19,683 research outputs found

    Supporting ethnographic studies of ubiquitous computing in the wild

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    Ethnography has become a staple feature of IT research over the last twenty years, shaping our understanding of the social character of computing systems and informing their design in a wide variety of settings. The emergence of ubiquitous computing raises new challenges for ethnography however, distributing interaction across a burgeoning array of small, mobile devices and online environments which exploit invisible sensing systems. Understanding interaction requires ethnographers to reconcile interactions that are, for example, distributed across devices on the street with online interactions in order to assemble coherent understandings of the social character and purchase of ubiquitous computing systems. We draw upon four recent studies to show how ethnographers are replaying system recordings of interaction alongside existing resources such as video recordings to do this and identify key challenges that need to be met to support ethnographic study of ubiquitous computing in the wild

    Positioning adolescents in literacy teaching and learning

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    Secondary literacy instruction often happens to adolescents rather than with them. To disrupt this trend, we collaborated with 12th-grade “literacy mentors” to reimagine literacy teaching and learning with 10th-grade mentees in a public high school classroom. We used positioning theory as an analytic tool to (a) understand how mentors positioned themselves and how we positioned them and (b) examine the literacy practices that enabled and constrained the mentor position. We found that our positioning of mentors as collaborators was taken up in different and sometimes unexpected ways as a result of the multiple positions available to them and institutional-level factors that shaped what literacy practices were and were not negotiable. We argue that future collaborations with youth must account for the rights and duties of all members of a classroom community, including how those rights and duties intersect, merge, or come into conflict within and across practices.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a Faculty Research Award from the School of Education at Boston University. (Faculty Research Award from the School of Education at Boston University)Accepted manuscrip

    Kingston University

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    Silent witness, using video to record and transmit tacit knowledge in creative practices.

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    Over the last ten years, the duration of my ongoing practice-led design research work, video recording has developed from an expensive luxury to being ubiquitous. Whilst this opens up many opportunities for documenting and disseminating research projects, there are also potential drawbacks. I am a multimedia designer who makes extensive use of video both as an observational tool and as a means of helping covey tacit / experiential knowledge in creative practices. In this paper I discuss the use of video for such purposes, drawing on my own experiences and the research of others who use video in research. It builds on methods developed undertaking my own practice-led research described in output 1: Wood N, Rust C & Horne G (2009). A tacit understanding: the designer's role in capturing and passing on the skilled knowledge of master craftsmen. International Journal of Design, 3(3). It also builds on two earlier articles: Wood N (2010). A good record? The use of video in practice-led design research. Reflections 13, Sint Lucas School of Architecture, Brussels. ISSN 1784-7052. Wood N (2008). Unlocking the knowledge of others: knowledge elicitation in practice-led design research. Reflections 7, Sint Lucas School of Architecture, Brussels. ISSN 1784-7052. In my continuing research I have been working with a craftsmen, Ulrik Hjort Lassen a doctoral student at the Department of Conservation, Gothenburg University, who has been undertaking research into traditional methods for scribing the timbers for traditional wooden buildings. The methods described in these papers have formed the theoretical basis for Lassen’s research, developed and testing a multimedia learning resources to provide ‘bridges’ for new learners to this knowledge, the successful outcome of which validates the principles developed in my own research and demonstrates transferability of this technique.</p

    Knowledge-Intensive Processes: Characteristics, Requirements and Analysis of Contemporary Approaches

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    Engineering of knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) is far from being mastered, since they are genuinely knowledge- and data-centric, and require substantial flexibility, at both design- and run-time. In this work, starting from a scientific literature analysis in the area of KiPs and from three real-world domains and application scenarios, we provide a precise characterization of KiPs. Furthermore, we devise some general requirements related to KiPs management and execution. Such requirements contribute to the definition of an evaluation framework to assess current system support for KiPs. To this end, we present a critical analysis on a number of existing process-oriented approaches by discussing their efficacy against the requirements

    Collaborative trails in e-learning environments

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    This deliverable focuses on collaboration within groups of learners, and hence collaborative trails. We begin by reviewing the theoretical background to collaborative learning and looking at the kinds of support that computers can give to groups of learners working collaboratively, and then look more deeply at some of the issues in designing environments to support collaborative learning trails and at tools and techniques, including collaborative filtering, that can be used for analysing collaborative trails. We then review the state-of-the-art in supporting collaborative learning in three different areas – experimental academic systems, systems using mobile technology (which are also generally academic), and commercially available systems. The final part of the deliverable presents three scenarios that show where technology that supports groups working collaboratively and producing collaborative trails may be heading in the near future

    The impact of technology: value-added classroom practice: final report

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    This report extends Becta’s enquiries into the ways in which digital technologies are supporting learning. It looks in detail at the learning practices mediated by ICT in nine secondary schools in which ICT for learning is well embedded. The project proposes a broader perspective on the notion of ‘impact’ that is rather different from a number of previous studies investigating impact. Previous studies have been limited in that they have either focused on a single innovation or have reported on institutional level factors. However, in both cases this pays insufficient attention to the contexts of learning. In this project, the focus has been on the learning practices of the classroom and the contexts of ICT-supported learning. The study reports an analysis of 85 lesson logs, in which teachers recorded their use of space, digital technology and student outcomes in relation to student engagement and learning. The teachers who filled in the logs, as well as their schools’ senior managers, were interviewed as part of a ‘deep audit’ of ICT provision conducted over two days. One-hour follow-up interviews with the teachers were carried out after the teachers’ log activity. The aim of this was to obtain a broader contextualisation of their teaching

    Action Research: Teacher Evaluation and Reflection

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    The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to create an improved learning log procedure, based on the theory of action that the use of professional learning logs will improve self-reflection, which will increase teacher self-efficacy. Data collected through interviews, focus groups, and a research action committee have led to the assertions that (a) reflection is a necessary and welcomed part of being a professional; (b) procedures for reflection must be easily accessed and consistent; (c) teachers should have autonomy over their choice of reflection method to gain meaning; (d) though the learning log process allows for autonomy, the purpose of the learning log is ambiguous and needs further defining. Addressing these assertions, a series of recommendations is made to improve the overall process of reflection within the school
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