Accessible Ubiquitous Services for Supporting Daily Activities: A Case Study with Young Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

Ubiquitous environments have considerable potential to provide services supporting daily activities (using public transportation to and from workplace, using ATM machines, selecting and purchasing goods in ticketing or vending machines, etc.) in order to assist people with disabilities. Nevertheless, the ubiquitous service providers generally supply generic user interfaces which are not usually accessible for all potential end users. In this article, a case study to verify the adequacy of the user interfaces automatically generated by the Egoki system for two supporting ubiquitous services adapted to young adults with moderate intellectual disabilities was presented. The task completion times and the level of assistance required by participants when using the interfaces were analyzed. Participants were able to access services through a tablet and successfully complete the tasks, regardless of their level of expertise and familiarity with the service. Moreover, results indicate that their performance and confidence improved with practice, as they required fewer direct verbal and pointer cues to accomplish tasks. By applying observational methods during the experimental sessions, several potential improvements for the automated interface generation process were also detected.This research work was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government and by the European Regional Development Fund [projects TIN2014-52665-C2-1-R and TIN2017-85409-P], and by the Basque Government, Department of Education, Universities and Research under grant [IT980-16]

Scratch como recurso didáctico para el desarrollo del Pensamiento Computacional de los alumnos de Secundaria y Bachillerato en la asignatura de Informática y como recurso transversal en el resto de asignaturas

The present Master Thesis aims to perform a study in order to assess whether the use of Scratch favors the development of Computational Thinking on high school students. The work of Brennan and Resnick (2012) has been used as reference framework since it defines Computational Thinking by using three dimensions (concepts, practices and computational perspectives) and in turn it relates them to Scratch. The present study uses an ex post-facto methodology and some questionnaires and document analysis as data collection instruments. These data come from three informants agents (students, teacher and researcher), allowing triangular results. Overall, data show that the students have developed the Computational Thinking by using Scratch, since they have been able to acquire the computational concepts, practices and perceptions thanks to this tool. Moreover, the triangulation of results has served to extract critical points that deserve a deep reflection, such as the fact that students think they have not acquired a certain computational concept, while the analysis of their practices shows that they have indeed done, but they are not aware of it. Another result that deserve a deep pedagogical reflection is that those who find motivating to use Scratch, also find interesting to use this tool as a transverse resource for learning other subjects. The main contribution of this work is that the results of questionnaires completed by students have been contrasted with the teacher observation and with an exhaustive analysis of the developments created by students, something that gives rise to various pedagogical reflections.El presente Trabajo Fin de Máster tiene como objetivo realizar un estudio para evaluar si el uso de Scratch favorece el desarrollo del Pensamiento Computacional en los alumnos de Bachillerato. Se ha utilizado el trabajo de Brennan y Resnick (2012) como marco referente puesto que define el Pensamiento Computacional utilizando tres dimensiones (conceptos, prácticas y perspectivas computacionales) y a su vez los relaciona con Scratch. El estudio que se plantea sigue una metodología ex post-facto y se utilizan cuestionarios y análisis de documentos como instrumentos de recogida de datos. Estos datos provienen de tres agentes informantes (alumnado, profesora e investigadora), lo que ha permitido triangular los resultados. En general, los datos muestran que los alumnos han desarrollado el Pensamiento Computacional con el uso de Scratch, puesto que han podido adquirir los conceptos, prácticas y percepciones computacionales gracias a esta herramienta. Asimismo, la triangulación de los resultados ha servido para extraer puntos críticos que merecen una reflexión profunda, como el hecho de que los alumnos piensen que no han adquirido un determinado concepto computacional, mientras que el análisis de sus prácticas muestra que en realidad sí lo han hecho, pero ellos no son conscientes de ello. Otro resultado que permite una reflexión pedagógica más profunda es que a aquellos que les resulta motivador el uso de Scratch, también les resulta interesante utilizar la herramienta como recurso transversal para el aprendizaje de otras asignaturas. El principal aporte de este trabajo es que los resultados de los cuestionarios realizados por los alumnos han sido contrastados con la observación de la profesora y con un análisis exhaustivo de los desarrollos creados por los alumnos, algo que da pie a diversas reflexiones pedagógicas

Applying the Affinto Ontology to Develop a Text-Based Emotional Conversation System

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceWith the recent spread of computing systems the need to enhance interactions between users and systems is evident. Conversation systems have a key role to play in achieving this. However, further efforts are needed to enhance conversation systems that use text to interact with users. This paper presents a text conversation system that includes user emotion recognition and generation, with the aim of achieving a more natural communication. The Affinto ontology is used to perform these tasks

Modelling multimodal context-aware affective interaction

Abstract. In this paper a generic approach to modelling context-aware emotions taking different theoretical models into account is presented. Developing generic computational models for modelling emotions has become necessary due to the great variety of theoretical models of emotions and implementation technologies which can be used in the design and implementation of affective systems. The main component in this approach is a domain ontology of context-aware emotions. Concepts in ontology are grouped into several global modules, representing different aspects related to emotion modelling. Proposed ontology enables description of emotions at different levels of abstraction while serving as a guide for flexible design of affective context-aware applications (such as affective synthesizers and recognizers) independently of the starting model and the final way of implementation

Assistive Technology and Affective Mediation

The lack of attention towards affective communication in assistive technology and disability research can be potentially overcome thanks to the development of affective computing and affective mediation areas. This document describes the main impairments and disorders that may involve affective communication deficits. We also present several affective mediation technologies that are being applied or may be integrated in assistive technologies in order to improve affective communication for a range of disabilities. Finally, we describe our experience with Gestele, an application that incorporates multimodal elements of affective mediation for people with mobility impairments, as well as the results of an empirical study conducted to evaluate the application’s validity in communication via telephone

Model-Based Accessible User Interface Generation in Ubiquitous Environments

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceThis paper presents a system that automatically generates accessible interfaces tailored to the users’ capabilities and needs in order to provide them with access to ubiquitous computing environments. The aim is to ensure that people with disabilities are able to use ubiquitous services provided by intelligent machines, such as ATMs and vending machines. The tailored interfaces are generated from a formal description specified by a User Interface Description Language, and based on user and context models represented by ontologies

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