Preservice teachers teaching technology with robotics

This study investigates the value of a robotics-based school engagement experience for preservice teachers enrolled in a fourth year technology education curriculum unit and analyses their perceived abilities and confidence to design and implement engaging technology activities following this experience. Technology is a key learning area in Australian schools but research shows that most teachers find this subject challenging to teach. This could be attributed to teachers’ attitudes and their lack of knowledge, hence investigating preservice teachers’ involvement with technology may provide further insights. In this study, 30 preservice teachers used robotics to implement technology activities with 22 primary school students from a school in a low socio-economic area. Surveys were administered to ascertain the preservice teachers' perceptions of their school engagement experiences. The data gathered from the participants showed that they had gained confidence and knowledge from the experience and felt the engagement activity would assist them to develop and implement technology activities in their future classrooms.

Impact of region-of-interest video coding on perceived quality in mobile video

Effective streaming of video can be achieved by providing more bits to the most important region in the frame at the cost of reduced bits in the less important regions. This strategy can be beneficial for delivering high quality videos in mobile devices, especially when the availability of bandwidth is usually low and limited. While the state-of-the-art video codecs such as H.264 may have been optimised for perceived quality, it is hypothesised that users will give more attention to interesting region/object when watching videos. Therefore, giving a higher quality to region of interest (ROI)while reducing quality of other areas may result in improving the overall perceived quality without necessarily increasing the bitrate. In this paper, the impact of ROI-based encoded video on perceived quality is investigated by conducting a user study for varous target bitrates. The results from the user study demonstrate that ROI-based video coding has superior perceived quality compared to normal encoded video at the same bitrate in the lower bitrate range.

Experimental comparison of odometry approaches

Odometry is an important input to robot navigation systems, and we are interested in the performance of vision-only techniques. In this paper we experimentally evaluate and compare the performance of wheel odometry, monocular feature-based visual odometry, monocular patch-based visual odometry, and a technique that fuses wheel odometry and visual odometry, on a mobile robot operating in a typical indoor environment.

Connection without caution? The role of mobile phone involvement in predicting young people’s intentions to use a mobile phone while driving

The present study examined the predictors of the intentions of young people aged between 17 and 24 years (N = 196) to use their mobile phone while driving. Using convenience sampling, drivers were recruited at petrol station travel centres to complete a cross-sectional survey. The Theory of Planned Behaviour constructs of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control (PBC) were measured, as well as mobile phone involvement - a construct based on behavioural addiction components to reflect people’s cognitive and behavioural interaction with their mobile phone. Attitudes, PBC, and mobile phone involvement predicted young people’s intentions to use their mobile phone while driving, highlighting the need for interventions to address the perceived rewards and costs of the behaviour and to challenge the potentially powerful need to be constantly connected with others by technology irrespective of the associated dangers.

Compact arrays for mobile platforms : trade-off between size and performance for SDMA and MIMO applications

Smart antenna receiver and transmitter systems consist of multi-port arrays with an individual receiver channel (including ADC) and an individual transmitter channel (including DAC)at every of the M antenna ports, respectively. By means of digital beamforming, an unlimited number of simultaneous complex-valued vector radiation patterns with M-1 degrees of freedom can be formed. Applications of smart antennas in communication systems include space-division multiple access. If both stations of a communication link are equipped with smart antennas (multiple-input-multiple-output, MIMO). multiple independent channels can be formed in a "multi-path-rich" environment. In this article, it will be shown that under certain circumstances, the correlation between signals from adjacent ports of a dense array (M + ΔM elements) can be kept as low as the correlation between signals from adjacent ports of a conventional array (M elements and half-wavelength pacing). This attractive feature is attained by means of a novel approach which employs a RF decoupling network at the array ports in order to form new ports which are decoupled and associated with mutually orthogonal (de-correlated) radiation patterns.

The use of virtual prototyping to rehearse the sequence of construction work involving mobile cranes

Purpose – Rehearsing practical site operations is without doubt one of the most effective methods for minimising planning mistakes, because of the learning that takes place during the rehearsal activity. However, real rehearsal is not a practical solution for on-site construction activities, as it not only involves a considerable amount of cost but can also have adverse environmental implications. One approach to overcoming this is by the use of virtual rehearsals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate an approach to simulation of the motion of cranes in order to test the feasibility of associated construction sequencing and generate construction schedules for review and visualisation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes a system involving two technologies, virtual prototyping (VP) and four-dimensional (4D) simulation, to assist construction planners in testing the sequence of construction activities when mobile cranes are involved. The system consists of five modules, comprising input, database, equipment, process and output, and is capable of detecting potential collisions. A real-world trial is described in which the system was tested and validated. Findings – Feedback from the planners involved in the trial indicated that they found the system to be useful in its present form and that they would welcome its further development into a fully automated platform for validating construction sequencing decisions. Research limitations/implications – The tool has the potential to provide a cost-effective means of improving construction planning. However, it is limited at present to the specific case of crane movement under special consideration. Originality/value – This paper presents a large-scale, real life case of applying VP technology in planning construction processes and activities.

Multi-cursor multi-user mobile interaction with a large shared display

When using a mobile device to control a cursor on a large shared display, the interaction must be carefully planned to match the environment and purpose of the systems use. We describe a ‘democratic jukebox’ system that revealed five recommendations that should be considered when designing this type of interaction relating to providing feedback to the user; how to represent users in a multi-cursor based system; where people tend to look and their expectation of how to move their cursor; the orientation of screens and the social context; and, the use of simulated users to give the real users a sense that they are engaging with a greater audience.

