Teresa Cerratto Pargman

Collaborating with writing tools An instrumental perspective on the problem of computer-supported collaborative activities

This paper presents an analysis of the modifications that a synchronous computer support for collaborative writing introduces into the organization of the co-authors’ writing. The analysis is grounded in case studies of different groups of co-authors writing a report together face-toface and at a distance through a collaborative writing computer system. Drawing from these studies I suggest that the problems using a collaborative writing computer system to provide a fully collaborative writing environment derive from underlying assumptions concerning collaboration within the co-authoring activity. I point out that a more thorough understanding of how co-authors organize their writing can provide resources to envisage more radical solutions to the problem of computer support for collaboration. I conclude by considering ways, which might be adequate to reconfigure collaborative writing systems in order to provide more satisfactory support for collaboration in writing environments.

Mobile Devices as Support Rather than Distraction for Mobile Learners: Evaluating Guidelines for Design

This article questions the design of mobile learning activities that lead students to spend time focusing on the mobile devices at the expense of interacting with other students or exploring the environment. This problem is approached from an interaction design perspective, designing and analysing geometry-learning activities. The authors present six guidelines for designing mobile learning activities, where mobile devices support rather than distract students from contents and contexts relevant to the learning goals. The guidelines are developed through video analysis of groups of middle school students doing learning activities outdoors and evaluated using the task model. The guidelines suggest that students 1 assume roles based on a different functionality of each device, 2 use devices as contextual tools, that the activities, 3 include physical interaction with the environment, 4 let teachers assume roles, 5 encourage face-to-face communication, and 6 introduce students to the mobile devices.

Transforming grammar checking technology into a learning environment for second language writing

This paper focuses on the transformation of grammar checking technology into a learning environment for second language writing. Our starting point is a grammar checker for Swedish, called Granska. Two studies have been conducted aimed at exploring the use of computer support for writing in the context of second language learning. In the first study, we developed a methodology to study naturalistic writing, and the impact of the grammar checker on the writers text. In the second study, we were interested in how the methodology developed earlier would work in an educational setting. The problems with false alarms and limited recall are definitely a sensitive issue in the context of second language learners and educational settings. Both learners and teachers are concerned about the false alarms, and without perfectly working text analyzers, new strategies for dealing with these problems have to be further explored and developed together with learners and teachers.

Evaluating Interaction with Mobile Devices in Mobile Inquiry-Based Learning

We evaluate to what extent students are interacting with mobile devices in one of four ways intended in the design of a mobile learning activity. Video data from one class of fifth grade students were analyzed using a model of four different types of interaction. The evaluation shows that the students interacted with the devices in the ways intended in design 64% of the time. The contribution is an approach for translating learning goals to interaction design goals in mobile learning research. We conclude that this approach can be of value in designing and evaluating interaction with mobile devices for an entire mobile learning activity.

Appropriating the use of a Moo for collaborative learning

The study presents an analysis of the activities of professional teachers while they use a text-based computer-mediated communication system called a Moo. The teachers, who are geographically distributed, attend a professional training course in education and information technology. The focus is on the appropriation process with regard to using the artifact within their learning and teaching activity. In order to analyze this process, participants’ text-based communication was logged and the data was treated both quantitatively and qualitatively. We found that interaction through the artifact brings a modification in the organization of the classroom discourse and in particular in the teachers’ communication schemes. We observed that the teachers-as-students attending the online training used the artifact mainly for the establishment and maintenance of relationships. They appropriated the features of the artifact that allowed them to ‘talk’ and exchange personal experiences rather easily. They did not however, elaborate online information shared with the others. q 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The student, the private and the professional role: Students' social media use

Research has shown that students perceive a distinct divide between educational and private use of social media. The present study explores this divide by focusing on master students’ perception of roles when using social media in a higher education context. A qualitative method has been used, mainly comprising of analyses of home exams and interviews, which were conducted with students enrolled in the master’s course “Social media technologies”. Results support previous research stating that students perceived a distinct divide between educational and private use of social media, and furthermore provide a more detailed understanding of this divide. The results from the study also indicate that there is yet another type of use: social media as a tool for career-building purposes, or what is labeled as professional use. Implications of social media for use in higher education are described through the analysis of three roles as performed by the individual: the student role in educational settings, the professional role for career-building, and the private role.

When Teaching Practices Meet Tablets’ Affordances. Insights on the Materiality of Learning

Research on tablets in schools is currently dominated by the effects these devices have on our children’s learning. Little has yet been said about how these devices contribute and participate in established school practices. This study delves into the questions of what do tablet-mediated teaching practices look like in Swedish schools and how are these practices valued by teachers? We collected data in four Swedish schools that were part of the one-to-one program financed by their municipalities. We apply qualitative and quantitative analysis methods on 22 deep interviews, 20 classrooms observations and 30 teachers’ responses to an online survey. The study identifies a set of tablet-mediated teaching practices that lead to a deeper understanding of how affordances of media tablets configure contemporary forms of learning.

Provocation, Conflict, and Appropriation: The Role of the Designer in Making Publics

The role and embodiment of the designer/artist in making publics is significant. This special issue draws attention to reflexive practices in Art & Design, and questions how these practices are embedded in the formations and operations of publics, grounded in six cases of participatory design conducted in the United States, India, Turkey, England, Denmark, and Belgium. From these design practices, typologies of participation are formulated that describe the role of the designer. These typologies describe different and sometimes conflicting epistemologies—providing designers with a vocabulary to communicate a diversity of participatory settings and supporting reflexive practices.

One Tablet, Multiple Epistemic Instruments in the Everyday Classroom

Grounded in the analyses of 23 semi-structured interviews and 31 field notes from classroom observations, this study scrutinizes the relationships that teachers and learners entertain with/through the tablet in their process of technology appropriation in the classroom. The results reveal that, on the one hand, the learners elaborate a variety of instruments from their interactions with the tablet and, on the other hand, that the teachers’ appropriation plays a central role in configuring a creative, critical and participatory pedagogy in the contemporary classroom.

Embodied Interaction or Context-Aware Computing? An Integrated Approach to Design

This paper revisits the notion of context from an interaction design perspective. Since the emergence of the research fields of Computer supported cooperative work and Ubiquitous computing, the notion of context has been discussed from different theoretical approaches and in different research traditions. One of these approaches is Embodied Interaction. This theoretical approach has in particular contributed to (i) challenge the view that user context can be meaningfully represented by a computer system, (ii) discuss the notion of context as interaction through the idea that users are always embodied in their interaction with computer systems. We believe that the particular view on users context that the approach of Embodied Interaction suggests needs to be further elaborated in terms of design. As a contribution we suggest an integrated approach where the interactional view of Embodied Interaction is interrelated with the representational view of Context-aware computing.