Evaluating the effectiveness of a mobile location-based intervention for improving human-computer interaction students' understanding of context for design

With the ubiquity of interactive computer-based systems, designers are challenged to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of their designs for a variety of different environments and user activities. To achieve this, designers need to have a comprehensive understanding of the relevant contexts and of the people for whom they are designing systems. Therefore, in helping students learn how to become proficient and innovative designers and developers, it is crucial to get them out of the classroom and into the environments in which their designs will be used. In this paper we describe an app designed to provide location-based hints and formative feedback to students to aid their understanding of the context. The results show an improvement in scores and quality of assessed work completed with the support of the app and a positive response from students regarding its usability and pedagogic utility. The paper also considers the challenges of conducting an ecologically valid study of such interventions in a higher education setting

These clothes don't fit!: identity, hybridity and education in the city

This paper argues the need for a transformational revaluing of the rights to the city through an unmaking of social fabric, since upcycling reframes existing power relations based on ownership of land and people and excludes the rights of children and the earth. It highlights the need for environmental education. Indicating that transition requires a paradigm shift, it employs a fractured, feminist bricolage. Operating from within a Western academic perspective it concludes that the work of remaking the city on the basis of social justice is a shifting process of encountering self and others in our own and other worlds