Peter Worthy

Are they using my feedback? The extent of students’ feedback use has a large impact on subsequent academic performance

Feedback is known to have a large influence on student learning gains, and the emergence of online tools has greatly enhanced the opportunity for delivering timely, expressive, digital feedback and for investigating its learning impacts. However, to date there have been no large quantitative investigations of the feedback provided by large teams of markers, feedback use by large cohorts of students, nor its impact on students’ academic performance across successive assessment tasks. We have developed an innovative online system to collect large-scale data on digital feedback provision and use. Our markers (n = 38) used both audio and typed feedback modalities extensively, providing 388 ± 4 and 1126 ± 37 words per report for first- and second-year students, respectively. Furthermore, 92% of first year and 85% of second-year students accessed their feedback, with 58% accessing their feedback for over an hour. Lastly, the amount of time students spent interacting with feedback is significantly related to the rate of improvement in subsequent assessment tasks. This study challenges assertions that many students do not collect, or use, their feedback. More importantly, we offer novel insights into the relationships between feedback provision, feedback use and successful academic outcomes.

Hand in Hand: Tools and techniques for understanding children's touch with a social robot

Robots that facilitate touch by children have special requirements in terms of safety and robustness, but little is known about how and when children actually use touch with robots. Tools and techniques are required to sense the variety of childrens touch and to interpret the volumes of data generated. This explorative user study investigated childrens patterns of touch during game play with a robot. We examined where the children touch the robot and their patterns of touch over time, using a raster-based visualisation of each childs time series of touches, recording patterns of touch across different games and children. We found that children readily engage with the robot, in particular spontaneously touching the robots hands more than any other area. This user study and the tools developed may aid future designs of robots to autonomously detect when they have been touched.

Children's Expectations and Strategies in Interacting with a Wizard of Oz Robot

This paper presents an analysis of childrens interactions with an early prototype of a robot that is being designed for deployment in early learning centres. 23 children aged 2-6 interacted with the prototype, consisting of a pair of tablets embedded in a flat and vaguely humanoid form. We used a Wizard of Oz (WoZ) technique to control a synthesized voice that delivered predefined statements and questions, and a tablet mounted as a head that displayed animated eyes. The childrens interactions with the robot and with the adult experimenter were video recorded and analysed in order to identify some of the childrens expectations of the robots behaviour and capabilities, and to observe their strategies for interacting with a speaking and minimally animated artificial agent. We found a surprising breadth in childrens reactions, expectations and strategies (as evidenced by their behaviour) and a noteworthy tolerance for the robots occasionally awkward behaviour.

Social Cardboard: Pretotyping a Social Ethnodroid in the Wild

Pretotyping is a set of techniques, tools, and metrics for gauging the interest in a product, prior to full-scale development [1]. This late breaking report describes a pretotyping case study of an ethnodroid - a robot that functions as an ethnographer - intended to engage with young children and record their learning progress. The central requirement for the project is that the robot will be able to interact socially with children aged 1-6 years in tablet-based tasks. We developed a simple robot made of MDF (thick cardboard), added tablets for the face and torso, and controlled a scripted interaction using Wizard of Oz (WoZ). Childrens engagement with the robot was tested in an early learning centre which provided a relatively structured environment (“in the lab”) and at a science fair which provided a relatively unconstrained setting (“in the wild”). The rapid testing revealed distinct effects in the childrens attitudes and behaviors in the two user contexts and provided insights into form, sensors and analyses for the design process.

IoT: Designing for Human Values

This one-day, embedded workshop will explore the design intersections of human values and internet of things (IoT) applications. In a day-long session we will configure and build small IoT devices (using the Particle platform), then deploy them to collect, share and publish the data they harvest throughout the conference. During the conference program we will reconvene to debate how a world of connected devices intersects with human values (such as privacy and transparency) and to articulate the specific challenges for designing a value-conscious IoT.

Designer-client communication in web design: a case study on the use of communication in practice

This paper reflects on a participant observational study that was conducted during a long-term iterative design project in which there was a high level of digital communication between the designers and clients. We describe a number of communication technologies that were employed to support the designer-client communication, and examine how successful they were in supporting this work. In our reflection we find that although the nature of digital communication between participants appears straightforward, there are a number of complexities in the roles and messiness that occurs throughout the design process. We examine how these channels were used in tandem to effectively communicate between the stakeholders, and explore why some technologies (primarily email) were more successful than others. Finally, we describe a number of patterns that emerged within the overall narrative, and reflect on ways in which these tools could be considered and designed in the future to better support this kind of project work.

Soundscape: building connection between digital musicians and their audience

Musical expression is a combination of the instruments, how the instruments are used to create the music, and the physical gestures of the performer. The experience of the audience is influenced by these factors. In many digital music performances, musical expression may be disassociated with the music that is produced due to the nature of the interactions between the musician and the technology interfaces used in the creation and performance of that music. Soundscape is a Digital Music Interface consisting of a large-scale stretch fabric interface where the performance consists of the combination of: physical movements of the musician; the sounds produced as a response to these movements; and, graphics projected onto the fabric interface. Through this combination, Soundscape seeks to establish a connection between a digital musician and their audience.

Exploring journalistic values through design: a student perspective

As journalism grapples with technological disruption, the value of its practices to audiences, and society more broadly, is being questioned. Journalism is underpinned by a strong value system that modern communication platforms sometimes obscure. Yet we know that technology can be designed to support values --- professional and more general human values. In this short paper, we present some initial findings of how students engaged with journalistic values through a human-centred design process. Through researching, designing and reflecting, aspiring journalists explored ideas for technologies that embodied journalistic values. The process revealed value tensions but also perspectives on the design of communication technology.

Could the Inherent Nature of the Internet of Things Inhibit Person-to-Person Connection?

The industry of the Internet of Things (IoT) is impacting the way we experience life as we know it. The IoT is making technology more pervasive and more embedded in our environment. This is driving a need to identify and understand the human values that are implicated by this technology and how those values are enacted when that technology is used in different contexts. This paper describes a project that explored the use of IoT technology to help foster a sense of community across residents in a multistory residential complex. Our design process revealed that, in a context shared by many, concerns and perceptions related to the monitoring capabilities of IoT technologies and/or the visualisation of the collected data represent a major issue when designing systems meant to engage people, even if that engagement is person to person. Therefore, the inherent nature of IoT technology may inhibit the establishment of a person-to-person connection.