Online Group-exercises for Older Adults of Different Physical Abilities

In this paper we describe the design and validation of a virtual fitness environment aiming at keeping older adults physically and socially active. We target particularly older adults who are socially more isolated, physically less active, and with less chances of training in a gym. The virtual fitness environment, namely Gymcentral, was designed to enable and motivate older adults to follow personalised exercises from home, with a (heterogeneous) group of remote friends and under the remote supervision of a Coach. We take the training activity as an opportunity to create social interactions, by complementing training features with social instruments. Finally, we report on the feasibility and effectiveness of the virtual environment, as well as its effects on the usage and social interactions, from an intervention study in Trento, Ital

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

Competing or aiming to be average?: Normification as a means of engaging digital volunteers

Engagement, motivation and active contribution by digital volunteers are key requirements for crowdsourcing and citizen science projects. Many systems use competitive elements, for example point scoring and leaderboards, to achieve these ends. However, while competition may motivate some people, it can have a neutral or demotivating effect on others. In this paper we explore theories of personal and social norms and investigate normification as an alternative approach to engagement, to be used alongside or instead of competitive strategies. We provide a systematic review of existing crowdsourcing and citizen science literature and categorise the ways that theories of norms have been incorporated to date. We then present qualitative interview data from a pro-environmental crowdsourcing study, Close the Door, which reveals normalising attitudes in certain participants. We assess how this links with competitive behaviour and participant performance. Based on our findings and analysis of norm theories, we consider the implications for designers wishing to use normification as an engagement strategy in crowdsourcing and citizen science systems

The Future Of Leadership Training: An Immersive Web-Based Program Enhancing Nurse’s Critical Soft Leadership Skills In New Healthcare Contexts

As the care of health shifts to a more decentralized model of care, it essential that the role of nursing facilitates new paths to meeting patients and communities where they are in the context of their lives, forging new partnerships outside of the traditional health care setting, and focusing on advocating for collective upstream solutions (Pittman, 2020). However, this shift requires a set of skills that are not a focus of current nurse leadership training. These are Soft Leadership Skills: networking, communication, teamwork, and innovation/creativity, but not in the traditional sense of the terms (Rao, 2017). The goal of this project was to introduce these concepts through an immersive, web-based program to a group of aspiring nurse leaders at the Organization of Nurse Leaders, New Jersey. The participants were given a brief pre-survey, a 12-minute web-based program, and a brief post-survey offered over the span of 5 weeks. Participant’s demographics, knowledge on the topic, interest in learning more and the program’s value proposition were assessed. Overall, the program was well received, with an increase in knowledge on Soft Leadership Skills from participation in the program, increased importance of utilization in current practice, and an increased interest to learn more on the topic. This data supports the need for future work focusing on a broader demographic of nurses and further trainings on Soft Leadership Skills for nurses to lead the future of health care

Can You Hear Us Now? Investigating the Effects of a Wireless Grid Social Radio Station on Collaboration and Communication in Fragile Populations

The ability to interact with peers and coworkers in online digital networks is essential in learning and business environments. Our digital participatory culture is based on communication in response to purposeful activity and is facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICT). Students with emotional, behavioral, and learning disabilities are often disengaged and excluded from this knowledge-building conversation. This disengagement results in a cycle of failure exhibited through diminished self-efficacy and inadequate academic and emotional self-regulation. A critical goal of those who work with these students is to bolster their resilience, persistence, participatory, and communicative skills--to invite them back into the conversation. This research study investigated the potential for wireless grids technologies to serve as a viable infrastructure for students in a therapeutic high school setting to participate in digital social networks. Using social cognitive theory as a theoretical framework and activity theory as a conceptual framework, this study specifically investigated how a wireless grids implementation of the WeJay Social Radio Edgeware Gridlet was used to positively impact perceived self-efficacy and academic and emotional self-regulation associated with written and oral communication. This study also investigated how a digital networked environment could extend and enhance current methods used by school staff and programs to address cognitive, emotional, and behavioral issues affecting student socialization and learning in a therapeutic high school setting. The supports, resources, and opportunities for collaboration and socialization in the networked environment of the research space proved motivating for students and staff, and fostered academic, emotional, and behavioral self-regulation and positive self-efficacy for written and oral communications as evidenced by the artifacts and radio shows produced by students. Furthermore, students and staff participants expressed their interest in continuing to use WeJay. The outcomes of this research study suggest that informal, interest-based learning should take place in school. For some students, school is the only place they will have access to the technology and supports required to engage in powerful informal learning experiences. For fragile populations, these experiences may provide opportunities for success that have eluded students in formal, teacher-directed, curriculum-driven educational settings

