Rosemary Luckin

“Making it real”: exploring the potential of augmented reality for teaching primary school science

The use of augmented reality (AR) in formal education could prove a key component in future learning environments that are richly populated with a blend of hardware and software applications. However, relatively little is known about the potential of this technology to support teaching and learning with groups of young children in the classroom. Analysis of teacher–child dialogue in a comparative study between use of an AR virtual mirror interface and more traditional science teaching methods for 10-year-old children, revealed that the children using AR were less engaged than those using traditional resources. We suggest four design requirements that need to be considered if AR is to be successfully adopted into classroom practice. These requirements are: flexible content that teachers can adapt to the needs of their children, guided exploration so learning opportunities can be maximised, in a limited time, and attention to the needs of institutional and curricular requirements.

The learner centric ecology of resources: A framework for using technology to scaffold learning

This paper is based upon a Keynote presentation at CAL07 and extends previous introductory descriptions of the Ecology of Resources model of educational contexts. The relationships between the elements in the Ecology of Resources are a particular focus for discussion here. In particular, we consider how we might use the Ecology of Resources model to scaffold learning so that a wide range of the resources available to a learner within their context can be used to best support their learning needs. Resources here include people, technologies and artifacts. We look for ways in which they can be linked and marshaled in a learner centric manner and draw on the HOMEWORK and VeSEL projects as practical examples of the way the Ecology of Resources framework can be used.

Do Web 2.0 tools really open the door to learning? Practices, perceptions and profiles of 11–16‐year‐old students

In this paper, we report on survey and focus group data relating to the activities and perceptions of learning with Web 2.0 technologies of students aged between 11 and 16 years in 27 UK secondary schools. The study confirms that these learners had high levels of access to Web 2.0 technologies and that Web 2.0 activities were prolific. However, patterns of use were complex. The types of activity evidenced by the study suggest that learners can be categorised into four main groups: (1) researchers: mainly in terms of reading with little evidence of critical enquiry or analytical awareness; (2) collaborators: mainly with respect to file sharing, gaming and communicating; (3) producers and (4) publishers: mainly in terms of sharing experience through social networking sites. Whilst most expressed an interest in using online technologies to support familiar school activities, such as presentations or for communication, learners seemed cautious about other values associated with Web 2.0 tools, such as the shared construction of knowledge in a public format. Few learners were familiar with the complete spectrum of Web 2.0 activities and only a small number were engaging in more sophisticated activities, such as producing and publishing self‐created content for wider consumption. There was little evidence of groundbreaking activities and only a few embryonic signs of criticality, self‐management or metacognitive reflection. The paper concludes that these higher order thinking skills need to be encouraged and supported in any attempt to use Web 2.0 for learning in formal education.

Designing multimedia for learning: narrative guidance and narrative construction

Narrative is fundamental to the ways we make sense of texts ofall kinds because it provides structure and coherence, but it isdifficult to see how this works in the context of multimediainteractive learning environments (MILES). We tested our hypothesesabout the form and function of narrative in MILES by developingthree versions of material on CD-ROM which had different narrativestructures and analysed the impact of the different versions onlearner behaviour. We present a theoretical framework in which weexplain the concepts of narrative guidance and narrativeconstruction and their application to the design of MILES.

Technology to support parental engagement in elementary education: Lessons learned from the UK

This paper compares and contrasts two projects in order to better understand the complex issues surrounding the use of technology to support parental involvement with schools and their childrens learning. The Becta-funded ICT Test Bed evaluation (2002-2006) had the intention of saturating schools (in three areas of social deprivation) with a range of technologies, including 23 elementary schools. The ESRC/EPSRC/DTI-funded Homework project (2003-2006) used participatory design methods to develop and evaluate technology to link home and school in a elementary school in the South East. Both projects shared a common theoretical foundation, that of socio-cultural theory. The theory influenced the evaluation methodology employed in both projects and in the Homework project it additionally influenced the design of the technology intervention. Findings suggest that technologies with readily accessible and interactive resources that are flexible can help develop parental engagement. However, simpler and less resource hungry solutions such as the use of websites and email can provide opportunities for quick wins. In relation to transporting technology between home and school, there are issues for both staff and parents. Without purposeful use, these challenges act as a barrier once they outweigh the novelty effect. We conclude that parental needs are complex and that engagement needs to be sensitively scaffolded rather than focussing on the technology. Participatory design offers an effective means of addressing this and should be the starting point. The technology should facilitate independence and mediate access to a shared space for collaborative activity. The content and guidance needs to be purposeful and relevant, offering a means to integrate learning across the learners broader context, including school and home seamlessly.

