Improving girls’ perception of computer science as a viable career option through game playing and design: Lessons from a systematic literature review

The objective of exposing girls to Computer Science as a career option has led to research directed towards gaming activities for girls. These activities include both game play and game design. Research about gaming activities for increasing girls’ interest in computer science has gained much attention over the past few years and has resulted in a number of contributions. We follow up with an overview of the status of research through a Systematic Literature Review. We investigate the relation between the various game playing or designing activities and their impact on girls’ perception of Computer Science as a career choice. We further present the design consideration for the games and related activities to potentially improve the perception of girls towards a Computer Science career. The applied method is a Systematic Literature Review through which we investigate which contributions were made, which knowledge areas were most explored, and which research facets have been used. We identify 25 papers to distill a common understanding of the state-of-the-art. Specifically, we investigate the effects that the game play/design activities had on girls’ perception about Computer Science; and what are the key design factors to be kept in mind while designing a serious game to improve girls’ perception about Computer Science. The results of this systematic literature review show that game playing or designing could indeed improve how girls perceive having a career in CS. The key aspects that such activities require are personalizing, opportunity for collaboration and the presence of a female lead characterThis work has been done during the tenure of an ERCIM Alain Bensoussan fellowshi

EyeDuino project: a study of community-engaged automated gardening systems powered by renewable energy

This study aims to address the digital divide amongst particular communities in Dublin through an innovative assemblage of gardening, renewable energy and bespoke automation systems. Through the combination of gardening (as a social and cultural activity undertaken in specific communities), automation, digital technologies, and networked practices (including a bespoke phone app), this project investigates the social outcomes and attitudes emerging from the gardening system developed for the project and the issues it raises in relation to digital literacy, sustainability and community empowerment. The number of technologies being embedded into the fabric of our society is ever increasing. However, the exposure level to such innovative solutions is not evenly spread across the population. Various determinants ranging from financial to cultural factors shape the process of engagement and adoption of technology, which in turn shapes the population's attitude towards innovations as Hill (1988) and Winner (1989) observed. This uneven diffusion of technologies uptake may result in a potential decrease in people acquiring new skills and knowledge, leading to an increase of the digital divide(N. Taylor et al., 2018). To this end, the author designed six automated gardening systems and deployed them at six community gardens located in Dublin, Republic of Ireland with the intention of discovering the actors that influence the stakeholders' adoption of innovative technologies and reveal the 'accidents' (Virilio & Lotringer, 1983) that happened following this engagement process. Moreover, as these experimental installations are powered by renewable energy produced by photovoltaic solar panels, the participants' sustainability awareness and acceptance are imparted and discussed. The niche innovative gardening systems assisted the participants with their tasks around their garden, while trying to fill the 'attitude-behaviour gap' (Claudy et al., 2012; Ozaki, 2011; Peattie, 2001) regarding adoption of renewable energy sources. Apart from aspects of social, financial and education attainment nature, this study confirms that the 'labor illusion' (Buell & Norton, 2011), a concept providing that people expect to see that the technologies are 'working hard', plays a critical role in stakeholders' willingness to learn new skills related to using those technologies. The participants did not assign a financial value to the gardening automation systems, which were offered to them as a 'gift'. However, they used the systems to advertise their higher affluence within their community, and as an opportunity to show-off their new acquired skills. This played a major role in their engagement with the artefact. Furthermore, the younger participants who are still living with their parents proved that niche innovations may act to breaking the cultural barriers regarding a set of mutually accepted cultural rules within their communities regarding engaging in tasks which are not necessarily perceived as socially acceptable, such as gardening in this instance. The bespoke artefact designed specifically for this project allows the author to reveal and discuss the factors that influenced the participants' attitude related to renewable energy sources. Also, determinants acting as barriers/incentives towards participants from Dublin, Republic of Ireland in engaging with innovations and the resulting outcomes following this interaction are examined

OnCreate and the virtual teammate: an analysis of online creative processes and remote collaboration

This paper explores research undertaken by a consortium of 10 universities from across Europe as part of an EU Erasmus Strategic Partnership project called OnCreate. Recent research and experiences prove the importance of the design and implementation of online courses that are learner-centred, include collaboration and integrate rich use of media in authentic environments. The OnCreate project explores the specific challenges of creative processes in such environments. The first research phase comprises a comparative qualitative analysis of collaboration practices in design-related study programmes at the ten participating universities. A key outcome of this research was in identifying the shortcomings of the hierarchical role models of established Learning Management Systems (such as Moodle or Blackboard) and the tendency towards evolving 'mash-up' environments to support creative online collaboration

Teachers' and fourth graders' questions during a problem-solving lesson

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