Monthly Archive for June, 2007

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The effect of a telepointer on student performance and preference

Published on 6/4/2007 in References. Closed

Adams, J., Rogers, B., Hayne, S., Mark, G., Nash, J., and Leifter, L. (2005). The effect of a telepointer on student performance and preference. Computers & Education, 44(1):35–51. [pdf]

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the studies involving the use of telepointers. The paper itself demonstrate how the presence of the telepointer in an experimental course improved the students’ recall of the contents thaught. [More]

While the telepointer has been widely accepted in the Computer Supported Collaborative Work community, little work has been done to quantify its effect on performance and perception. We present preliminary results quantifying the telepointer’s effect on knowledge retention and satisfaction in an online collaboration. In experiments, a remote expert communicated with small student groups to explain an online scanning probe microscope (SPM) interface. The expert used two-way audio-video plus a telepointer to describe the interface to half of the participants, and only two-way audio-video (no telepointer) with the other half. The data show that use of a telepointer improved task completion time tenfold and long-term knowledge test performance by 30-40% on specific concepts. The telepointer group was also more likely to rate the online SPM as a substitute for a local SPM and felt the expert was significantly less distant than did the non-telepointer group.

Adams Telepointer

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Redefining the turn-taking notion in mediated communication of virtual learning communities

Published on 6/4/2007 in References. Closed

Reyes, P. and Tchounikine, P. (2004). Redefining the turn-taking notion in mediated communication of virtual learning communities. Intelligent Tutoring Systems, pages 295–304. [pdf]

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In our research on social interactions taking place in forum-type tools that virtual learning communities use, we have found that the users have the following particular temporal behavior: they answer generally some messages situated in different threads in a very short time period, in a digest-like way. This paper shows this work pattern through a quantitative study and proposes an integration of this work pattern in a Forum-type tool developed for supporting the interactions of virtual learning communities through the creation of a new structure we will name Session. This structure allows the turn-taking of threaded conversations in an orderly fashion to become visible.

Reyes Mailgroup

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iMapFan: a GPS Map Chat

Published on 6/3/2007 in Diary and Links. Closed

This is one of those iMode services that emerges from the FOMA ecology. We are not going to see it soon in Europe. The concept behind is really interesting. showing your position while you chat enriches each message with contextual information. Then the chat participants can phrase their messages in a different way. They do not have to specify lots of details as these are already encoded by the availability of their position.

“iMapFan” is a map service for imode which offers a range of services including a map-based search, car navigation and “I’m here!” emails. Today they launched a new service, “Map Messenger” – a map-based GPS chat application.

Members of the chat are displayed on the map with according to their GPS location and the application has three modes – centre on yourself, centre on the other parties or an automatic mode which zooms in and out of the map to provide the best view of all chat members. It also has an alert function which vibrates when someone on your buddy list is near.

Imapfanmess

Telepresence: integrating shared task and person spaces

Published on 6/1/2007 in References. Closed

Buxton, W. (1992). Telepresence: integrating shared task and person spaces. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface ’92, pages 123–129, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society. [pdf]

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This paper argues that current research on telepresence is dicotomized between works aiming at establishing consistent shared spaces and those supporting a sense of shared presence. The paper concludes that the integration of these two spaces is important: the smoothness of transitions. There are different cases and we should adapt technology to support this variety.

The impact of increased awareness while face-to-face

Published on 6/1/2007 in References. Closed

DiMicco, J. M., Hollenbach, K. J., Pandolfo, A., and Bender, W. (2007). The impact of increased awareness while face-to-face. Human-Computer Interaction, 22(1). [pdf]

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The experimental results presented in this paper demonstrates that a display showing real-time participation levels, imposing a norm of equal participation on a group, causes those at the hightst levels of participation to decrease the amount they speak. Reviewing the turn-taking patterns with a visualization causes those who spoke the least to increase the amount the speak in a subsequent discussion.

This paper presents Second Messenger, a system of dynamic awareness displays that reveal speaker participantion patterns in a face-to-face meetings, increasing indviducals’ awareness of their own and others’ participantion in discussion. Experimental results indicate that these displays influence the amount an individual participates in a discussion and the procerss of information ahsring used during a decision.making task. These findings suggest that awareness applications brings about systematic changes in group communication styles, highlighting the potential for such applications to be designed to improve group interactions.

Dimicco Secondmessanger