CoCensus: Collaboration Exploration of Census Data in a Museum

Museums play a role in American intellectual life as places for members of the public to gather, learn, and engage in discourse about human experience and knowledge (Conn, 1998). As cultural and historical research is informed by increasingly complex information, museums can support visitor discourse around such complex data. To this end, we will construct a prototype museum exhibit, CoCensus, at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, using an innovative combination of an ambient data map display and RFID technology to allow visitors to interact with dynamic visualizations of census data on a local map. This innovative design will enable multiple visitors to cooperatively investigate and discuss complex data and the personal dimensions of American identity. This work highlights important issues for designing public educational spaces to support collaborative data visualization, and take steps towards making large digital resources accessible within the social learning milieu of museums

Designing for the Cooperative Use of Multi-user, Multi-device Museum Exhibits.

This work explores software-based museum exhibits that allow groups of visitors to employ their own personal mobile devices as impromptu user interfaces to the exhibits. Personal devices commandeered into service in this fashion are dubbed Opportunistic User Interfaces (O-UIs). Because visitors usually prefer to engage in shared learning experiences, emphasis is placed on how to design software interfaces to support collaborative learning. To study the issue, a Design-Based Research approach was taken to construct an externally valid exemplar of this type of exhibit, while also conducting more traditional experiments on specific features of the O-UI design. Three analyses, of – (1) museums as a context, (2) existing computer-based museum exhibits, and (3) computer support of collaborative processes in both work and classroom contexts – produced guidelines that informed the design of the software-based exhibit created as a testbed for O-UI design. The exhibit was refined via extensive formative testing on a museum floor. The experimental phase of this work examined the impact of O-UI design on (1) the visual attention and (2) collaborative learning behaviors of visitors. Specifically, an O-UI design that did not display any graphical output (the “simple” condition) was contrasted against an O-UI design that displayed multi-element, dynamically animated graphics (the “complex” condition). The “complex” O-UIs promoted poor visual attention management, an effect known as the heads-down phenomenon, wherein visitors get so enmeshed with their O-UIs that they miss out on the shared context, to the detriment of group outcomes. Despite this shortcoming, the “complex” O-UIs better promoted goal awareness, on-task interactions between visitors, and equity in participation and performance. The tight output coupling (visitors see only one shared display) of the “simple” O-UI condition promoted emergent competition, and it encouraged some visitors (especially males) to become more engaged than others. Two design recommendations emerge: (1) incorporating devices with private displays (O-UIs with output) as interfaces to a single large display better promotes collaboration (especially equity), and (2) O-UIs with “complex” displays may be used in museum exhibits, but visitors would benefit from mechanisms to encourage them to direct their attention to the shared display periodically.Ph.D.Computer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61771/1/ltoth_1.pd

RFID Localization for Tangible and Embodied Multi-User Interaction with Museum Exhibits

ABSTRACT RFID is usually used for identification but with some postprocessing it can also be used for localization. These properties expand the typical range of possible interactions with digital displays in museums. Our goal is to encourage the collaborative investigation of a rich information space presented on an Ambient Display in a museum exhibit. We consider two different models of interacting with an exhibit: Tangible Control, wherein passive RFID tags are embedded in some artifacts and multiple users can control the information on the screen by moving those artifacts, and Embodied Control, wherein people directly carry an RFID tag and interact with the information by walking within the simulation space. Each model has different implications for how the visitors might relate (a) to the information being displayed, and (b) to one another. Here we present preliminary results on the suitability of a single-reader and passive tag setup for providing localization input

Reflecting back, looking forward: the challenges for location-based learning

This final section of the report has been reproduced from “D3.1 The STELLAR Rendez-Vous I report and white papers”, published in 2009 by the STELLAR Network of Excellence. It is included here for completeness; we, as co-authors, felt that it was important to look back at the main contributions to theworkshop and also where the challenges lie for the future. This chapter addresses two critical questions: - What has been learned from this workshop, especially in respect to the STELLAR Grand Challenges (“Connecting learners”, “Orchestration” and “Contextualisation”)? - What are the new research questions and issues for location-based learning, with respect to the Grand Challenges (“Connecting learners”, “Orchestration”and “Contextualisation”)

Cross-Device Taxonomy:Survey, Opportunities and Challenges of Interactions Spanning Across Multiple Devices

Designing interfaces or applications that move beyond the bounds of a single device screen enables new ways to engage with digital content. Research addressing the opportunities and challenges of interactions with multiple devices in concert is of continued focus in HCI research. To inform the future research agenda of this field, we contribute an analysis and taxonomy of a corpus of 510 papers in the cross- device computing domain. For both new and experienced researchers in the field we provide: an overview, historic trends and unified terminology of cross-device research; discussion of major and under-explored application areas; mapping of enabling technologies; synthesis of key interaction techniques spanning across multiple devices; and review of common evaluation strategies. We close with a discussion of open issues. Our taxonomy aims to create a unified terminology and common understanding for researchers in order to facilitate and stimulate future cross-device research

Formative Fugues: Reconceptualizing Formative Feedback for Complex Systems Learning Environments

