Artefact Ecologies: Supporting Embodied Meeting Practices with Distance Access

Frameworks such as activity theory, distributed cognition and structuration theory, amongst others, have shown that detailed study of contextual settings where users work (or live) can help the design of interactive systems. However, these frameworks do not adequately focus on accounting for the materiality (and embodiment) of the contextual settings. Within the IST-EU funded AMIDA project (Augmented Multiparty Interaction with Distance Access) we are looking into supporting meeting practices with distance access. Meetings are inherently embodied in everyday work life and that material artefacts associated with meeting practices play a critical role in their formation. Our eventual goal is to develop a deeper understanding of the dynamic and embodied nature of meeting practices and designing technologies to support these. In this paper we introduce the notion of "artefact ecologies" as a conceptual base for understanding embodied meeting practices with distance access. Artefact ecologies refer to a system consisting of different digital and physical artefacts, people, their work practices and values and lays emphasis on the role artefacts play in embodiment, work coordination and supporting remote awareness. In the end we layout our plans for designing technologies for supporting embodied meeting practices within the AMIDA project. \u

Computer Mediated Communication: Disseminating Information

Social science and humanities view computermediated communication (CMC) as a hub for information dissemination. The development and diffusion of CMC can be divided into three phases: pre-Internet CMC (beginning in the 1980), Internet-focused CMC (roughly 1994 to date) and social-software-supported CMC (beginning around 2002). Email, online collaborative learning, and blogs (representing, respectively, pre-Internet, Internet-focused, and socialsoftware- supported CMC) are three modes frequently studied in assessing asynchronous CMC. The current stage of CMC (social-software supported CMC) provides opportunities for research to investigate artifacts in newer domains such as YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr

The Transformative Learning Experience of City Year Participants

Every year, over 3,000 City Year corps members volunteer in 325 schools, working with over 200,000 students in 29 cities across the United States. In several quantitative studies individuals reported positive, life-changing experiences as result of their service. However, none of these studies examined what these life changing experiences were, or how or why these experiences occurred. Using a phenomenological approach, this study examined the essence of the experience when young adults participated in this specific, life-changing program. Semi structured interviews explored how the City Year experience resulted in transformation. The principal research question for this study was: What is the impact of a transformative learning experience resulting from participation in City Year? The following subquestions were also investigated: What role did the urban environment play in that transformation and how can this phenomenon be used to inform City Year’s training program? My findings revealed six themes relating to how participants described their transformative learning experience. The six themes are: City Year culture and training, relationships with students, relationships with cohort members, the nature of the program, the difficulty of the program, and time changed their views of the experience. Participants benefited from City Year’s culture and training program, both of which encouraged v transformation. The difficulty of the year, and the relationships participants formed with students and other cohort members that were very important to the transformative learning process. Some participants struggled with the short-term nature and the racial implications of the program. Finally, how participants viewed the program has changed over time. This study also looked at the effect that the urban environment had to the transformative learning experience. Recommendations for further research include: exploring other experiences that are not transformative; looking at the influence that race, background, and class, have on transformation; the effect that City Year has on youth in the schools; the degree to which people are transformed and the relationship between that transformation and the way they experienced elements of the transformative learning framework

Distinction entre la compréhension partagée et la conscience situationnelle d'équipe : une revue systématique de littérature

L’assimilation correcte de la compréhension partagée (CP) et la conscience situationnelle d’équipe (CSÉ) est fondamentale au sein des environnements organisationnels. Étant donné leur importance, ces deux notions sont largement abordées dans la littérature. Plusieurs travaux étudient la CSÉ et la CP en profondeur, car elles sont considérées comme des piliers dans le processus de prise de décision. Cependant, il existe un manque de synthèse sur l’évolution de ces notions, ce qui les rend difficiles à cerner et à mettre en oeuvre ou même à développer davantage. Aussi, très peu de ces études ont réfléchi aux différences entre la CP et la CSÉ, ce qui pose la question du choix de l’utilisation pertinente de l’une ou l’autre pour traiter une situation de prise de décision donnée. Ainsi cette étude réalise une revue de littérature systématique pour retracer l’évolution au fil du temps des notions de compréhension partagée et de conscience situationnelle d’équipe et pour montrer notamment en quoi elles se ressemblent et en quoi elles diffèrent. En premier lieu, les principaux auteurs qui ont contribué à l’évolution des deux notions séparément ont été déterminés et leurs principales contributions ont été présentées. Puis une comparaison de la CP et de la CSÉ a été réalisée à travers le croisement des différentes définitions des deux blocs. Ce croisement a eu lieu grâce à l’utilisation des éléments récurrents relevés pendant l’analyse exhaustive qui peut être perçue à l’annexe. La synthèse qui en résulte fournit aux lecteurs une vision sur les points d’accord et de discorde existant dans la littérature concernant la CSÉ et la CP. Ainsi, d’une part, cette recherche vise à combler le manque de littérature qui concerne le schema d’évolution de la CP et la CSÉ et en tire profondément sa pertinence. Et d’autre part, les divergences et similitudes identifiées apportent une valeur ajoutée pour les chercheurs en exposant des pistes de recherche future qui méritent d'être explorées

