PERCEPTIONS ON WHICH SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS ARE USEFUL FOR TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Teachers are expected to be able to keep up with the technological development in the classroom. Integrating ICT into teaching is a complex process and they may encounter a number of difficulties. They seek opportunities for professional development, so that they can meet the needs of students leading to recognition as a “reform-minded” educator. Social networking/WEB2.0 which is the technology connecting people is providing new opportunities for professional development by assisting to remain current on skills important for teachers’ role. Aim of our research is to study, for the specific professional category of school teachers, which are the professional skills which can be strengthened through social networking and which tools are the most appropriate for this goal. Based on a collection of information from various sources we present a series of conclusions which can be the basis for the design of training programs on how to effectively use social networking.  Article visualizations

OBSTACLES ON THE EFFECTIVE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS FOR TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE TRAINING NEEDS TO DEAL WITH THEM

Social networking /WEB 2.0 is the technology to support connecting people in various ways. The arise of WEB 2.0 allowed users to enhance their actions when accessing the internet not only for searching information but above all to interact, collaborate, and share content. For the specific showcase of school teachers, WEB 2.0 is providing new opportunities to build and gain professional development by assisting them to remain current on skills and issues important for a professional role. Aim of the presented work, it to build on our previous research on which specific tools are considered as the most useful for teachers’ professional development and which are the perceptions of teachers on them, in order to identify the obstacles and drawbacks to their effective utilization, leading to the proposition of a core training program tailored to the teachers’ needs.  Article visualizations

Social Web Applications as Means to Enhance Lifelong Learning and Professional Development of Teachers: A Tool to Support Assessment of Their Impact

The application of new technologies in classroom has made the need for constant professional development more important for teachers. They should be able to keep up with the technological development in the classroom. Their professional development includes constant upgrade of their skills and knowledge on how they can meet the needs of their students or address issues derived from ICTs application in classroom. Social Web applications are providing new opportunities to build and gain such professional development by assisting to remain current on skills and issues important for a professional role. Aim of the present work is to contribute to the assessment of impact of Social Web applications for teachers’ professional development by presenting specific case studies and proposing an ICT tool to be used for the collection of useful quantitative indicators supporting this impact assessment. The assesment derived from a specific showcase of its application, provided real case results on the usage of Social Web tools from teachers which could be a useful asset towards the design of teacher training programs for the effective use of social networking tools

Mobile text entry behaviour in lab and in-the-wild studies : is it different?

Text entry in smartphones remains a critical element of mobile HCI. It has been widely studied in lab settings, using primarily transcription tasks, and to a far lesser extent through in-the-wild (field) experiments. So far it remains unknown how well user behaviour during lab transcription tasks approximates real use. In this paper, we present a study that provides evidence that lab text entry behaviour is clearly distinguishable from real world use. Using machine learning techniques, we show that it is possible to accurately identify the type of study in which text entry sessions took place. The implications of our findings relate to the design of future studies in text entry, aiming to support input with virtual smartphone keyboards

Augmented paper maps : design of POI markers and effects on group navigation

One popular and wide use of augmented-reality based application, is the projection of points of interests on top of the phones' camera view. In this paper we discuss the implementation of an AR application that acts as a magic lens over printed maps, overlaying POIs and routes. This method expands the information space available to members of groups during navigation, partially mitigating the issue of several group members trying to share a small screen device. We examine two aspects critical to the use of augmented paper maps: (a) Appropriate visualisation of POIs to facilitate selection and (b) augmentation of paper maps with route instructions for use in group situations. In this paper, we evaluate POI visualisation in a lab setting and augmented paper map navigation with groups of real tourists in a preliminary field trial. Our work complements existing literature introducing self-reporting questionnaires to measure affective state and user experience during navigation

A glimpse of mobile text entry errors and corrective behaviour in the wild

Research in mobile text entry has long focused on speed and input errors during lab studies. However, little is known about how input errors emerge in real-world situations or how users deal with these. We present findings from an in-the-wild study of everyday text entry and discuss their implications for future studies

Personalizing Interactions with Information Systems

Personalization constitutes the mechanisms and technologies necessary to customize information access to the end-user. It can be defined as the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to the individual. In this chapter, we study personalization from the viewpoint of personalizing interaction. The survey covers mechanisms for information-finding on the web, advanced information retrieval systems, dialog-based applications, and mobile access paradigms. Specific emphasis is placed on studying how users interact with an information system and how the system can encourage and foster interaction. This helps bring out the role of the personalization system as a facilitator which reconciles the user’s mental model with the underlying information system’s organization. Three tiers of personalization systems are presented, paying careful attention to interaction considerations. These tiers show how progressive levels of sophistication in interaction can be achieved. The chapter also surveys systems support technologies and niche application domains