Beauty and the beast: New approaches to teaching computing for humanities students at the University of Aberdeen

This paper reports on the history and development of a new undergraduate course teaching Computing for Humanities Students at the University of Aberdeen, and assesses some new teaching approaches developed on the course. It is noted that teaching computing to humanities students has sometimes been viewed with suspicion by both Computer Science and Humanities Departments. The two camps tend to fear, for different reasons, that issues and practices important to their disciplines will be compromised or watered down. Humanities students are often lacking in enthusiasm for computers. This paper describes an attempt to reverse any such attitudes on the part of staff and students and to take undergraduates considerably beyond mere word processing and computer literacy. Various methods and techniques used in the course are presented and their value assessed. The importance of using a consistent computer interface to helping students form a stable conceptual model of computers is considered. The value of teaching more about Human Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence than is usual in Humanities Computing courses is considered. A number of lessons are drawn from the course

Integrating Revised Bloom Taxonomy in Multimedia and HCI with a Case Study of Food Dishes

Teaching multimedia and human computer interaction is an interesting task to the students in sultanate of Oman who are having innovative skills in multimedia design using tools. Designing a multimedia project with all advanced graphics techniques is a highly complex and complicated procedure in class room. Teaching activities are aligned to the improved bloom taxonomy to achieve self learning and critical thinking in students. The practice has been developed through practical implementations and considered as Project Based Learning (PBL). Students have developed the project starting from scratch, proceeding to the design and then implementation. A gradual approach allows students to recognize by the design the different concepts of graphics and human computer interaction(HCI) techniques that were introduced during the lectures. All the practical and tutorials are based on the instinctive realization of graphics techniques and then integrating to make the final project. The results were high positive and each student have made their own creativity. The levels of project has been covered all phases of improved bloom taxonomy in order to attain quality teaching and learning. An outline for multimedia and human interaction course and integration of revised bloom taxonomy is presented in this paper

The use of concept maps in human-computer interaction subject

Este artigo apresenta um relato de experiência que descreve a busca por uma abordagem para melhorar o processo de ensino-aprendizagem utilizando os mapas conceituais na disciplina de Interação Humano-Computador do curso de Engenharia de Software da Universidade de Brasília. Participaram deste estudo 16 alunos dessa disciplina. Esses alunos responderam a um questionário sobre o uso dos mapas conceituais em sala de aula. Este trabalho apresenta os resultados dessa avaliação. Observou-se que os alunos avaliaram o uso dos mapas conceituais como um potencial recurso didático. _________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACTThis article presents an experience report describing the search for an approach to improve the teaching-learning process using concept maps in Human-Computer Interaction subject at the University of Brasilia.Sixteen Software Engineering Course students joined this study. These students answered a questionnaire on the use of concept maps in the classroom. This paper presents the results of such evaluation. It was observed that the students evaluated the use of concept maps as a potential teaching resource

Multimodal learning and teaching corpora exchange: Lessons learned in five years by the Mulce project

In order to make replication possible for interaction analysis in online learning, the French project named Mulce (2007-2010) and its team worked on requirements for research data to be shareable. We defined a learning and teaching corpus (LETEC) as a package containing the data issued from an online course, the contextual information and metadata, necessary to make these data visible, shareable and reusable. These human, technical and ethical requirements are presented in this paper. We briefly present the structure of a corpus and the repository we developed to share these corpora. Related works are also described and we show how conditions evolved between 2006 and 2011. This leads us to report on how the Mulce project was faced with four particular challenges and to suggest acceptable solutions for computer scientists and researchers in the humanities: both concerned by data sharing in the Technology Enhanced Learning community

