PhD projects
The impact of Mobile Technology on young diabetics’ self-management with focus on cooperation
Marie Glasemann
In my PhD thesis, I explore how mobile technologies can assist diabetic children and adolescence in their actions and learning in relation to their disease in everyday life. Because cooperation is a central issue for this target group, I want to examine where and how mobile technology can facilitate and extend cooperation with existing or new cooperation partners as well as where and how this technology has to be designed to gradually help the diabetics release their dependency on cooperation with their parents.
The objective of my PhD project is to find concepts for mobile systems with a focus on the user perspective by applying participatory design methods. In particular, I want to investigate to what extend it is possible to translate the interests and visions of young diabetics and their families, which are often contradictory. This must be accomplished without loosing track of the medical viewpoint and of learning theory that emphasizes the aspect of cooperation.
My research also focuses on how to apply participatory design with young diabetics to transfer established concepts for mobile systems into design, implementation and evaluation. To do this, two methodological questions are to be explored for finding new ways of participations in a design process with users. The first question concerns how a variety of participation possibilities involve and empower users with different characteristics, facilitate the innovation and design process positively. The second question concerns how to build up a planned research infrastructure and test environment to promote and test cooperation with partners and systems in context. Read more about my current activities as PhD student on maries-phd.tumblr.com
User Creativity in Online Gaming Communities: Understanding User Experience as Narrative Engagement
Anne-Mette Albrechtslund
One of the central characteristics of computer gaming is that it demands creative activity and performance from the user, whether it be simply clicking on the right button at the right time or moving around in a vast virtual world, handling various levels of goals and situations. But not only gaming itself invites this high level of creativity – around various types of computer games, communities arise, where players creatively relate to the game and to themselves as players, and they seem to be doing this through various forms of storytelling. In this way, values and identities are formed, negotiated and exchanged at the intersection of game, community and user. In other words, computer games are examples of design that engages the user immensely, and in my project, I wish to seek out and describe this user engagement.
The empirical focus of the project is acts of user-creativity in communities around two of the most popular pc games in the world: the MMORPG World of Warcraft (Blizzard 2004) and the ’life simulation’ game The Sims 1 and 2 (Maxis, 2000 and 2004). The activity of players in gaming communities are studied through ethnographic methods such as participant observation, interviews, surveys, and readings of chatlogs, message boards, forums etc. The empirical investigation is framed by a theoretical reflections and discussions about the role of narrative in the user experience in relation to computer games.
My project is guided by the idea that narrativity offers a fundamental framework for meaningful experience and interaction in our lives, online as well as offline. This idea rests especially on the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur about the relationship between narrative and identity, which implicates that we understand our personal identity through narrative and emplotting, that these narratives involve not only other people and their narratives, but also greater cultural and social narratives. And as personal identity is a narrative identity also means that identity is something dynamic, not fixed. Moreover, Ricoeur’s theories on mimesis as a dynamic process, are highly relevant as an illustration of gaming also being an interpretative and constantly reconfiguring experience.
In short, the purpose of my project is to investigate and describe the narrative practices in online communities around computer games, with the intention of grasping which qualities about these games and their communities are facilitating and encouraging user creativity and engagement.
Online Communities of practice as a driving force for transforming educational practices in higher education
Mayela Coto
The research project is related with teacher professional development, addressing specifically the introduction of technology and project-based approaches into teaching and learning in the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica (UNA). The project underlines on the belief that learning as part of a community of practice can provide a powerful model for teacher professional development and in the belief that problem oriented project pedagogy can be used to shift from a model based on delivery of information towards a model favoring learning as knowledge construction. Then, the main goal of the project is to explore how the introduction of technology and problem and project based pedagogy in the teaching practice can be used to foster the emergence of a productive community of practice.
The project uses an incremental approach to develop a new framework for flexible learning, regarding UNA teachers as the main agents of their professional development and considering their diverse fields of knowledge and approaches to teaching and learning. The project has two phases: 1) to design the pedagogical and social framework to support a course about the introduction of technology and problem and project-based approaches in teaching and learning (as the first step to promote the formation of an online community of practice), and 2) to analyze the conditions to nurture a productive community of practice in order to transform teacher’s practice.
Design based research as a systematic methodology aimed to improve educational practices through iterative analysis, design, development, and implementation, based on collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings, is the methodology that supports the project. Because the researchers are established in Denmark and the practitioners are in Costa Rica, techniques as video conference, video and virtual ethnography will be used to interact and to collect the data.
The theoretical basis proposed for this research is a socio cultural perspective on human learning and development, and the project is recognized in the scientific field of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL).
Blind students studying System Engineering: What do they need?
Ronald Vargas Brenes
Costa Rica approved in 1996 the 7600 law: Equal opportunities for people with disabilities.
