The Future Affordances of Digital Learning and Teaching within The School of Education

This report illustrates the discussion outcome on digital education within the University of Glasgow School of Education. It is not a strategy document but it does explore the conditions for nurturing digital culture and how these can be channelled into a strategy on digital learning and teaching. The report is based on a review of literature and on a number of local, national and international case study vignettes

User producer interaction in context: a classification

Science, Technology and Innovation Studies show that intensified user producer interaction (UPI) increases chances for successful innovations, especially in the case of emerging technology. It is not always clear, however, what type of interaction is necessary in a particular context. This paper proposes a conceptualization of contexts in terms of three dimensions – the phase of technology development, the flexibility of the technology, and the heterogeneity of user populations – resulting in a classification scheme with eight different contextual situations. The paper identifies and classifies types of interaction, like demand articulation, interactive learning, learning by using and domestication. It appears that each contextual situation demands a different set of UPI types. To illustrate the potential value of the classification scheme, four examples of innovations with varying technological and user characteristics are explored: the refrigerator, clinical anaesthesia, video cassette recording, and the bicycle. For each example the relevant UPI types are discussed and it is shown how these types highlight certain activities and interactions during key events of innovation processes. Finally, some directions for further research are suggested alongside a number of comments on the utility of the classification

Evaluation of anthropomorphic feedback for an online auction and affordances

This paper describes an experiment investigating the effectiveness and user satisfaction of using anthropomorphic feedback at the user interface. The context chosen was online bidding due to this kind of activity being very much used in current times by general users. The main results of the experiment were that there was a statistically significant effect observed for the time taken to place a bid in the anthropomorphic text condition. However there were no other significant effects for effectiveness issues and user satisfaction indicators. The results were also analysed in terms of the affordances and the main findings were that each of the four conditions tested in the experiment were probably equivalent in terms of their facilitating the affordances. Overall it may be more important to facilitate the affordances rather than a type of feedback being anthropomorphic in nature or not

Investigating Continuing Professional Development Provided for Egyptian Higher Education Online Tutors

Tutors confront great challenges in their teaching practices, including changes in subject content, new instructional methods, changes laws and procedures and students’ needs. In online learning (OL), more changes can be added, namely, the massive and accelerated advance in technology. Therefore, online tutors need to be provided with CPD that develops their skills and experience to improve the effectiveness of their distance learning courses. This paper investigates how Egyptian Higher Education (HE) online tutors are provided with Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to pursue their work. Data for this paper was collected form 20 online tutors from two major Egyptian universities. This paper explores the current situation of CPD provided for HE online tutors with its affordances, limitations, and proposed recommendations that can help to overcome these challenges

The moderating influence of device characteristics and usage on user acceptance of smart mobile devices

This study seeks to develop a comprehensive model of consumer acceptance in the context of Smart Mobile Device (SMDs). This paper proposes an adaptation of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model that can be employed to explain and predict the acceptance of SMDs. Also included in the model are a number of external and new moderating variables that can be used to explain user intentions and subsequent usage behaviour. The model holds that Activity-based Usage and Device Characteristics are posited to moderate the impact of the constructs empirically validated in the UTAUT2 model. Through an important cluster of antecedents the proposed model aims to enhance our understanding of consumer motivations for using SMDs and aid efforts to promote the adoption and diffusion of these devices

The role of urban living labs in a smart city

In a rapidly changing socio-technical environment cities are increasingly seen as main drivers for change. Against this backdrop, this paper studies the emerging Urban Living Lab and Smart City concepts from a project based perspective, by assessing a series of five Smart City initiatives within one local city ecosystem. A conceptual and analytical framework is used to analyse the architecture, nature and outcomes of the Smart City Ghent and the role of Urban Living Labs. The results of our analysis highlight the potential for social value creation and urban transition. However, current Smart City initiatives face the challenge of evolving from demonstrators towards real sustainable value. Furthermore, Smart Cities often have a technological deterministic, project-based approach, which forecloses a sustainable, permanent and growing future for the project outcomes. ‘City-governed’ Urban Living Labs have an interesting potential to overcome some of the identified challenges

Designing electronic collaborative learning environments

Electronic collaborative learning environments for learning and working are in vogue. Designers design them according to their own constructivist interpretations of what collaborative learning is and what it should achieve. Educators employ them with different educational approaches and in diverse situations to achieve different ends. Students use them, sometimes very enthusiastically, but often in a perfunctory way. Finally, researchers study them and—as is usually the case when apples and oranges are compared—find no conclusive evidence as to whether or not they work, where they do or do not work, when they do or do not work and, most importantly, why, they do or do not work. This contribution presents an affordance framework for such collaborative learning environments; an interaction design procedure for designing, developing, and implementing them; and an educational affordance approach to the use of tasks in those environments. It also presents the results of three projects dealing with these three issues

Integrating Mobile Web 2.0 within tertiary education

Based on three years of innovative pedagogical development and guided by a participatory action research methodology, this paper outlines an approach to integrating mobile web 2.0 within a tertiary education course, based on a social constructivist pedagogy. The goal is to facilitate a student-centred, collaborative, flexible, context-bridging learning environment that empowers students as content producers and learning context generators, guided by lecturers who effectively model the use of the technology. We illustrate how the introduction of mobile web 2.0 has disrupted the underlying pedagogy of the course from a traditional Attelier model (face-to-face apprenticeship model), and has been successfully transformed into a context independent social constructivist model. Two mobile web 2.0 learning scenarios are outlined, including; a sustainable house design project (involving the collaboration of four departments in three faculties and three diverse groups of students), and the implementation of a weekly ‘nomadic studio session'. Students and lecturers use the latest generation of smartphones to collaborate, communicate, capture and share critical and reflective learning events. Students and lecturers use mobile friendly web 2.0 tools to create this environment, including: blogs, social networks, location aware (geotagged) image and video sharing, instant messaging, microblogging etc… Feedback from students and lecturers has been extremely positive