Keynotes
Keynote Speakers at EC-TEL 08 will include:
- Kristina Höök about "Mind, mouse and body: designing engaging technologies"
- Manu Kapur talking about "Productive Failure"
- Roy Pea talking about "Fostering learning in the networked world"
Kristina Höök: "Mind, mouse and body: designing engaging technologies"
Abstract: Digital products that attempt to set the scene for emotional experiences, bodily interactions, persuasive processes, aesthetic experiences and other experiential qualities, are gaining grounds both in the commercial world and in the so-called “third-wave of HCI”-movement within academia. While a typical HCI-goals used to be ease of use or learnability, we now discuss design qualities such as suppleness, game play, embodiment, reflection, affective loops or pliability. In this talk, I will discuss these new design qualities and the kinds of challenges we meet when designing for physical, emotional, and bodily involvement. I will examplify with systems that we have built (or are building) in my lab, such as eMoto, mobile emotional messaging using gesture, Affective Diary, a way to remember your bodily and social experiences, and Affective Health, a mobile service empowering users to deal with stress.
Bio: Professor Kristina Höök is a full professor at Department of Computer and Systems Science, Stockholm University/KTH since February 2003. She also leads the Mobile Life Center and upholds a part-time position at Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS). The focus of her group is on social and affective interaction, narrative intelligence, in mobile settings. Methodwise, she works from user-centred design perspective. Höök and her research group have been exploring the idea of involving users both physically and cognitively in what they name an affective loop. The idea of an affective loop is for users to step by step interpret, become influenced, imitate and be involved with an (computer or mobile) application, both physically and cognitively. Höök and her group has created several demos that embody the affective loop idea.
Manu Kapur,
Learning Sciences Lab (LSL) of the National Institute of Education (NIE) of Singapore talking about Productive Failure
Abstract: Contrary to the commonly-held notion in educational research and the learning sciences that un-structured processes rarely lead to meaningful learning, I conceptualize the notion of productive failure to explore conditions under which there is a hidden efficacy of such processes in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) setting. In my talk, I will share findings from a fairly large-scale experimental study designed to demonstrate an existence proof for productive failure: engaging students in solving complex, ill-structured problems without the provision of external support structures can be a productive exercise in failure. N = 309, 11th-grade science students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions to solve problems in Newtonian kinematics. In one condition, students solved ill-structured problems in groups followed by well-structured problems individually. In the other condition, students solved well-structured problems in small groups followed by well-structured problems individually. Finally, all students solved ill-structured problems individually. Compared to groups who solved well-structured problems, groups who solved ill-structured problems expectedly struggled with defining and analyzing the problems. Their discussions were significantly more complex, chaotic, and divergent, resulting in poor group quality of solutions produced in the shorter term. However, despite failing in their collaborative, problem-solving efforts, these students outperformed their counterparts from the well-structured condition on individual near and far transfer measures subsequently, suggesting a latent productivity in what initially seemed to be failure. I will conclude my talk with theoretical, methodological, and design implications of productive failure, especially as they relate to the role of structure in learning and problem-solving activities.
Bio: Dr Manu Kapur is an Assistant Professor at the Learning Sciences Lab (LSL) of the National Institute of Education (NIE) of Singapore. His research applies the laws of self-organization and complexity to study the emergence of individual and collective cognition, both in online and face-to-face settings. His work focuses on the construct of productive failure to explore the hidden efficacies in the seemingly failed effort of collaborative groups solving complex, ill-structured problems without the provision of any external support structures. Manu received his doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York where he also completed a Master of Science in Applied Statistics. He also has a Master of Education from the NIE and a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (Honors) from the National University of Singapore.
Roy Pea, Professor of Education and the Learning Sciences at Stanford University, H-STAR Institute
"Fostering learning in the networked world"
The combination of "always on" mobile computing, location-aware services, open platform technologies, participatory media culture, immersive worlds and games, and increasingly open educational resources provides an exciting horizon for the next decade of research on technology-enhanced learning at all age levels. Exceptional resources for human learning and action will become continuously accessible through networks of information, people, and services. I will argue for the value of re-conceptualizing the nature of learning— from its goals to its infrastructures, and highlight key major research and theoretical challenges.
Bio: http://scil.stanford.edu/about/staff/bios/pea.html