A Change Laboratory:A collective approach to addressing issues in laptop-mediated English language classrooms

This thesis describes a Change Laboratory (Engeström et al., 1996; Virkkunen & Newnham, 2013) intervention carried out by a group of English Language Teaching (ELT) professionals with the aim of improving teaching and learning in laptop-mediated English language classrooms. The research was carried out in the English preparatory course at a federal institution in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Following the methodology of the Change Laboratory, the project first identifies a number of historical and current contradictions, manifesting as dilemmas, conflicts, critical conflicts and double binds, which may be causing unintended outcomes of attrition and failure among students on the preparatory English course. Using the principles of expansive learning, the participants, a group of eight English language teachers, propose, model and examine a number of solutions to the contradictions identified. These solutions are presented as a proposed future model of the activity system. The results are specific for the English preparatory course, but the solutions proposed provide a model for effective device usage, increased student collaboration and sound pedagogical practice that could be applicable in other university teaching environments where one-to-one devices are deployed. Rather than proposing a state-of-the-art solution focusing on hypothetical possibilities, the Change Laboratory has focused on the state-of-the-actual, and proposed a new model of teaching that is effective in this context and could provide a starting point at least in other contexts where technology is being used to enhance learning. This project contributes to knowledge using Change Laboratory methodology and in particular the insider Change Laboratory, activity theory, ELT and technology enhanced learning (TEL) in face-to-face teaching environments. Opportunities for future research are also identified

Agency in the Internet of Things

This report summarises and extends the work done for the task force on IoT terminated in 2012. In response to DG CNECT request, the JRC studied this emergent technology following the methodologies pertaining to the Science and Technology Studies field. The aim of this document is therefore to present and to explore, on the basis of present day conceptions of relevant values, rights and norms, some of the “ethical issues” arising from the research, development and deployment of IoT, focusing on agency, autonomy and social justice. We start by exploring the types of imaginaries that seem to be entrenched and inspiring the developments of IoT and how they become portrayed in “normal” communication from corporations and promoters to the ordinary citizen (chapter 2). We report the empirical work we have conducted, namely the JRC contribution to the limited public debate initiated by the European Commission via the Your Voice portal during the Spring of 2012 (chapter 3) and an empirical exercise involving participants of two IoT conferences (chapter 4). This latter exercise sought to illustrate how our notions of goodness, trust, relationships, agency and autonomy are negotiated through the appropriation of unnoticed ordinary objects; this contributes to the discussion about ethical issues at stake with the emerging IoT vision beyond the right to privacy, data protection and security. Furthermore, based on literature review the report reflects on two of the main ethical issues that arise with the IoT vision: agency (and autonomy) and social justice (chapter 5), examining eventually governance alternatives of the challenged ethical issues (chapter 6).JRC.G.7-Digital Citizen Securit

Music 2025 : The Music Data Dilemma: issues facing the music industry in improving data management

© Crown Copyright 2019Music 2025ʼ investigates the infrastructure issues around the management of digital data in an increasingly stream driven industry. The findings are the culmination of over 50 interviews with high profile music industry representatives across the sector and reflects key issues as well as areas of consensus and contrasting views. The findings reveal whilst there are great examples of data initiatives across the value chain, there are opportunities to improve efficiency and interoperability

Setting the relationship between human-centered approaches and users? Digital well-being: A review

With the advancement of technology and advent of the new digital era, the society is getting increasingly exposed to novel technologies, digital platforms, or smart devices. This reality opens a wide range of questions about the benefits and challenges of technology and its impact on humans. In this context, the present study investigates the relationship between human-centered approaches and their application to achieve users' digital well-being, as well as explores whether marketing and business industry are sufficiently considering human-centered approaches in their implementation of practices that care for users' digital wellbeing. To this end, we conduct a systematic literature review. The exploratory results confirm that the implementation of human-centered approaches makes it possible to achieve a greater user well-being in the marketing and management sector. Additionally, we also identify and dis-cuss seven more relevant areas. Our review concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for further research on the use of human-centric and digital well-being concepts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dark Potentials in Smart Environments

