Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Learning relationships

- user centred approach to the development of a learning

environment

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• Eurescom project: – Sustainability and Social Impact of ICT

on Schools, Homes and Community – Six countries (Britain, Finland,

Portugal, Norway, Iceland, Slovakia)

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Current Educational Services are mostly:– Individual-based– Teacher-centric

Future Educational Services need to be:– Community-based– Learner-centric

Rationale

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• build and demonstrate a learning service to support learning in both home and school and to support multiple communication and interaction in a web based learning environment

Goal of the project

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• Theoretical background: What is already known about communication and interaction in learning?

• Collect and analyse data: Data that identifies and classifies existing learning relationships

• Use the data to generate requirements for defining a new service

Main steps to achieve the goal:

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• build a prototype service (demo) from the selected service definition

• trial the prototype through field trials in schools and in community

• specify tools, principles and guidelines which are acceptable (usable & useful) to future service creators

• (Understand what parts of the concept are universal or are culturally specific)

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Key Predictorsof ‘good’ learningrelationships

Validation

Data collectionand

analysis

Theoretical work Rule base

Decisions of what data we need

Validation

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

ServiceDefinition

ServicePrototype

ServiceDefinition

ServiceDefinition

ServiceTrial

ServiceCreationSupport

ValidationEvaluation

Selection of the one service definition to be built

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Theoretical background for the product design

- theory of learning relationships

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Learning Relationships….

• Moving from ‘what’ to ‘who’ • bridges community and individual

level in learning and organization

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

What are learning relationships?

Community

Individual Learner

Learning Relationships

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Learning Relationship Characteristics...

• Forms: one-to-one; one-to-many; and many-to-many.

• Types: teacher centric, “equal”, learner centric

• Context: situated within social groupings

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Support person centric,“equal”or learner centric

Learner

Community of learners

SupportPerson

Network of Learning relationships

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Different forms of communication in learning….

• Conceptualisation (support person centric)

– Clarification– Confirmation

• Construction ( “equal”)– Co-operation– Collaboration

• Identification (learner centric)– debate

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Data collection - understanding what the learners

are actually doing

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

1) Identification of the support person– Questionnaire (questions of daily

learning situations)• 35 questions about daily learning

situations• example: You have problems with your

essay, who would you ask to help you

– Support persons--> learning network• (1st, 2nd and 3rd orders)

– Results were verified with the learners

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• 2) Trying to understand what a “normal” learning situation is like. – Learner was presented a problem to

be solved with support person’s assistance

– Situations were videotaped and analysed in focus of communication and interaction

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• Background information – Students

– Friendship patterns, ICT usage, non-school related activities

– Their school– Number of students, teachers,

classes, type (private, public), available learning facilities (Internet, library)

– Their teachers– age, gender, teaching experience, motivation,

ICT usage in class

– Students’ families– learning facilities, parents education, profession

and household income

– Environment

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Data modelling- guidelines for the service definition

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• Qualitative and quantitative data was analysed

Typical characteristics of different type of learning relationships were identified

Indicative set of guidelines for the service definition formation was created

• Reliability issues?

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Service definitions based on the results of the user

study

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Checking existing services

• finding out what kind of learning services and technologies are on the market

• analysing which technologies could be used, combined, used differently in this project in order to support communication and interaction between the users

• focus group interviews of the users

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Support personcentric

- Leaner active- Guidance by support personLeaner

centric

Audio StreamingVideo StreamingHTML pages

WhiteboardsConferencing( audio, video, text)

Java, ShockwaveRemote sensors

One possible new Learning Framework….which could be built

Possible delivery technologies....

Lectures,Text booksTV, Radio, CDs

Laboratories, seminars, field work, workshops,practicals

Tutorials, informalchats,

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

Future steps

• Build a prototype, mock-up demo• Acceptance testing of the

prototype• Service trials with the users in both

home and school • Guidelines for future service

builders

Human Factors in Telecommunications, Raila Ollikainen

• User centred approach is dependant on co-operation and commitment of the target group

• The involvement of all the project participants in all the steps is very important… or at least understanding what has been done

• A lot of work!

What have we learned?