Noriko H. Arai

TelMeA: expressive avatars in asynchronous communications

TelMeA is an asynchronous online community system that uses avatars to enact the messages of the users. We present an overview of the system, including the results of a usability study and its effect on the redesign of the system. Furthermore we present an empirical evaluation of the avatars animations. The animations offer a wide repertoire of expressions along the valence dimension, but additional animations with low arousal should be added. Next we performed a case study of TelMeA in Japan. The members of the community more often used the high arousal and extreme valence animations, but the more subtle animations were still used in 30% of all cases. The less frequent use of subtle expressions could be explained by the fact they are not necessary in an asynchronous communication to negotiate turn taking.

Social summarization for semantic society

We propose the concept of social summarization as a new technology for semantic computing. Social summarization focuses on human evaluative acts toward information, and provides an alternative to the content-based methods employed in the conventional information summarization technologies. We describe the idea of social summarization and its implementation in the community system TelMeA2003, which is being developed to investigate its effectiveness in supporting collaborative activities in online communities. We also report on the preliminary analysis of TelMeA2003 based on our experience obtained in a distance learning community e-Kyositu.

DEVELOPMENT OF A DATABASE MODULE FOR INFORMATION LITERACY EDUCATION THROUGH THE CONSTRUCTION OF COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE

As the result of wide spread of self-exploratory, efficient, and user-friendly personal computers, the major interest of the ICT literacy has been shifting from how to use the computer and connect the network to how to create new value using them. One of the recent interests is the system and the pedagogy to support youngsters to learn how to collaborate on the Web and create the collective knowledge. When students participate in the construction of collective knowledge in class, drawing on contexts such as the real Web, they can develop information literacy that is not limited to operational skills such as using a computer, connecting to the Internet, and searching for information. In this study, we developed the “multidatabase” module to enable ordinary teachers inexperienced in ICT to provide an effective information literacy class. Teachers can use this module in conjunction with study worksheets, which are widely used in school education. We assessed the effectiveness of this module in a fifth grade elementary class, clarifying that, through the use of the “multidatabase,” (1)students can easily participate in the construction of collective knowledge and (2)students’ motivation increases, and results are also achieved in the specific subject area covered.