Honglu Du

VideoPal: Exploring Asynchronous Video-Messaging to Enable Cross-Cultural Friendships

Pen pal programs for connecting students from around the world through letter writing have been popular for generations. However, traditional technologies have several limitations in supporting pen pal activities. In this study, we explored the potential of video-based asynchronous messaging in supporting the development of children’s cross-cultural friendships. This paper presents the results of a 2-month study of 30 children from the USA and Greece, exploring their uses of, and experiences with, email and an asynchronous video-based messaging tool we developed called VideoPal. The results from this work highlight the important benefits video provides compared to its text counterpart - email. We conclude with a discussion of the key factors that video enables to benefit the development of children’s long-distance friendships.

Increasing Students In-Class Engagement through Public Commenting: An Exploratory Study

Student engagement is a pervasive and persistent goal for educators. In previous work we have reported that activities like public real-time commenting on videos can enhance student participation and engagement [4]. However, these events occur over a limited period of time. Thus a more challenging question is how to increase and sustain student engagement. In this paper we describe the iterative development of Class Commons, a public commenting system with which students can post questions/comments that are shared through a public display in the classroom. The system was used in a senior undergraduate class in the spring semester of 2009. Our findings suggest that students were interested in this system. Students with different self-construal (independent vs. interdependent) appropriate this system for slightly different purposes. In the long run, we speculate that by having the teacher involved more in using this system (responding more quickly, helping structuring the discussions), it has potential for promoting sustained student engagement.

Children's interactions in an asynchronous video mediated communication environment

Video-mediated communication (VMC) has become a feasible way to connect people in remote places for work and play. Nevertheless, little research has been done with regard to children and VMC. In this paper, we explore the behavior of a group of children, who exchanged video messages in an informal context. In particular, we have analyzed 386 videos over a period of 11 weeks, which were exchanged by 30 students of 4th and 5th grade from USA and Greece. We found that the number of views and the duration of a video message significantly depend on the gender of the viewer and creator. Most notably, girls created more messages, but boys viewed their own messages more. Finally, there are video messages with numerous views, which indicates that some videos have content qualities beyond the communication message itself. Overall, the practical implications of these findings indicate that the developers of asynchronous VMC should consider functionalities for preserving some of the video messages.

Understanding children's behavior in an asynchronous video-mediated communication environment

Video-mediated communication (VMC) has become a feasible way to connect people in remote places for work and play. Nevertheless, little research has been done with regard to children and VMC. In this paper, we explore the behavior of a group of children, who exchanged video messages in an informal context. In particular, this paper presents the results of 11-week VMC study of 30 children from the USA and Greece, exploring children’s behavior with the asynchronous video-based messaging tool we developed called VideoPal. In the study, children’s interactions, perceptions, content exchanged and emotions were collected. The results from the analyses highlight that the emotion of happiness dominated in the communication. Moreover, the content included useful personal information and is connected with children’s interactions (e.g., number of views and of recipients). In addition, children generally preferred VideoPal to email because they felt that it was easier and has more fun.

I felt more of a member of this class: increasing students' sense of community with video commenting

Public displays are typically situated in strategic places like town centers, and in salient positions on walls within buildings. However, currently most public displays are non-interactive and are typically used for information broadcasting (TV news, advertisements etc). People passing by pay little attention to them. As a consequence, public displays are under-utilized in the everyday world. We are investigating whether use of interactive public displays might increase peoples interaction with one another, with a resulting increase in sense of community. In this paper we describe the design and first deployment experiences of a platform-independent, interactive video commenting system using a large public display in two sections of a large-enrollment university class. Our preliminary evaluation suggests that students enjoyed the activity of commenting, that they participated a great deal, and that their sense of community was greater after using the system. We discuss lessons we have learned from this initial experience, and describe further work we are planning using this and similar interactive activities.