Fluid technology design for development

Designing learning technologies for developmental contexts is a difficult problem. Based on an analysis of the development of the Zimbabwe Bush Pump, in this paper we apply the concept of ‘fluidity’ to technology design. The underlying principles are detailed and their relationship to issues in human computer interaction discussed

Maintaining, changing and crossing contexts: an activity theoretic reinterpretation of mobile learning

Although mobile learning is a popular topic in current research, it is not well conceptualized. Many researchers rely on under‐theorized conceptions of the topic, and those who have tried to refine the ideas involved have found this to be complex and difficult. In this paper a new interpretation of the concept ‘mobile learning’ is offered, drawing on the tradition of activity theory. The interpretation focuses on the continuity of learning activities that take place in multiple contexts, which are embodied as the combination of the physical and social setting of the learning activities. The paper starts by sketching the current research context and then outlines the theoretical tradition within which the interpretation of ‘mobile learning’ is located. Then the new interpretation is offered and the concepts are applied to case studies to illustrate how this new understanding develops current thinking in the area. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for research of adopting such a perspective

Educational Technology Topic Guide

This guide aims to contribute to what we know about the relationship between educational technology (edtech) and educational outcomes by addressing the following overarching question: What is the evidence that the use of edtech, by teachers or students, impacts teaching and learning practices, or learning outcomes? It also offers recommendations to support advisors to strengthen the design, implementation and evaluation of programmes that use edtech. We define edtech as the use of digital or electronic technologies and materials to support teaching and learning. Recognising that technology alone does not enhance learning, evaluations must also consider how programmes are designed and implemented, how teachers are supported, how communities are developed and how outcomes are measured (see http://tel.ac.uk/about-3/, 2014). Effective edtech programmes are characterised by: a clear and specific curriculum focus the use of relevant curriculum materials a focus on teacher development and pedagogy evaluation mechanisms that go beyond outputs. These findings come from a wide range of technology use including: interactive radio instruction (IRI) classroom audio or video resources accessed via teachers’ mobile phones student tablets and eReaders computer-assisted learning (CAL) to supplement classroom teaching. However, there are also examples of large-scale investment in edtech – particularly computers for student use – that produce limited educational outcomes. We need to know more about: how to support teachers to develop appropriate, relevant practices using edtech how such practices are enacted in schools, and what factors contribute to or mitigate against successful outcomes. Recommendations: 1. Edtech programmes should focus on enabling educational change, not delivering technology. In doing so, programmes should provide adequate support for teachers and aim to capture changes in teaching practice and learning outcomes in evaluation. 2. Advisors should support proposals that further develop successful practices or that address gaps in evidence and understanding. 3. Advisors should discourage proposals that have an emphasis on technology over education, weak programmatic support or poor evaluation. 4. In design and evaluation, value-for-money metrics and cost-effectiveness analyses should be carried out

An investigation of technology mediation in interdisciplinary research within Higher Education

There has been a growing awareness of interdisciplinary collaboration as a means of addressing new challenges within academic research, and digital technology has been a core underlying support in these endeavours (Scanlon et al., 2013, p.49; Haythornthwaite et al., 2003, p.144). ‘Digital technologies will be a core aspect of interaction and cooperation between different fields of expertise’ (Costa, 2011, p.84). This paper investigates the process of technology-mediated knowledge co-production in interdisciplinary research in Higher Education, and explores how researchers from different disciplines appropriate technology to break down disciplinary boundaries. Through the presentation of findings from a collective case study of two interdisciplinary research projects based at the University of Oxford - the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project (AshLi) and Poetry Visualisation: Imagery Lens for Visualising Text Corpora (PVis) - this paper aims to challenge conventional approaches to investigating the use of technology in interdisciplinary scholarship, responding to the paucity of research at the intersection of interdisciplinarity, collaborative research and technology in academia. Findings from interviews with academic researchers, and a visual analysis of project artefacts, elucidate a mutually shaping relationship between innovative research technologies and new interdisciplinary research practices. Technology can be constructed through the integration of disciplinary perspectives. Researchers from different disciplines both adopt and adapt technologies, and through these processes, disciplinary boundaries are broken down, and knowledge is co-created. This iterative process of mutual shaping assumes different nuances according to the disciplinary ‘make-up’ of a project, the technologies involved, and the ways in which the researchers appropriate technologies according to their disciplinary backgrounds. Using the social construction of technology (SCOT) as a theoretical framework illuminates researchers’ diverse perceptions of technologies and interdisciplinary practices, and highlights the importance of interpretation in the use of technology within these contexts. This paper contributes to the area of networked learning by highlighting that collaboration around research technologies has not been explored very much in the field, nor has the potential for building on other concepts from the area of science and technology studies (STS) such as Actor-Network Theory (Clough et al., 2010; Adams and Thompson, 2014). In this way, the findings hold broad implications for substantive promotion of a more nuanced view of modern interdisciplinary practices

Constructionism and AI: A history and possible futures

Constructionism, long before it had a name, was intimately tied to the field of Artificial Intelligence. Very soon after the birth of Logo, Seymour Papert set up the Logo Group as part of the MIT AI Lab. Logo was based upon Lisp, the first prominent AI programming language. Many early Logo activities involved natural language processing, robotics, artificial game players, and generating poetry, art, and music. In the 1970s researchers explored enhancements to Logo to support AI programming by children. In the 1980s the Prolog community, inspired by the Logo community, began exploring how to adapt logic programming for use by school children. While there has been over forty years of active AI research in creating intelligent tutoring systems, there was little AI-flavoured constructionism after the 1980s until about 2017 when suddenly a great deal of activity started. Among those activities were attempts to enhance Snap! with new blocks for speech synthesis, speech recognition, image recognition, use of pre-trained deep learning models, and word embeddings, as well as blocks to enable learners to create and train deep neural networks. We close with speculations about possible futures for AI and constructionism

