The Effect of Repeating Tasks on Performance Levels in Mediated Child-Robot Interactions

That “practice makes perfect” is a powerful heuristic for improving performance through repetition. This is widely used in educational contexts, and as such it provides a potentially useful feature for application to child-robot educational interactions. While this effect may intuitively appear to be present, we here describe data to provide evidence in support of this supposition. Conducting a descriptive analysis of data from a wider study, we specifically examine the effect on child performance of repeating a previously performed collaborative task with a peer robot (i.e. not an expert agent), if initial performance is low. The results generally indicate a positive effect on performance through repetition, and a number of other correlation effects that highlight the role of individual differences. This outcome provides evidence for the variable utility of repetition between individuals, but also indicates that this is driven by the individual, which can nevertheless result in performance improvements even in the context of peer-peer interactions with relatively sparse feedback

Keanekaragaman Manusia

Manusia adalah makhluk dengan segala keunikan dan keistimewaan, yang senantiasa memiliki kemampuan dalam cipta, rasa, dan karsa. Sejak lahir manusia dibekali dengan panca indera dan akal budi sebagai cara untuk menikmati, menyentuh setiap fenomena kehidupan yang senantiasa merasuk dalam pikiran dan menjadi bahan untuk direnungkan dalam upaya menjawab berbagai macam persoalan. Otak pada setiap manusia tidak hanya dipenuhi dengan pikiran semata, melainkan merupakan rangkaian memori yang mengisahkan tentang kenangan dan pengalaman pada masa lalu, baik yang bersinggungan secara langsung ataupun yang berasal dari manusia lainnya. Pengalaman di masa lalu pastinya menyisakan kesan tersendiri yang kemudian menjadi potensi untuk mengolah sebuah gagasan dengan daya imajinasi dan kreatifitas sehingga gagasan tersebut bisa diekspresikan dan dikomunikasikan kepada manusia lainnya. Pengalaman tentang keanekaragaman manusia tidak habisnya menghadirkan berbagai macam persoalan yang menyita perhatian untuk direnungkan. Kali ini persoalan tersebut menjadi gagasan yang akan dikembangkan dengan imajinasi dan kreativitas menjadi sebuah ide penciptaan karya seni grafis. Pada konsep visual, secara kuat menampikan figur-figur manusia yang divisualkan dengan berbagai macam bentuk fisik yang beragam antara figur satu dengan lainnya sebagai representasi dari keanekaragaman manusia. Secara teknik, karya tersebut menggunakan cetak tinggi (hardboardcut) dengan menggunakan berbagai macam warna sehingga konsep tentang keanekaragaman manusia bisa tersampaikan

Developing an online learning community for mental health professionals and service users: a discursive analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is increasing interest in online collaborative learning tools in health education, to reduce costs, and to offer alternative communication opportunities. Patients and students often have extensive experience of using the Internet for health information and support, and many health organisations are increasingly trying out online tools, while many healthcare professionals are unused to, and have reservations about, online interaction.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We ran three week-long collaborative learning courses, in which 19 mental health professionals (MHPs) and 12 mental health service users (MHSUs) participated. Data were analysed using a discursive approach to consider the ways in which participants interacted, and how this contributed to the goal of online learning about using Internet technologies for mental health practice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>MHSUs and MHPs were able to discuss issues together, listening to the views of the other stakeholders. Discussions on synchronous format encouraged participation by service users while the MHPs showed a preference for an asynchronous format with longer, reasoned postings. Although participants regularly drew on their MHP or MHSU status in discussions, and participants typically drew on either a medical expert discourse or a "lived experience" discourse, there was a blurred boundary as participants shifted between these positions.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The anonymous format was successful in that it produced a "co-constructed asymmetry" which permitted the MHPs and MHSUs to discuss issues online, listening to the views of other stakeholders. Although anonymity was essential for this course to 'work' at all, the recourse to expert or lay discourses demonstrates that it did not eliminate the hierarchies between teacher and learner, or MHP and MHSU. The mix of synchronous and asynchronous formats helped MHSUs to contribute. Moderators might best facilitate service user experience by responding within an experiential discourse rather than an academic one.</p