Machinima And Video-based Soft Skills Training

Multimedia training methods have traditionally relied heavily on video based technologies and significant research has shown these to be very effective training tools. However production of video is time and resource intensive. Machinima (pronounced \u27muh-sheen-eh-mah\u27) technologies are based on video gaming technology. Machinima technology allows video game technology to be manipulated into unique scenarios based on entertainment or training and practice applications. Machinima is the converting of these unique scenarios into video vignettes that tell a story. These vignettes can be interconnected with branching points in much the same way that education videos are interconnected as vignettes between decision points. This study addressed the effectiveness of machinima based soft-skills education using avatar actors versus the traditional video teaching application using human actors. This research also investigated the difference between presence reactions when using avatar actor produced video vignettes as compared to human actor produced video vignettes. Results indicated that the difference in training and/or practice effectiveness is statistically insignificant for presence, interactivity, quality and the skill of assertiveness. The skill of active listening presented a mixed result indicating the need for careful attention to detail in situations where body language and facial expressions are critical to communication. This study demonstrates that a significant opportunity exists for the exploitation of avatar actors in video based instruction

The interplay of physical and social wellbeing in older adults: investigating the relationship between physical training and social interactions with virtual social environments

Background. Regular physical activity can substantially improve the physical wellbeing of older adults, preventing several chronic diseases and increasing cognitive performance and mood. However, research has shown that older adults are the most sedentary segment of society, spending much of their time seated or inactive. A variety of barriers make it difficult for older adults to maintain an active lifestyle, including logistical difficulties in going to a gym (for some adults, leaving home can be challenging), reduced functional abilities, and lack of motivation. In this paper, we report on the design and evaluation of Gymcentral. A training application running on tablet was designed to allow older adults to follow a personalized home-based exercise program while being remotely assisted by a coach. The objective of the study was to assess if a virtual gym that enables virtual presence and social interaction is more motivating for training than the same virtual gym without social interaction. Methods. A total of 37 adults aged between 65 and 87 years old (28 females and 9 males, mean age = 71, sd = 5.8) followed a personalized home-based strength and balance training plan for eight weeks. The participants performed the exercises autonomously at home using the Gymcentral application. Participants were assigned to two training groups: the Social group used an application with persuasive and social functionalities, while the Control group used a basic version of the service with no persuasive and social features. We further explored the effects of social facilitation, and in particular of virtual social presence, in user participation to training sessions. Outcome measures were adherence, persistence and co-presence rate. Results. Participants in the Social group attended significantly more exercise sessions than the Control group, providing evidence of a better engagement in the training program. Besides the focus on social persuasion measures, the study also confirms that a virtual gym service is effective for supporting individually tailored home-based physical training for older adults. The study also confirms that social facilitation tools motivate users to train together in a virtual fitness environment. Discussion. The study confirms that Gymcentral increases the participation of older adults in physical training compare to a similar version of the application without social and persuasive features. In addition, a significant increase in the co-presence of the Social group indicates that social presence motivates the participants to join training sessions at the same time with the other participants. These results are encouraging, as they motivate further research into using home-based training programs as an opportunity to stay physically and socially active, especially for those who for various reasons are bound to stay at home

Building Capacity for Deep Learning

Post COVID-19, gives school leaders the opportunity to build back a better school system focusing on the needs of students, preparing students to thrive in the 21st century by shifting from teacher-centred to learner-centred pedagogy. Changing teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and skills to make this shift requires new learning through creating an effective professional learning environment. This organizational improvement plan explores how to build teacher capacity for 21st century learning at the Family of Independent Schools (a pseudonym) in Ontario through the creation of collaborative inquiry teams where teachers develop an individual and collective understanding of deep learning. Deep learning creates student-centred partnerships that integrate academics, well-being, and equity outcomes into regular classroom practices. Social cognitive theory is the theoretical framework that supports teacher learning through leveraging triadic reciprocal causation and its impact on teacher self-efficacy. Collaborative inquiry teams provide a structure for a professional learning environment where opportunities for enactive mastery, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and affective states support teachers’ self-efficacy as they change their skills, behaviours and attitudes. Transformational and instructional leadership practices focussing on building relationships, capacity and instructional structures are instrumental in supporting student learning by supporting teacher learning. A three-year implementation plan includes the change plan, a monitoring and evaluation framework and a persuasive and active communication plan to support the change. The organizational improvement plan concludes by considering ways to ensure the plan\u27s sustainability over time. Keywords: 21st century learning, collaborative inquiry, deep learning, instructional leadership, self-efficacy, social cognitive theory, transformational leadership, triadic reciprocal causatio

Argumentation Mining in User-Generated Web Discourse

The goal of argumentation mining, an evolving research field in computational linguistics, is to design methods capable of analyzing people's argumentation. In this article, we go beyond the state of the art in several ways. (i) We deal with actual Web data and take up the challenges given by the variety of registers, multiple domains, and unrestricted noisy user-generated Web discourse. (ii) We bridge the gap between normative argumentation theories and argumentation phenomena encountered in actual data by adapting an argumentation model tested in an extensive annotation study. (iii) We create a new gold standard corpus (90k tokens in 340 documents) and experiment with several machine learning methods to identify argument components. We offer the data, source codes, and annotation guidelines to the community under free licenses. Our findings show that argumentation mining in user-generated Web discourse is a feasible but challenging task.Comment: Cite as: Habernal, I. & Gurevych, I. (2017). Argumentation Mining in User-Generated Web Discourse. Computational Linguistics 43(1), pp. 125-17