Scoping review assessing the evidence used to support the adoption of mobile health (mHealth) technologies for the education and training of community health workers (CHWs) in low-income and middle-income countries

Abstract: Objectives Undertake a systematic scoping review to determine how a research evidence base, in the form of existing systematic reviews in the field of mobile health (mHealth), constitutes education and training for community health workers (CHWs) who use mobile technologies in everyday work. The review was informed by the following research questions: does educational theory inform the design of the education and training component of mHealth interventions? How is education and training with mobile technology by CHWs in lowincome and middle-income countries categorised by existing systematic reviews? What is the basis for this categorisation? Setting The review explored the literature from 2000 to 2017 to investigate how mHealth interventions have been positioned within the available evidence base in relation to their use of formal theories of learning. Results The scoping review found 24 primary studies that were categorised by 16 systematic reviews as supporting CHWs’ education and training using mobile technologies. However, when formal theories of learning from educational research were used to recategorise these 24 primary studies, only four could be coded as such. This identifies a problem with how CHWs’ education and training using mobile technologies is understood and categorised within the existing evidence base. This is because there is no agreed on, theoretically informed understanding of what counts as learning. Conclusion The claims made by mHealth researchers and practitioners regarding the learning benefits of mobile technology are not based on research results that are underpinned by formal theories of learning. mHealth suffers from a reductionist view of learning that underestimates the complexities of the relationship between pedagogy and technology. This has resulted in miscategorisations of what constitutes CHWs’ education and training within the existing evidence base. This can be overcome by informed collaboration between the health and education communities

Participatory Pattern Workshops Resource Kit

Resource KitThis document describes the methodology that has emerged from a series of workshops we have facilitated over several years. These workshops brought together practitioners from a wide range of fields and engaged them in intense conversations about issues regarding technology and education. Such conversations are rooted in participants’ personal experiences, driven by the problems they have overcome, and aimed at collaborative articulation of their design knowledge; knowledge of how to get things done. We call these workshops Collaborative Reflection Workshops. Our process goes beyond a single workshop. Over the years, we have identified a structure of three consecutive workshops; a Design Narratives Workshop, a Pattern Mining Workshop and a Design scenarios Workshop. Together, these form what we call the Participatory Patterns Workshops framework. If you are about to participate in such a workshop, this document will tell you what to expect and how to maximise your benefits from the event. If you would like to run such a workshop (or series of workshops) yourself, this document should give you a good starting point for their design. You will still need to adapt the framework for your own needs and circumstances, and we will be happy to assist you in doing that. Everything presented here is a reflection of work in progress. If you find this document useful, please check for new versions. If you find some mistakes or gaps, please let us know. If you run a workshop, please share your experience and insight with us

The distributed developmental network - d2n: a social configuration to support design pattern generation

DiSessa et al. (2004) conducted a comparative study of how research teams design, develop and evaluate TEL software, in the context of component-based educational programming. They identified the issue of the social configuration of the production team as a critical family of issues that are easily marginalized (p.117). These social configurations are loosely equivalent to what Activity Theorists refer to as the rules and division of labour (Engeström, 1987) in the activity system of TEL production. DiSessa et al. (2004) studied four such configurations in detail and noted their relationship with the evolution of the technology and its use. These models suggest different ways of bringing the various participants involved in TEL development together. Based on the definition of interdisciplinarity (van den Besselaar and Heimeriks, 2001; Gibbons, 1994), in this chapter we detail how to support participants from different disciplines to work together in small, product-oriented groups, using design patterns. Our patterns were developed in the context of the Learning patterns for the design and deployment of mathematical games project, funded under the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence of the European Union. Our primary aim was to develop patterns that worked at the interface between disciplines. They were focused on pragmatic ways to have teachers and technologists productively engage with each other. Furthermore, many patterns were developed from the use of particular tools in educational contexts, where the tools were developed from scratch as outputs of research projects. There was a reflection in the patterns of the need for participants to understand each others practices in order to achieve integrated development. DiSessa et al. (ibid) reflect on the fact that teachers can find it difficult and sometimes intimidating to participate as equal contributors in a technology-based development process and suggest that effective management of collaboration can address this problem. As distinct from DiSessas four models, we identified a somewhat more complex emerging structure, that of a development network, where distributed groups with local expertise use a pattern language to share their expertise, sometimes in collaborative long-term projects, sometimes in ad-hoc exchanges. A detailed analysis of this model is presented in this chapter. What is clear at this stage is that a successful model needs to empower all partners in the design process, avoiding producer-consumer and sage-laymen relationships

What characteristics of the gamers' profile should be taken into account in player-centred game design?

In this paper, we introduce the theory of trait Emotional Intelligence ('trait EI') as a personality theory that could assist in exemplifying the gamers' profile and contribute to the design of player-center game experiences. Data from two studies (a game-specific and a game-general one) led to a number of player-centered playability principles that could inform the design of adaptable games and games targeting specific gaming audiences. The gamers' emotional characteristics were found to be of prominent importance to the design of good games