceWe present an evaluation of an “in the wild” classroom deployment of Co-located Collaborative Writing (CCW), an application for digital tabletops. CCW was adapted to the classroom setting across 8 SMART tables. Here, we describe the outcomes of the 6 week deployment with students aged 13–14, focussing on how CCW operated as a tool for learning within a classroom environment. We analyse video data and interaction logs to provide a group specific analysis in the classroom context. Using the group as the unit of analysis allows detailed tracking of the group’s development over time as part of scheme of work planned by a teacher for the classroom. Through successful integration of multiple tabletops into the classroom, we show how the design of CCW supports students in learning how to collaboratively plan a piece of persuasive writing, and allows teachers to monitor progress and process of students. The study shows how the nature and quality of collaborative interactions changed over time, with decision points bringing students together to collaborate, and how the role of CCW matured from a scaffolding mechanism for planning, to a tool for implementing planning. The study also showed how the teacher’s relationship with CCW changed, due to the designed visibility of groups’ activities, and how lesson plans became more integrated utilizing the flexibility of the technology. These are key aspects that can enhance the adoption of such technologies by both students and teachers in the classroom

Evaluating digital tabletop collaborative writing in the classroom

We present an evaluation of an “in the wild” classroom deployment of Co-located Collaborative Writing (CCW), an application for digital tabletops. CCW was adapted to the classroom setting across 8 SMART tables. Here, we describe the outcomes of the 6 week deployment with students aged 13–14, focussing on how CCW operated as a tool for learning within a classroom environment. We analyse video data and interaction logs to provide a group specific analysis in the classroom context. Using the group as the unit of analysis allows detailed tracking of the group’s development over time as part of scheme of work planned by a teacher for the classroom. Through successful integration of multiple tabletops into the classroom, we show how the design of CCW supports students in learning how to collaboratively plan a piece of persuasive writing, and allows teachers to monitor progress and process of students. The study shows how the nature and quality of collaborative interactions changed over time, with decision points bringing students together to collaborate, and how the role of CCW matured from a scaffolding mechanism for planning, to a tool for implementing planning. The study also showed how the teacher’s relationship with CCW changed, due to the designed visibility of groups’ activities, and how lesson plans became more integrated utilizing the flexibility of the technology. These are key aspects that can enhance the adoption of such technologies by both students and teachers in the classroom

The Big Five:Addressing Recurrent Multimodal Learning Data Challenges

The analysis of multimodal data in learning is a growing field of research, which has led to the development of different analytics solutions. However, there is no standardised approach to handle multimodal data. In this paper, we describe and outline a solution for five recurrent challenges in the analysis of multimodal data: the data collection, storing, annotation, processing and exploitation. For each of these challenges, we envision possible solutions. The prototypes for some of the proposed solutions will be discussed during the Multimodal Challenge of the fourth Learning Analytics & Knowledge Hackathon, a two-day hands-on workshop in which the authors will open up the prototypes for trials, validation and feedback

Multimodal Challenge: Analytics Beyond User-computer Interaction Data

This contribution describes one the challenges explored in the Fourth LAK Hackathon. This challenge aims at shifting the focus from learning situations which can be easily traced through user-computer interactions data and concentrate more on user-world interactions events, typical of co-located and practice-based learning experiences. This mission, pursued by the multimodal learning analytics (MMLA) community, seeks to bridge the gap between digital and physical learning spaces. The “multimodal” approach consists in combining learners’ motoric actions with physiological responses and data about the learning contexts. These data can be collected through multiple wearable sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This Hackathon table will confront with three main challenges arising from the analysis and valorisation of multimodal datasets: 1) the data collection and storing, 2) the data annotation, 3) the data processing and exploitation. Some research questions which will be considered in this Hackathon challenge are the following: how to process the raw sensor data streams and extract relevant features? which data mining and machine learning techniques can be applied? how can we compare two action recordings? How to combine sensor data with Experience API (xAPI)? what are meaningful visualisations for these data