Getting to Know Me: Helping Learners Understand Their Own Learning Needs through Metacognitive Scaffolding

Software scaffolding has been successfully employed within educational technology to help bridge the recognition-production gap between what learners want to achieve and what they are able to effect themselves without assistance. Such work has however concentrated on scaffolding the learner at the domain level with less attention to the potential for providing explicit support at the Metacognitive level. Evidence from previous work has shown that less able and less knowledgeable learners are especially ineffective at selecting appropriately challenging tasks and seeking appropriate qualities and quantities of support and guidance [1, 2]. But how can we make learners more effective at reflecting on their own needs, at seeking appropriate challenges and appropriate support? We have used a participatory design approach to assist young learners in the design process so that they can, in turn, assist us as we develop Metacognitive scaffolding strategies. These strategies have been implemented in Ecolab II. Early results are encouraging and suggest that low ability children can too be scaffolded to greater success.

Towards Systems That Care: A Conceptual Framework based on Motivation, Metacognition and Affect

This paper describes a Conceptual Framework underpinning “Systems that Care” in terms of educational systems that take account of motivation, metacognition and affect, in addition to cognition. The main focus is on motivation, as learning requires the student to put in effort and be engaged, in other words to be motivated to learn. But motivation is not the whole story as it is strongly related to metacognition and affect. Traditional intelligent educational systems, whether learner-centred or teacher-centred in their pedagogy, are characterised as having deployed their intelligence to assist in the development of the learners knowledge or skill in some domain. They have operated largely at the cognitive level and have assumed that the learner is already able to manage her own learning, is already in an appropriate affective state and also is already motivated to learn. This paper starts by outlining theories of motivation and their interactions with affect and with metacognition, as developed in the psychological and educational literatures. It then describes how such theories have been implemented in intelligent educational systems. The first part of the Conceptual Framework develops the notion of a partial hierarchy of systems in terms of their pedagogic focus. These range from traditional, cognitively intelligent systems, essentially concerned with cognition up to “Systems that Care”. Intermediate classes of system include Metacognitively Intelligent systems, Affectively Intelligent systems and Motivationally Intelligent systems. The second part of the Conceptual Framework is concerned with the design of systems. This is characterised in terms of (i) the kinds of diagnostic input data (such as the learners facial expression offering clues as to her demeanour) and (ii) the repertoire of tactical and strategic pedagogic moves (such as offering encouragement), applicable at different levels of the hierarchy. Attention is paid to metacognition, meta-affect and meta-motivation covering the capability of both the learner and the educational system to understand, reason about and regulate cognition, affect and motivation. Finally, research questions and areas of further work are identified in theory development, the role of the meta levels, and design considerations.

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.

Motivating the learner: an empirical evaluation

The M-Ecolab was developed to provide motivational scaffolding via an on-screen character whose demeanour defended on modelling the learners motivational state at interaction time. Motivational modelling was based on three variables: effort, independence and the confidence. A classroom evalu-ation was conducted to illustrate the effects of motivational scaffolding. Students had an eighty minute interaction with the M-Ecolab, divided into two sessions. The results suggested a positive effect of the motivational scaffolding, particularly for initially de-motivated students who demonstrated higher learning gains. We found that these students followed the suggestions of the on-screen character which delivered personalized feedback. They behaved in a way that was conducive to learning by being challenge-seekers and displaying an inclination to exert more effort. This paper gives a detailed account of the methodology and findings that resulted from the empirical evaluation.

I'm keeping those there, are you? The role of a new user interface paradigm - Separate Control of Shared Space (SCOSS) - in the collaborative decision-making process

We take a socio-cultural approach to comparing how dual control of a new user interface paradigm - Separate Control of Shared Space (SCOSS) - and dual control of a single user interface can work to mediate the collaborative decision-making process between pairs of children carrying out a multiple categorisation word task on a shared computer. Qualitative analysis focuses on how the interface properties of SCOSS can encourage each child to participate in the task and to represent their own opinions as part of the process of reaching final joint agreement. We conclude by suggesting additional features to improve the content of collaborative conversations and by proposing other contexts that may benefit from this interface.