The Next Generation Science Standards and the National Research Council recognizesystems thinking as an essential skill to address the global challenges of the 21st century. Butthe habits of mind needed to understand complex systems are not readily learned throughtraditional approaches. Recently large-scale interactive multi-user immersive simulations arebeing used to expose the learners to diverse topics that emulate real-world complex systemsphenomena. These modern-day mixed reality simulations are unique in that the learners arean integral part of the evolving dynamics. The decisions they make and the actions thatfollow, collectively impact the simulated complex system, much like any real-world complexsystem. But the learners have difficulty understanding these coupled complex systemsprocesses, and often get “lost” or “stuck,” and need help navigating the problem space.Formative feedback is the traditional way educators support learners during problem solving.Traditional goal-based and learner-centered approaches don’t scale well to environments thatallow learners to explore multiple goals or solutions, and multiple solution paths(Mallavarapu Lyons, 2020). In this work, we reconceptualize formative feedback forcomplex systems-based learning environments, formative fugues, (a term derived from musicby Reitman, 1964) to allow learners to make informed decisions about their own explorationpaths. We discuss a novel computational approach that employs causal inference and patternmatching to characterize the exploration paths of prior learners and generate situationallyrelevant formative feedback. We extract formative fugues from the data collected from anecological complex systems simulation installed at a museum. The extracted feedback doesnot presume the goals of the learners, but helps the learners understand what choices andevents led to the current state of the problem space, and what paths forward are possible. Weconclude with a discussion of implications of using formative fugues for complex systemseducation.Keywords: complex systems education, computational formative feedback, interactivedigital exhibits, participatory exhibits, causal modelling complex systems

Local/Global Bug Drawings

Experimental drawings for the MUSCHI (Local/Global) GROCS project.Modern software development is no longer limited to developing applications for single users anchored to their desktop computers: miniaturization and wireless communication advances have given us portable devices with very different form-factors, from small, lightweight devices like cellular phones and handheld computers to larger (and more powerful) laptops and tablet computers, all of which are capable of “talking” to one another. Most software developers, though, still create applications that are targeted for one form-factor or another; and any intra-device communication is usually limited to simple file transfers. There is no reason why people cannot build cohesive applications that span different devices, taking advantage of the different display size, portability, and computational power characteristics of the different devices. Further, there is no reason why these applications could not allow many people to participate simultaneously. Note, that this paradigm is not simply the networking of devices together; the idea is to actually draw users together into a single proximity, to promote communication and social interaction. The goal of this project is twofold: (1) to create a framework that allows for the easy development of educational simulation games under a new, multi-device technological paradigm, and (2) the creation of a demonstration (demo) game, using this framework, to illustrate the educational benefits of this new paradigm, which we term Local-Global. This paradigm draws upon the Participatory Simulation work done here and at the MIT Media Lab and is made possible by the form-factors of new computational devices, such as touch-sensitive handheld computers and Tablet PCs. A Local-Global simulation allows a global simulation game to be played simultaneously by multiple users, who are able to make localized adjustments to the simulation game’s parameters, and observe how these small local-level manipulations can combine to impact the status of the global simulation environment. The demonstration game will be something akin to a digital fish tank: an environment populated by autonomous creatures that feed and breed. The users will be able to inspect the creatures and manipulate them with the aid of the handheld “microscopes”, and will be able to view the effect of their manipulations on the game environment by watching the simulation play out on the larger display of the tablet PC.GROCS: GRant Opportunities [collaborative spaces], a Digital Media Commons program to fund student research on the use of rich media in collaborative learning.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60411/4/lg_bugs4.JPGhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60411/3/lg_bugs3.JPGhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60411/2/lg_bugs2.JPGhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60411/1/lg_bugs1.JP

Local/Global Bug Images

Images associated with the MUSHI (Local/Global) project in the GROCS 2005 program.Modern software development is no longer limited to developing applications for single users anchored to their desktop computers: miniaturization and wireless communication advances have given us portable devices with very different form-factors, from small, lightweight devices like cellular phones and handheld computers to larger (and more powerful) laptops and tablet computers, all of which are capable of “talking” to one another. Most software developers, though, still create applications that are targeted for one form-factor or another; and any intra-device communication is usually limited to simple file transfers. There is no reason why people cannot build cohesive applications that span different devices, taking advantage of the different display size, portability, and computational power characteristics of the different devices. Further, there is no reason why these applications could not allow many people to participate simultaneously. Note, that this paradigm is not simply the networking of devices together; the idea is to actually draw users together into a single proximity, to promote communication and social interaction. The goal of this project is twofold: (1) to create a framework that allows for the easy development of educational simulation games under a new, multi-device technological paradigm, and (2) the creation of a demonstration (demo) game, using this framework, to illustrate the educational benefits of this new paradigm, which we term Local-Global. This paradigm draws upon the Participatory Simulation work done here and at the MIT Media Lab and is made possible by the form-factors of new computational devices, such as touch-sensitive handheld computers and Tablet PCs. A Local-Global simulation allows a global simulation game to be played simultaneously by multiple users, who are able to make localized adjustments to the simulation game’s parameters, and observe how these small local-level manipulations can combine to impact the status of the global simulation environment. The demonstration game will be something akin to a digital fish tank: an environment populated by autonomous creatures that feed and breed. The users will be able to inspect the creatures and manipulate them with the aid of the handheld “microscopes”, and will be able to view the effect of their manipulations on the game environment by watching the simulation play out on the larger display of the tablet PC.GROCS: GRant Opportunities [collaborative spaces], a Digital Media Commons program to fund student research on the use of rich media in collaborative learning.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/21/pTurn3.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/20/pTurn2.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/19/pTurn1.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/18/pTurn0.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/17/pointyHead3.jpghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/16/pointyHead2.jpghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/15/pointyHead.jpghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/14/pointyCombo2.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/13/pointyCombo.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/12/heads_green-neck.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/11/heads_black.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/10/gTurn3.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/9/gTurn2.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/8/gTurn1.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/7/grinderCombo.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/6/cTurn3.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/5/cTurn2.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/4/cTurn1.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/3/cTurn0.pnghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/2/chompy_3.jpghttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60409/1/chompy_1.jp