Collaborative learning about e-health for mental health professionals and service users in a structured anonymous online short course: pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Professionals are interested in using e-health but implementation of new methods is slow. Barriers to implementation include the need for training and limited awareness or experience. Research may not always convince mental health professionals (MHPs). Adding the 'voice' of mental health service users (MHSUs) in collaborative learning may help. Involving MHSUs in face-face education can be difficult. We had previously been unable to engage MHPs in online discussion with MHSUs. Here we assessed the feasibility of short online courses involving MHSUs and MHPs. METHODS: We ran three e-health courses, comprising live interactive webcast, week's access to a discussion forum, and final live interactive webcast. We recruited MHPs via posters, newsletters, and telephone from a local NHS trust, and online via mailing lists and personal contacts from NHS trusts and higher education. We recruited MHSUs via a previous project and an independent user involvement service. Participants were presented with research evidence about e-health and asked to discuss topics using professional and lived experience. Feasibility was assessed through recruitment and attrition, participation, and researcher workloads. Outcomes of self-esteem and general self-efficacy (MHSUs), and Internet self-efficacy and confidence (MHPs) were piloted. RESULTS: Online recruiting was effective. We lost 15/41 from registration to follow-up but only 5/31 that participated in the course failed to complete follow-up. Nineteen MHPs and 12 MHSUs took part and engaged with each other in online discussion. Feedback was positive; three-quarters of MHPs indicated future plans to use the Internet for practice, and 80% of MHSUs felt the course should be continued. Running three courses for 31 participants took between 200 to 250 hours. Before and after outcome measures were completed by 26/31 that participated. MHP Internet self-efficacy and general Internet confidence, MHSU self-esteem and general self-efficacy, all seemed reliable and seemed to show some increase. CONCLUSIONS: Collaborative learning between MHSUs and MHPs in a structured online anonymous environment over a one-week course is feasible, may be more practical and less costly than face-face methods, and is worthy of further study

Robot education peers in a situated primary school study: personalisation promotes child learning

The benefit of social robots to support child learning in an educational context over an extended period of time is evaluated. Specifically, the effect of personalisation and adaptation of robot social behaviour is assessed. Two autonomous robots were embedded within two matched classrooms of a primary school for a continuous two week period without experimenter supervision to act as learning companions for the children for familiar and novel subjects. Results suggest that while children in both personalised and non-personalised conditions learned, there was increased child learning of a novel subject exhibited when interacting with a robot that personalised its behaviours, with indications that this benefit extended to other class-based performance. Additional evidence was obtained suggesting that there is increased acceptance of the personalised robot peer over a non-personalised version. These results provide the first evidence in support of peer-robot behavioural personalisation having a positive influence on learning when embedded in a learning environment for an extended period of time

Considerations on Genre and Gender Conventions in Translating from Old English

The Old English poem The Wife's Lament is an extremely conventional and, at the same time, original text. It portrays a female character suffering for the absence of her loved one, through the framework of the so-called 'elegiac' style and a mainly heroic vocabulary. The traditional exile theme is, thus, interwoven with the uncommon motif of love sickness. While this appraisal of the poem is the most widely accepted one, disagreement still remains about the translation of some keywords, strictly related to the exile theme, such as sīþ or wræcsīþ. The aim of this paper is to examine diverging readings and glosses of the above mentioned 'exilic/elegiac' keywords, and to show that an accurate translation should not neglect a thorough appraisal of the text in its complexity and the association with related literary patterns and imagery in other poetic and prose texts

Typical physical setup of the system within the classroom.

<p>The robot, Sandtray—a touchscreen device—and camera setup was located in one corner of the room in which the children had their normal lessons. Interactions took place during normal lesson time. Both classrooms had similar arrangements. <i>Not to scale.</i></p

Child learning performance between conditions.

<p>(a) summary of mean percentage test scores (for pre and post experimental period) for the familiar learning task (times-tables), the novel learning task (the stone age), and the independent task (spelling, for which there was also a mid-experiment test); (b) normalised learning gain exhibited in the familiar, the novel, and the independent learning tasks. Error bars show 95% CI.</p

Library scores per image library.

<p>Overview of mean scores per library, by condition, error bars are 95% CI: (a) performance in each of the image libraries, see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0178126#pone.0178126.t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a> for library contents; (b) scores for the first four stone-age image libraries (novel subject): ‘*’ denotes significance at the .05 level.</p

Interaction structure and contents.

<p>(a) structure of each interaction, with five minutes on the collaborative sorting task itself; (b) example of a child engaged in the task with the robot (hardware and classroom setup as shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0178126#pone.0178126.g001" target="_blank">Fig 1</a>); (c) two sample image libraries, showing a 3 times-table task, and a stone-age animals task.</p