An evaluation of a professional learning network for computer science teachers

This paper describes and evaluates aspects of a professional development programme for existing CS teachers in secondary schools (PLAN C) which was designed to support teachers at a time of substantial curricular change. The paper’s particular focus is on the formation of a teacher professional development network across several hundred teachers and a wide geographical area. Evidence from a series of observations and teacher surveys over a two-year period is analysed with respect to the project’s programme theory in order to illustrate not only whether it worked as intended, by why. Results indicate that the PLAN C design has been successful in increasing teachers’ professional confidence and appears to have catalysed powerful change in attitudes to learning. Presentation of challenging pedagogical content knowledge and conceptual frameworks, high-quality teacher-led professional dialogue, along with the space for reflection and classroom trials, triggered examination of the teachers’ own current practices

Don’t touch me! A comparison of usability on touch and non-touch inputs

Public touchscreens are filthy and, regardless of how often they are cleaned, they pose a considerable risk in the transmission of bacteria and viruses. While we rely on their use, we should find a feasible alternative to touch devices. Non-touch (touchless) interaction, via the use of mid-air gestures, has been previously labelled as not user friendly and unsuitable. However, previous works have extensively compared such interaction to precise mouse movements. In this paper, we investigate and compare the usability of an interface controlled via a touchscreen and a non-touch device. Participants (N=22) using a touchscreen and the Leap Motion Controller, performed tasks on a mock-up ticketing machine, later evaluating their experience using the System Usability and Gesture Usability scales. Results show that, in contrast to the previous works, the non-touch method was usable and quickly learnable. We conclude with recommendations for future work on making a non-touch interface more user-friendly.Comment: To appear in INTERACT 2021 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). 4 pages, 7 figure

What (actually) matters in literacy education: Contributions from community psychology

This paper describes the critical role community psychology theories played in reframing literacy research involving mainly Māori and Pacific peoples’ extended families and communities. Within a critical social constructionist paradigm, ecological systems theory and holistic, integrative theories of wellbeing brought much-needed new thinking to how family-focused adult literacy education might be theorised and practiced. This reframing marks a challenge to and movement away from still-dominant Western individualistic, behavioural orientated, skills-based and formal economy-focused ways of thinking about people’s literacy abilities. It highlights the important role of community psychology in developing theory, informing policy and enhancing practices in culturally diverse education settings to achieve both educational and quality of life aims. Improving quality of life is not possible through literacy education in and of itself, but rather through the inculcation in programme design and delivery of those things which are fundamental and critical to the participants’ overall wellbeing and welfare

The Effectiveness of a Virtual Role-play Environment as a Preparation Activity for Story Writing

Institute for Communicating and Collaborative SystemsImprovisational dramatic role-play activities are used in classrooms to encourage children to explore the feelings of the characters in a story. Roleplay exercises can give a story personal significance to each child, and an insight and understanding of the characters which is reflected in stories written afterwards. The thesis describes the development of a virtual environment designed for similar dramatic role-play exercises. The thesis then investigates its effectiveness as a preparation activity for writing stories. It examines the effects the virtual role-play environment has on the characterisation in children’s imaginative writing. It also investigates the social interactions which children engage in and the moral decisions they make during the role-play; and the motivational effects of the virtual roleplay environment. The virtual role-play environment is based on a commercial computer game. Two children and one role-play leader interact with each other in a perceptually realistic virtual world. Each role-player controls an avatar in order to move around this graphical world, and improvise by sending and receiving typed messages. The high quality graphics, sounds and music contribute to the users’ feelings of perceptual presence while the communication between role-players promotes feelings of social presence. The role-players’ emotional engagement with the other characters and the conflict within the adventure encourages them to experience self presence. The virtual role-play environment was evaluated in a field study with sixty children aged between ten and twelve years. The characterisation in stories written after using the virtual role-play environment was compared to the characterisation in stories written under normal classroom circumstances. The stories were compared using a new, fine-grained analysis scheme for assessing children’s writing. The main result is that the stories written after the virtual role-play contained more dialogue and more indications of relationships between the characters than normal classroom stories. Analysis of the typed communication exchanged between the role-players during the game shows that the role-players formed relationships with the other characters. They also made judgements about the characters’ personalities and to a lesser extent expressed emotional involvement during the game. They made moral decisions and could back up their decisions with reasons. Expert evaluation supports the view that the virtual role-play environment is particularly beneficial to children with low literacy standards. Finally, it also benefits children with low literacy motivation and little interest in school work