Some resources based on our talk last Tuesday:
Resource #3
Yiannoutsou, N, Papadimitriou, I., Komis, V., & Avouris, N. (2009).”Playing with” museum exhibits: designing educational games mediated by mobile technology. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, Como, Italy, (pp. 230-233). ACM. Resource 4.pdf
Resource #2
Team 1 Photo
Resource #1 – Nicole O – Team 1
Russo, A., Watkins, J., and Groundwater-Smith, S. (2009). The impact of social media on informal learning in museums. Educational Media International. (46)2, 153-166.
In this article, the authors discuss how digital and social networking technologies can be used in informal/nonformal educational settings, like museums, to increase visitor participation and agency. They argue that just as formal educational institutions need to move away from the traditional, transmission models of learning, so should the more informal education venues. By understanding how people (they target young people – students in K-12) learn with technology, museums should incorporate more opportunities for participatory design and collaborative practices and that “Existing transmission models of learning may not take into account the ability to share resources for the purpose of reflection” (p.4). They emphasize the fact that with wikis, blogs, and other social media comes a new form of knowledge sharing that both formal and informal sites of learning must utilize. “Social media technologies have broadened learning options, shifting the focus from individual/institutional custodianship to participatory relationships where those involved in the learning process are seeking and sharing new knowledge” (p. 4). In this way, the authors argue, power structures and visitor agency are shifted.
Increasing Learner Participation and Agency through Social Media
In this session, Dana Carlisle Kletchka and Heather Hughes discuss how they use social media platforms in the Palmer Museum of Art and Edwin W. Zoller Gallery at Penn State. Their goals in using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, blogs, and Second Life are to facilitate a greater sense of participation and agency for visitors during museum visits. At a large university where everything needs to be edited before it is dispersed, the social networking platforms allow a type of freedom of communication that offers a quick way to disperse information. It also provides insider info about the museum to become accessible to the community.
Facebook:
Was the most active platform for museum visitors. Allows museum to include humor and less formal language – aspects that people aren’t used to experiencing with museums. Offers free, instantaneous methods of advertising and updating community about upcoming events (important advantage for a non-profit). Problems cited include the barrage of advertisements and the fact that Facebook owns a user’s content until they close it.
Twitter:
“Use twitter as breadcrumbs – tasting croutons or old, stale breadcrumbs” – like Facebook, allowed for instant dispersion of information about museum and short, non invasive updates. Considerations include striking a balance between informing and annoying – whether to create an event for everything that goes on.
Podcasts:
“People to decide what they want, when they want it, and how they want it.” Ipods available to the museum store – allows visitors to gain insight into the workings of the museum including commentary on installations and organization of gallery.
Blogs:
Offers way to connect students with content AND each other. Seen as “another classroom” by the museum instructors.Where the museum itself makes it hard to connect to the build in environment, students and visitors can use the blogs to discuss and synthesize their experiences with the artworks and gallery offerings.
Second Life:
Allows visitors that may never get a chance to geographically and physically visit the museum to experience it in an electronic community.
Summary Ideas: Social media platforms allow for the altering of boundaries between teachers and learners – multiple and diverse voices are exchanged and heard and changes the socio-historical framework of museums as don’t touch, don’t talk spaces. Creates a sense of community and allows community to expand.
Future Implications/Questions: Will PSU officially begin managing the sites – “official” penn State? What are the implications of this? Presenters mentioned talking to college editor to make sure the platforms follwed PSU protocol.
Team 1: Synthesis 2
Team 1: Design Response #2
Team 1 Response – Design
For this week’s submission, we created a Webspiration map. It looks great, but there is one problem – publishing it is cumbersome and unclear (bad design!).
To view our map without the notes/links enabled: Team 1 map
To view our full map, go to: Webspiration
and type in the following:
username: team 1 guest
password: team1guest
Go to Launch Webspiration – then to Recently Opened
You will get a message that says that you are just a viewer – click okay and then you can scroll around to see our map.
To see the text associated with our map, see below!
Elements of design
Visibility
-Users need to be able to see what their options are and perceive what the outcomes of their actions will be. To do so, there should be a visible structure and clue which “indicates what parts operate and how the user is to interact with the device” (Norman, 1990, p. 8). Norman’s door example illustrates that the designer should provide signals for users to recognize the operation of the object in a visual way.
See our bad design section below to view a counter example.
Feedback
-Users receive immediate information about what action has been done and its result. By receiving feedback, users can tell that they are operating in an appropriate and proper way.
-When they don’t receive feedback, users are left wondering if they accomplished what it was that they wanted to accomplish. The lack of immediate feedback makes it impossible to interpret the perceived actions of the device. Lack of feedback also prevents users from correcting/modifying their actions for future use.
Mapping
-Mapping is the relationship between two things: what you want to do and what appears to be possible. In order to accomplish good design, those relationships should be natural and intuitive. The relationship between controls and actions need to be apparent to the user.
-If mapping is visible, clearly related to the desired outcome, and provides immediate feedback, it will be easily learned and remembered (Norman, 1990).