Manipulative and intrusive technologies are directly or indirectly responsible for many significant issues faced today, including misinformation, prejudice and violence, and issues with health and wellbeing. Content platforms show hyper-targeted content that reinforces people’s existing biases - sometimes leading them towards harmful, extremist views on society and politics (Chakrabarti). Manipulative interfaces can make digital products extremely addictive, using psychological tricks to keep people engaged and encourage repeated usage (Harris). Many of these persuasive and privacy-intrusive patterns appear in technology-enhanced physical spaces, or 'smart environments'. The extensive use of facial recognition, tracking of people in shared spaces, and persuasive advertisements and interactions bring issues of ethics to smart environments (Lin). The potential for technologies to be harmful is often overlooked or undervalued by designers and technologists in general. This is evidenced by opinions from designers of addictive social media applications, as they move towards curtailing or avoiding their use of these media (Breland). As smart technologies grow prevalent in people’s public and private environments, it is increasingly important for technologists to build an understanding of the harmful possibilities enabled by their work and products. This thesis aims to explore manipulative and intrusive possibilities in technology-enhanced spaces. It follows a methodology of provocation-led workshops to help designers become familiar with technologies in these spaces. Through these workshops, participants are encouraged to identify potential for benefit and harm in scenarios they create, and become familiar with terminology that can help identify and communicate this potential in their work going forward. The outcomes of these workshops contribute to a growing online collection of examples of manipulative and intrusive smart environments. This resource is intended to further build awareness and understanding around these issues, and serve as a reference for technologists, researchers, policy-makers and other interested parties in the future.Interaction designSmart environmentsDark patternsParticipatoryProvocation

Using Social Robots in Health Settings: Implications of Personalization on Human-Machine Communication

In view of the shortage of healthcare workers and a growing aging population, it is worthwhile to explore the applicability of new technologies in improving the quality of healthcare and reducing its cost. However, it remains a challenge to deploy such technologies in environments where individuals have limited knowledge about how to use them. Thus, this paper explores how the social robots designed for use in health settings in Australia have sought to overcome some of the limitations through personalization. Deployed in aged care and home-based care facilities, the social robots are person-centered, emphasizing the personalization of care with human-like attributes (e.g., human appearances) to engage in reciprocal communication with users. While there have been debates over the advantages and disadvantages of personalization, this paper discusses the implications of personalization on the design of the robots for enhancing engagement, empowerment and enablement in health settings

Threats to Autonomy from Emerging ICT’s

This thesis investigates possible future threats to human autonomy created by currently emerging ICT’s. Prepared for evaluation as PhD by Publication, it consists of four journal papers and one book chapter, together with explanatory material. The ICT’s under examination are drawn from the results of the ETICA project, which sought to identify emerging ICT’s of ethical import. We first evaluate this research and identify elements in need of enhancement – the social aspects pertaining to ethical impact and the need to introduce elements of General Systems Theory in order to account for ICT’s as socio-technical systems. The first two publications for evaluation present arguments from marxist and capitalist perspectives which provide an account of the social dimensions through which an ICT can reduce human autonomy. There are many competing accounts of what constitutes human autonomy. These may be grouped into classes by their primary characteristics. The third publication for evaluation cross-references these classes with the ICT’s identified by the ETICA project, showing which version of autonomy could be restricted by each ICT and how. Finally, this paper induces from this analysis some general characteristics which any ICT must exhibit if it is to restrict autonomy of any form. Since ICT’s all operate in the same environment, the ultimate effect on the individual is the aggregated effect of all those ICT’s with which they interact and can be treated as an open system. Our fourth paper for evaluation therefore develops a theory of ICT’s as systems of a socio-technical nature, titled “Integrated Domain Theory”. Our fifth publication uses Integrated Domain Theory to explore the manner in which sociotechnical systems can restrict human autonomy, no matter how conceived. This thesis thus offers two complementary answers to the primary research question

Using clickers in an isiXhosa Communication Course: A case study on implementation of Interactive Student Response Systems (clickers) for learning isiXhosa as an Additional Language in Higher Education clinical settings

In multilingual countries, proficiency in more than one language can benefit individuals and society. For this reason, many universities, especially those with medical faculties, promote the learning of additional languages. Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (SUFMHS) offers an isiXhosa Clinical Communication (XCC) course as part of some undergraduate courses. This study explores the use of clickers, a student response system (SRS). The study aims to answer the following research questions: How do students engage with the Student Response System (clickers) in an isiXhosa Clinical Communication course in Higher Education settings? This core question is followed by this subsidiary research question: To what extent can the use of clickers enhance students' clinical communicative competence in isiXhosa as a second additional language? The participants were 51 female first year Occupational Therapy (OT) students. They answered multiple choice questions (MCQs) using their mobile phones as clickers as a formative assessment procedure. The researcher observed the students from the moment they started answering the MCQs until the post-test classroom discussions had ended. The students' MCQ responses were polled and then displayed in the form of histograms. Additional data were collected by means of a post-intervention questionnaire, from focus group discussions and with informal staff interviews. The immediate feedback seemed to enhance content consolidation, student self-assessment and constructive peer comparison. For these reasons the study found that the use of clickers could enhance student-lecturer and student-student engagement. An important additional finding is that the use of students' personal mobile devices, rather than commercial clickers, contributed to the success of the intervention. It does seem though that, in order to be used maximally, clickers should be incorporated in the teaching pedagogy from the onset, rather than being primarily utilised as a resource to enhance teaching interventions