Under the Hood

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-176).An examination of the changing representation of male homosexuality in American superhero comics between the years 1986 and 2003. The thesis gives some theoretical attention to problems of epistemology, and the uses of connotative as opposed to denotative representation and reading. It traces the history of the discourse to the paranoia and anxiety generated by Fredric Wertham's 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, which has led to an anxiety about "the gay-Batman reading" that has affected the shape of the genre's evolution. In Part One, the thesis examines the ways in which superhero comics have historically discussed homosexuality, using metaphors or symbolic "tropes," which variously imagine the superhero as a costume fetishist, as flamboyant, as sadomasochistic, as suspiciously homosocial, or as a pedophile. In Part Two, close readings of contemporary instances of gay characters in superhero texts offers insights into current trends in representation. The close readings examine Northstar, of the Marvel comics Alpha Flight and Uncanny X-Men; Apollo and the Midnighter, of the comics Stormwatch and The Authority, variously published by Wildstorm and DC Comics; and the character Terry Berg in Green Lantern, published by DC Comics.by Susannah Mandel.S.M

Design transaction monitoring: understanding design reviews for extended knowledge capture

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Metro Environmental: The impact of training HVAC technicians using the SightPros-VirTechs system for remote, wireless, Internet video assistance.

This qualitative study explored the overall impact of training HVAC technicians using the SightPros-VirTechs system for remote, wireless, internet video assistance at a small HVAC company, Metro Environmental. John Thomason, the president/co-owner developed a website and a new SightPros communication tool that allows wireless, one-on-one, just-in-time, high-quality, video-monitored instructions between an expert at one site and a technician at another site. Metro Environmental successfully used the SightPros-VirTechs system to train a new apprentice remotely. The apprentice and expert changed their normal and routine physical activities because the expert worked remotely and the apprentice worked on-site. Within just a few months, the apprentice proved competent enough to go to customer accounts without more experienced technicians nearby. The technicians express excitement about the SightPros communication tool as a way to contact remote experts whenever needed. The customer and business contacts also give good reviews and suggest other benefits. The expert permanently captures the communications so the company can use the saved video for many applications, especially training. The dissertation provides a list of recommendations to trainers/educators for similar applications

A nexus analysis of domestic video chat: Actions, practices, affordances, and mediational means

This thesis explores the use of domestic video chat (VC) applications such as Skype or FaceTime. The present research contributes to a growing body of work on the medium of VC by building on the concept of affordances (Hutchby, 2001b) in order to explore how the capabilities of the technology are used in practice outside of the professional sphere. This study is unique in the field of VC because it combines findings from micro analyses of recorded VC sessions and interview data under the framework of nexus analysis (Norris & Jones, 2005b). The video recordings were analysed using an approach informed by conversation analysis (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 1998) and the interviews were analysed using inductive qualitative coding (Gibbs, 2007; Mason, 2002). The findings indicate that in VC interactions the roles of caller and called have little significance in the openings and closings. Noticings, which were especially common in the openings, play a vital role in relationship maintenance through VC. In some cases these noticings led to virtual tours, which were resources for expressing alignment and constructing a joint attentional frame. Practices of paying attention appeared to be a central concern for participants; therefore a second maxim of VC was formulated: focus your attention on the VC interaction (for the first maxim see Licoppe & Morel, 2012). The maxim of attention is suspended in lapsed VC encounters, which were framed as exceptional use and were only practised by a minority of participants. Finally, it is argued that the affordances of a technology cannot simply be classed as a ‘limitation’ or ‘possibility’, because they are context dependent. Therefore, a thorough analysis must take into account the mediational means (bodies, objects, and the environment), the mediated actions, and the relational histories of the participants