Even though, the Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica (UNA) has made significant efforts to support students with disabilities, the reality is that these efforts have not reached a formal study about special requirements that could be needed for different careers, particularly for System Engineering.
The main objective of my PhD research project is to understand how blind students could face the challenge of studying System Engineering.
I will use an ethnographic approach, to have an understanding of blind students’ reality, in order to comprehend their strengths and weaknesses and to explore the difficulties for blind students to study System Engineering. As fundamental components I am going to analyze the current curricula and the tools available in the market. Regards to the curricula to discover what parts are difficult to handle and maybe, which ones do not have a tool to support them. Regards with the tools, which artifacts the students are already using and how they could be applied to the new requirements induced by the curricula. Also, researching new tools to support uncovered difficulties will be necessary, as well as considering the usage of resources available at UNA.
If it is not possible to cover all the requirements, further phases should be necessary to conduct to build the missing tools, and in fact, this is a consequence of this project, therefore it is out of its scope.
Understanding Youth and Online Social Networking
Malene Charlotte Larsen
In my PhD project I am studying how Danish youngsters use social network sites as part of their everyday life. I am especially interested in the dissolution of online vs. offline, which characterises the way social network sites are used by youth. As several studies on online social networking have shown, users do not distinguish between online and offline. The digital space should not be seen as a replacement, but rather a continuation of the physical space, which primarily support pre-existing social relations or offline friends. Therefore, a division between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ should not be made when studying online social networking and youth.
Based on this position, I am studying the online experiences of Danish youngsters between the age of 12 and 18 years old in order to understand what online social networking means to them and how social networking sites are integrated as part of everyday life and how everyday life is represented and mediated in the digital space.
Read more about my project on My PhD Blog
Implementation of ICT in Higher Education
Tom Nyvang
Implementation of new technologies in higher education presents a range of challenges related to pedagogical, organisational and technological change. The primary goal of the project is to develop an understanding of the implementation processes and suggest methods and techniques that support implementation of ICT in teaching and learning at a university.
Most of the existing research on the subject deals with designing, programming, using and evaluating technology while little attention is given to getting to use and developing use in practise which are the focus of this project.
The project analyses implementation processes with inspiration from cultural-historical activity theory. It also draws on the Scandinavian tradition of systems development with a strong focus on user involvement in the process, organisational learning and finally research on design of virtual learning environments. The empirical base of the project is a development project within Humanistic Informatics, a program within the humanities at Aalborg University.
Identity, Embodiment and Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds – a Problem Oriented Project Pedagogical Perspective
Marianne Riis
The overall purpose of the project will be to explore the learning potential in 3D virtual worlds seen from a problem oriented project pedagogy perspective. I’m currently exploring Second Life (SL), where I was born on March 26th 2007 as the avatar Maris Mills. In November/December 2007 I facilitated a course in SL with 22 students from The Danish Master Programme on ICT and Learning (MIL).
My assumption is that especially avatar mediation enhances the experience of embodiment, identity and subjectivity, and thus the commitment and engagement in the learning environment. This of course is regarded as positive and promising, since more traditional 2D virtual learning environments often fail in creating a strong sense of community, among both students and teachers, which I consider essential in any learning situation. The GUI and the ability to create user-generated content also contribute in ensuring student participation and orientation, which are central aspects in Problem Oriented Project Pedagogy (POPP). Many more promising features in 3D virtual worlds as learning environments could be pointed out. Even though I’m quite excited about the potentials, I’m not blind to the constraints – and both pros and cons will be focus points in my approach.
As for the methodological level, I expect to focus on 3D virtual ethnography and dialogue research. I’ll be using courses at MIL, and hopefully at a foreign university, in my research. Theoretically, I expect to draw on hermeneutics, phenomenology, dialogue design and various positions within CSdCL and networked learning in particular.
Active Playing and IT
Gitte Stoltenberg
The PhD project "Active Playing and IT" aims to investigate, how information and communication technology (IT) can contribute to strengthening of learning processes of adults with short-term training.
The project has two pivotal points; one of playing and learning, and one of design processes.
Considering the pivotal point of playing and learning, a part of the objective is to explain playing and learning in general: Are there any differences and similarities between playing and learning, considering adult working people rather than children.
Besides, it is specifically put into focus, how IT is used for playing, for instance in computer games.
The other pivotal point of the project is design of virtual learning environments. A part of the project's purpose is to develop prototypes and design proposals that can enter into concrete implementations of virtual learning environments.
In this part of the project, methodological work with the system development tradition 'participatory design' is carried out. Also, the research related equivalent: Action research. Of central importance to both traditions is cognition through practice and empirical testing of practical knowledge with representatives of the target group that one researches into, or with, or for whom one develops.
In practice situations - and afterwards -importance is attached to reflection, both by the researcher/developer and by the target group. Thus, a part of the project will include description of methods and techniques for the issue, I have chosen to call "reflexive design".
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