Conceptual models
– In the description of his refrigerator, Norman introduces what often presents a hurdle to understanding design: lack of clear conceptual model. The directions for the thermostat of a refrigerator were easier than the actual process of using the thermostat. This concept relates to Argyris’ Theories of Action. The contradiction of theory of action versus the theory in use, which establishes the difference between how something is justified/explained and what is actually going on (Argyris 1957, 1962, 1964).
-In educational research, we experience Theories of Action when interviewing subjects for a study, for example teachers. The way they might describe their teaching might be vastly different than what we observe when we are in their classroom. This contradiction problematizes our study, just like it problematizes operating the refrigerator thermostat.
-Apple products are often considered well-designed because their conceptual models allow them to contain visible clues to their operation. We can easily predict the effects of our actions when using these products.
Good Design
Examples of good design
An example of user-friendly design
Does this count as good design?
Bad Design
-Bad design perpetuates when useless/confusing things become reified and remain as part of the design despite their problems. For example, the “R” button on Don Norman’s phone at the Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge (p. 21). The designer of the phone could not even explain what it was there for.
Examples of bad design
Yikes! Click here for a Subaru cup holder debacle
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Diffusion
Innovation
-An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption. An innovation does not actually have to be something that is new to everyone, but rather if an idea seems new to the individual it is an innovation.
-“Newness” of an innovation may be expressed in terms of knowledge, persuasion, or a decision to adopt (Rogers, p.12)
Time
-It takes time to decide on adoption of a new innovation. Sometimes decisions are made not by individuals, but by communities.
–Questions: How might this alter the relationships among members? How does it affect individual participants?
Communication Channels
-The idea that people tend to accept innovations when they view people like them demonstrating or trying out those innovations directly relates to the psychology behind commercials. While not all commercials are promoting “new” innovations, some do. That is why, for example, new mothers are depicted on new diaper commercials. How does the idea of homophily relate to our understanding of participants/members of a community?
-Are we more likely to accept innovations that are communicated to us through our established communities because of the homophily that exists? Do we think that if it works for someone who is similar to ourselves then it will work for us as well?
-How does the notion of “if it works for someone else it may work for me” fit into our own identity?
Social System
-Is a social system the same thing as community? Or are new designs accepted differently in the social system as a whole rather than in individual communities?
-What may be accepted as a new design in a certain community may be rejected by the social system as a whole because it is not acceptable to the system. There may be certain communities that deviate from the social system on a minor scale but what is accepted as a design in the community may be different than what is accepted as design in the social system.
-Maybe communities would be the “units” of the social system that Rogers mentions (p. 23 – 24).
*IMPLICATIONS OF DESIGN FOR EDUCATION
-Motivation for students is an important issue, one that is inherently wrapped up in the design of classroom activities. If directions are clear and the activity makes sense to students (aka if the conceptual models are clear), then motivation and self-efficacy seem to increase provided that the activity is appealing to the students. In other words, if a task is “do-able”, students are more likely to engage.
-We have to make sure not to be “innovation-oriented” rather than “client-oriented” with our students. We don’t want to focus so much on the technology/innovation that we forget to take our students’ backgrounds and needs into account.
-Just as the poorly designed QWERTY keyboard has perpetuated, we often perpetuate the status quo in a system of education that is not well designed. How can we as teachers make sure that we are innovators and change agents within our education system? How do we feel when authority innovation-decisions (Rogers, p. 28-29) get handed down to us? Are we less likely to want to implement the innovation because we are now being required to do so?
-What happens if teachers do fall into the “late majority/laggards” category of adopting innovations while students are “innovators/early adopters”?
Design of Webspiration Analyzed…
-When we went to publish – ALL of the notes and links we created were no longer active!!! BAD DESIGN for sharing to a web page or blog!
-Too many thoughts/ideas = too many bubbles. There does not seem to be an easy way to keep the map from getting unwieldy and overwhelming to the user other than limiting what we choose to talk about.
-There doesn’t seem to be a way to preview what the map will look like to the final user or to preview what the user’s interactions will be like with the map.
-It was often difficult to place the linking arrows between bubbles exactly where we wanted them to be, as there was a requirement for them to attach only at specific points on the square editing area (which is only available to the editor).
-Good design was demonstrated in that it was extremely intuitive to select multiple bubbles at once (using the shift button) and change their color with just one click rather than having to change each bubble individually.
-The ability to insert hyperlinks into the map is a good function. It made it easy to insert video and other images that users could easily interact with.
– The chat function is a great one, an addition that many express need for in google docs. That said, while members can chat about their map, they are not permitted to edit the map concurrently. This provides problems, as one member has to wait for another to finish or take a break before he or she can edit.
Update of Did You Know?
Team 2 posted some great videos for this week (thanks!), and I wanted to add by posting an updated version of the Did You Know? video.
Team 1 Synthesis – Definitions 2.0
Community
Design is an invented artifact that is used for structuring activity or for saving mental work to meet humans’ constant desire to recraft their environments (Pea, 1993). The idea of design is malleable and it is shaped by identity. Conversely, identity can be shaped by design, as seen in the design of traditional educational systems where certain student identities (i.e. academic) are valued over others.