Joshua Underwood

Using Mobile Technology to Create Flexible Learning Contexts

This paper discusses the importance of learning context with a particular focus upon the educational application of mobile technologies. We suggest that one way to understand a learning context is to perceive it as a Learner Centric Ecology of Resources. These resources can be deployed variously but with a concern to promote and support different kinds of mediations, including those of the teacher and learner. Our approach is informed by sociocultural theory and is used to construct a framework for the evaluation of learning experiences that encompass various combinations of technologies, people, spaces and knowledge. The usefulness of the framework is tested through two case studies that evaluate a range of learning contexts in which mobile technologies are used to support learning. We identify the benefits and challenges that arise when introducing technology across multiple locations. An analytical technique mapped from the Ecology of Resources framework is presented and used to identify the ways in which different technologies can require learners to adopt particular roles and means of communication. We illustrate how we involve participants in the analysis of their context and highlight the extent to which apparently similar contexts vary in ways that are significant for learners. The use of the Ecology of Resources framework to evaluate a range of learning contexts has demonstrated that technology can be used to provide continuity across locations: the appropriate contextualization of activities across school and home contexts, for example. It has also provided evidence to support the use of technology to identify ways in which resources can be adapted to meet the needs of a learner.

A resource kit for participatory socio-technical design in rural kenya

We describe our approach and initial results in the participatory design of technology relevant to local rural livelihoods. Our approach to design and usability proceeds from research in theory and practice of cross-cultural implementations, but the novelty is in beginning not with particular technologies but from community needs, and structuring technology in terms of activities. We describe our project aims and initial data collected, which show that while villagers have no clear mental models for using computers or the Internet, they show a desire to have and use them. We then describe our approach to interaction design, our expectations and next steps as the technology and activities are first introduced to the villages.

Sequential art for science and CHI

This paper illustrates our preliminary studies of new interactive tools that support the generation of sequential art for entertainment, learning and scientific discourse. In the first of two examples, primary school students document a practical science session through the creation of a photostory. In the second, participants in a study on the biological nature of thrill create a souvenir photostory by selecting images from a DVD. The paper is written in a comic-book format to further explore and highlight the communicative capabilities of the medium, one that can be visually attractive and facilitate rapid dissemination to a wide audience.

Classification of brain tumours from MR spectra: the INTERPRET collaboration and its outcomes.

The INTERPRET project was a multicentre European collaboration, carried out from 2000 to 2002, which developed a decision‐support system (DSS) for helping neuroradiologists with no experience of MRS to utilize spectroscopic data for the diagnosis and grading of human brain tumours. INTERPRET gathered a large collection of MR spectra of brain tumours and pseudo‐tumoural lesions from seven centres. Consensus acquisition protocols, a standard processing pipeline and strict methods for quality control of the aquired data were put in place. Particular emphasis was placed on ensuring the diagnostic certainty of each case, for which all cases were evaluated by a clinical data validation committee. One outcome of the project is a database of 304 fully validated spectra from brain tumours, pseudotumoural lesions and normal brains, along with their associated images and clinical data, which remains available to the scientific and medical community. The second is the INTERPRET DSS, which has continued to be developed and clinically evaluated since the project ended.

Coherence Compilation: Applying AIED Techniques to the Reuse of Educational TV Resources

The HomeWork project is building an exemplar system to provide individualised experiences for individual and groups of children aged 6-7 years, their parents, teachers and classmates at school. It employs an existing set of broadcast video media and associated resources that tackle both numeracy and literacy at Key Stage 1. The system employs a learner model and a pedagogical model to identify what resource is best used with an individual child or group of children collaboratively at a particular learning point and at a particular location. The Coherence Compiler is that component of the system which is designed to impose an overall narrative coherence on the materials that any particular child is exposed to. This paper presents a high level vision of the design of the Coherence Compiler and sets its design within the overall framework of the HomeWork project and its learner and pedagogical models.

miLexicon: Harnessing Resources for Personal and Collaborative Language Inquiry

This paper introduces miLexicon, an innovative mobile tool for self-initiated, resource-based language learning. In essence, miLexicon consists of two interacting and extensible collections. One collection contains the language items a learner chooses to investigate, the other references resources (e.g. people, tools, media) useful to this inquiry. We describe this process of personal and collaborative language inquiry and show how we derive it from interviews with language learners. We then indicate how miLexicon is designed to support this process and prompt learners to reflect on their resource use. In describing the development of miLexicon we also provide an exemplar application of a novel framework for designing technology-rich learning contexts.

Up and down the number-line: modelling collaboration in contrasting school and home environments

This paper is concerned with user modelling issues such as adaptive educational environments, adaptive information retrieval, and support for collaboration. The HomeWork project is examining the use of learner modelling strategies within both school and home environments for young children aged 5 – 7 years. The learning experience within the home context can vary considerably from school especially for very young learners, and this project focuses on the use of modelling which can take into account the informality and potentially contrasting learning styles experienced within the home and school.

Visualisation of Multidimensional Data for Medical Decision Support

Medical decision support tools are not widely used by clinicians, perhaps because most do not explain the decisions. We describe an approach for case-based systems using automated pattern recognition techniques. Multivariate methods estimate the degree of similarity between a new case and those in the database, and graphical displays allow users to combine this information with their own expertise. The approach is demonstrated by an example, the Spectra Visualizer, which allows radiologists to interpret magnetic resonance spectra. The variables in the overview are derived directly from the signals obtained from the scanner. Spectra with similar classification profiles can be linked to clinical history, images and expert commentary.

Identifying Tools to Support Schools' Collaborative Teaching and Learning

Integration of e-Science and Grid technologies into curriculum teaching is currently an ambitious aim for teachers and school infrastructures to organise. However, it can expose classroom learners and teachers to a wider community of specialists and interested others, enriching the classroom experience beyond the knowledge of the local teacher. This paper reflects on two practical e-Science projects that utilised mobile hand-held technologies to bring the concepts of collaborative e-Science and the Grid to young scientists. Students engaged in hands-on exploration of their surroundings, and were able to communicate with pollution specialists and with a remote classroom of children who had used similar sensors. Communication and data sharing activities in these sessions exposed a requirement for a suite of tools and technologies not currently accessible to schools. From qualitative analysis of data across these two projects, we present a collection of supporting tools to help achieve this aim and future research direction.

Adequate Decision Support Systems Must Also Be Good Learning Environments

Decision support must provide adequate explanation; to do this decision support systems (DSSs) must also support learning. Users who want to understand the reasoning behind DSS output are expressing a desire to learn. During evaluations of our DSS, comments referring to its potential for use as a learning aid have been common. While DSSs may be useful in training if accompanied by sufficient learner motivation, access to experts, etc, they are not generally designed to actively support learning. Our evaluations lead us to the conclusion that ITS components and the application of established educational theory are necessary elements in the design of acceptable DSSs. Here, we describe our existing DSS and how it can be extended and reconfigured to provide adequate learning support.