The impact of Group Intelligence software on enquiry-based learning

Despite the increasing use of groupware technologies in education, there is little evidence of their impact, especially within an enquiry-based learning (EBL) context. In this paper, we examine the use of a commercial standard Group Intelligence software called GroupSystems®ThinkTank. To date, ThinkTank has been adopted mainly in the USA and supports teams in generating ideas, categorising, prioritising, voting and multi-criteria decision-making and automatically generates a report at the end of each session. The software was used by students carrying out an EBL project, set by employers, for a full academic year. The criteria for assessing the impact of ThinkTank on student learning were those of creativity, participation, productivity, engagement and understanding. Data was collected throughout the year using a combination of interviews and questionnaires, and written feedback from employers. The overall findings show an increase in levels of productivity and creativity, evidence of a deeper understanding of their work but some variation in attitudes towards participation in the early stages of the project

Lo-fi prototyping to design interactive-tabletop applications for children

Interactive tabletops are an exiting new platform for supporting children's collaboration. With design guidelines and standardized interaction principles still immature, there is a considerable need for iterative prototyping to define the task and interface. Lo-fi prototypes-using cardboard, paper, etc.- are easy to develop, flexible to adjust during design sessions, and intuitive for users to manipulate. Using them can be a valuable step in designing tabletop applications. In this paper, we detail the design process of two tabletop applications, concentrating on the role of lo-fi prototyping. TransTime is a pattern game for 5-6 year olds to engage how time progresses. OurSpace is a design tool for 7-9 year olds to arrange desks and assign seats for students in their classroom. By comparing the experiences, we arrive at a better understanding of the benefits, challenges, and limits of using lo-fi prototypes to design interactive-tabletop applications for children

IT/IS Group Projects Portal Systems

This project is known as IT/IS Group Project Portal System and will be the students project for Final Year Project. The purpose of the project is to study the usage of the various tools to help both student and lecturer in any IT/IS Group Projects. The project is mainly focused on the research on the usage of these tools in the process of finishing the group project. The main objective of this project is to the extensive usage of these tools and other elements which are usually used in the traditional way of finishing the project and also new tools. A model will be developed in which it will include most of the functionality and tools available. It main function is to help both student and lecturer to take advantage of this available tools and use it to further enhance and smoothen their project flow especially in group project. For student , they will able to use the system as a repository and another means for communicating . As for the lecturer they can post announcement and also guideline about the project. As there are many available software out there to do so, the student will need to identify which is the best type of tools and incorporate this tools into with the available web systems for this projects. Among of the things which the student find most useful is usage of the forum and voice conference