Mystery at the library : encouraging library exploration using a pervasive mobile game

This paper presents Secret SLQ, a pervasive mobile game that aims to encourage eight to fourteen year olds to engage with the State Library of Queensland. The game sets out to encourage people to visit and explore the library, as well as educate a generation of young people and parents who may visit the library but have no idea of the treasures that it holds. The research explores how smartphone technology can be used to deliver an engaging and educational experience. The game aims to provide a fun and interactive way to guide participants through a multi-leveled library building, to search for unique QR codes to unlock clues, answer quiz questions and progress further up a leaderboard. This paper outlines the design and initial deployment of the game, reporting on results from a usability study and discussing initial observations made by librarians. Findings indicate that the mobile platform is suitable for delivering such experiences but consideration is needed when embedding games in such large environments so as not to confuse players as they play.

A gamified mobile application for engaging new students at university orientation

The term gamification describes the addition of game elements to non-game contexts as a means to motivate and engage users. This study investigates the design, delivery and pilot evaluation of a gamified, smartphone application built to introduce new students to the campus, services and people at university during their first few weeks. This paper describes changes to the application made after an initial field study was undertaken and provides an evaluation of the impact of the redesign. Survey responses were collected from thirteen students and usage data was captured from 105 students. Results indicate three levels of user engagement and suggest that there is value in adding game elements to the experience in this way. A number of issues are identified and discussed based on game challenges, input, and facilitating game elements in an event setting such as university orientation.

TiltZoom : tilt-based zooming control for easy one-handed mobile interactions

In this paper, we present TiltZoom, a collection of tilt-based interaction techniques designed for easy one-handed zooming on mobile devices. TiltZoom represents novel gestural interaction techniques, implemented using rate-of-rotation readings from a gyroscope, a sensor commonly embedded on current generation smart phones. We designed and experimented three variants of TiltZoom - Tilt Level, Tilt and Hold and Flip Gesture. The design decisions for all three variants are discussed in this paper and their performance, as well as subjective user experience are evaluated and compared against conventional touch-based zooming techniques. TiltZoom appears to be a worthy addition to current established collection of gesture-based mobile interaction techniques for zooming controls, especially when user has only one hand available when moving about.

Low SES primary school students engaging in an after-school robotics program

Recent attention in education within many western contexts has focused on improved outcomes for students, with a particular focus on closing the gap between those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and the rest of the student population. Much of this attention has supported a set of simplistic solutions to improving scores on high stakes standardized tests. The collateral damage (Nichols & Berliner, 2007) of such responses includes a narrowing of the curriculum, plateaus in gain scores on the tests, and unproductive blame games aimed by the media and politicians at teachers and communities (Nichols & Berliner, 2007; Synder, 2008). Alternative approaches to improving the quality and equity of schooling remain as viable alternatives to these measures. As an example in a recent study of school literacy reform in low SES schools, Luke, Woods and Dooley (2011) argued for the increase of substantive content and intellectual quality of the curriculum as a necessary means to re-engaging middle school students, improving outcomes of schooling and achieving a high quality, high equity system. The MediaClub is an afterschool program for students in years 4 to 7 (9-12 year old) at a primary school in a low SES area of a large Australian city. It is run as part of an Australian Research Council funded research project. The aim of the program has been to provide an opportunity for students to gain expertise in digital technologies and media literacies in an afterschool setting. It was hypothesized that this expertise might then be used to shift the ways of being literate that these students had to call on within classroom teaching and learning events. Each term, there is a different focus on digital media, and information and communication technology (ICT) activities in the MediaClub. The work detailed in this chapter relates to a robotics program presented as one of the modules within this afterschool setting. As part of the program, the participants were challenged to find creative solutions to problems in a constructivist-learning environment.

Mobile Q&A for enhancing online discussion

In this study, we explore the design and evaluation of a mobile online discussion system for motivating students to share their learning experiences. The system supports interaction with peers and academic staff anytime and anywhere using mobile devices. The application introduces a set of features that enables customisation for different purposes. This paper describes the application and explains the motivation for developing the application. We describe the methods and results of a case study that explores usage of the application among a small group of localised participants. Finally, we discuss the implications of this work and outline future areas of research and development.

Transforming mobile personal life log into autobiographical multimedia eChronicles

Mobile devices are becoming indispensable personal assistants in people's daily life as these devices support work, study, play and socializing activities. The multi-modal sensors and rich features of smartphones can capture abundant information about users' life experience, such as taking photos or videos on what they see and hear, and organizing their tasks and activities using calendar, to-do lists, and notes. Such vast information can become useful to help users recalling episodic memories and reminisce about meaningful experiences. In this paper, we propose to apply autobiographical memory framework to provide an effective mechanism to structure mobile life-log data. The proposed model is an attempt towards a more complete personal life-log indexing model, which will support long term capture, organization, and retrieval. To demonstrate the benefits of the proposed model, we propose some design solutions for enabling users-driven capture, annotation, and retrieval of autobiographical multimedia chronicles tools.

Mobile social tool for supporting responsible drinking in yourng women

Binge drinking is an important issue in Australia and worldwide. Existing studies have shown that mobile tools provide an effective method to self-monitor drink sessions, whereas social tool such as Facebook, can be used to construct social drinker identity (thus normalizing binge drinking), but if used among a peer-support that promotes the importance of responsible drinking, it potentially can be effective in moderating alcohol consumption. To combine mobile and social tool approaches, the study involves two complementary and largely qualitative studies to inform a novel design of an engaging mobile social tool for supporting responsible drinking among young women: (1) a survey of literature and mobile tools on alcohol related studies and interventions; (2) an in-depth focus group interview among young women aged 18 to 24. The results and discussions provide some valuable insights for future research and development in the field.