ICT + PBL = Holistic Learning Solution: UTeM’s Experience

This paper will highlight how ICT could be integrated in the whole processes of teaching and learning in Problem Based Learning (PBL) environment. The main focus in this paper is integrating of ICT components such as multimedia and internet technologies as a tool for PBL learning environment, and utilizing the problem based learning approach for the delivering instructions in the teaching and learning process at UTeM. This paper also share findings on the effectiveness of PBLAssess which been develop for this study. 56 respondents from the second year of study at UTeM who enrolled for the Human Computer Interaction course been selected for this study. Two research instruments were developed for the purpose of evaluating students’ performance and preferences which include, a set of questionnaires and prototype known as PBLAssess. Further Some of the current work on integrating ICT and PBL learning environment are shared. Understanding both the current state of the art for PBL and future prospects are the key issues in setting an agenda for future research and development in PBL

"Do we need an entire course about it?": Evaluating two years of teaching HCI in computer science

Educators increasingly agree on the importance of teaching Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to Computer Science (CS) students, but there is debate on how to best integrate HCI into CS curricula. Unfortunately, standard course evaluations typically do not provide sufficient insights for improving HCI classes. In the present article, we used a human-centered design approach to evaluate our HCI classes, building on a qualitative study with CS students from four introductory HCI classes over two years. We report on a qualitative assessment through interviews, photo elicitation and sentence completion. Specifically, we addressed four research questions: which contents were the most relevant, how students experienced the courses, how they view the role of HCI in CS, and which outcomes they perceived from the HCI courses. We gathered rich qualitative insights beyond the standard course evaluations and derived concrete enhancements for future course iterations. We discuss implications for other HCI educators and contribute recommendations for the living HCI curriculum. Furthermore, we reflect on the usefulness of our methodological approach to collect in-depth constructive feedback from students

„Blended Learning” as an example of implementation of new technologies in the teaching of foreign languages

Celem modelu "Blended Learning" jest skuteczne wdrażanie technologii informacyjno-komunikacyjnych w proces nauczania i uczenia się języków obcych. Podejście to pozwala na stworzenie dogodnych warunków uczenia się, zbliżonych do naturalnego środowiska użytkownika i uzależnionych od jego preferencji — a więc tradycyjnych zajęć z nauczycielem, jak również kształcenia na odległość. Model "Blended Learning" umożliwia podejście indywidualne, wspiera doskonalenie umiejętności językowych na każdym poziomie poprzez rozwiązywanie zadań oraz wymianę informacji z innymi członkami platformy. Wśród innych założeń tej koncepcji wyróżnia się także przetwarzanie struktur językowych w języku obcym w oparciu o odpowiednio dostosowany materiał językowy (Plieger, 2006), multimodalną ekspozycję na materiał obcojęzyczny oraz interakcje intrapersonalne (człowiek — komputer, człowiek — człowiek). Artykuł prezentuje zatem teoretyczne założenia niezbędne przy tworzeniu modelu b-learningu oraz wybrane kwestie dotyczące jego realizacji. Całość rozważań została osadzona w ramach teoretycznych, definiujących strukturę alternatywnego dla tradycyjnych metod podejścia, a potencjał modelu "Blended Learning" dla rozwoju umiejętności językowych został zbadany w świetle literatury naukowej i obserwacji własnych Autorki."Blended Learning" is about effectively integrating ICTs into course design to enhance the teaching and learning experiences for students and teachers by enabling them to engage in ways that would not normally be available or effective in their usual environment, whether it is primarily face-to-face or distance mode. The mission of "Blended Learning" is to encourage excellence and innovation in language in the form of online software, which houses all the materials and ICT tools that learners need in one central web platform. Some of the core concepts underlying its design are multimodal L2 input exposure (Plieger, 2006), enhanced input, learner-fit content delivery, interaction (human-computer, human-human, and intrapersonal) through computer supported collaborative and individual learning tasks, as well as a more human-like dimension for positive and corrective feedback. This paper describes the elements of the b-learning model and issues connected with its implementation. "Blended Learning’s" potential for developing skills in a foreign language is examined in the light of academic literature as well as the author’s personal teaching experience and observation