Investigating the shared visual context in distributed collaborative work

Distributed collaborators require computermediated communication (CMC) technologies in order to work together. Various systems have been developed for this express purpose with varying degrees of success. A basic method of evaluating the usability of a system is to compare it with face-to-face interaction. To replicate the face-to-face context, it is necessary to investigate how visual information plays a role in supporting collaborators performing tasks.
This research examines the effects of visual information and its role in both face-to-face and video generated visual contexts. The results were generated by asking participants to collaboratively solve visual tasks in either of the two contexts. The results show that both the face-to-face and the video conferencing contexts have similar effects on subjects’ ability to perform tasks. Task outcomes exhibited no significant difference between these two contexts. Awareness and conversational grounding had positive effects on the subject’s task performance and communication. On the other hand, presence had mixed effects on a subject’s task performance and communication behaviors.

Homework through the eyes of children : what does visual ethnography invite us to see?

Whilst the notion of children’s rights and an entitlement to express their views and participate as global citizens is threaded throughout the international policy field, children’s perspectives on the near ubiquitous practice of homework, and its effects on their daily lives and learner subjectivities, remain under-researched. Drawing on the Bourdieuian concepts of practice, habitus, capital and field, this article develops a cross-cultural analysis of homework practices in Australia, Denmark and Britain to make visible the embodied habitus and agentic possibilities shaping the reproduction of educational advantage and disadvantage for variously located students. Using video data generated by children in primary schools, the article explores children’s visual representations of their compliance and resistance to homework’s regulatory functions. It demonstrates the affordances of visual ethnographic methods as a form of participatory research with children which foregrounds students’ experiences and opinions and makes visible the inclusionary and exclusionary effects of homework on children in diverse socio-cultural settings.

The city, self, and connections : transyouth and urban social networking in Seoul

The end of the Korean War in 1953 marked the beginning of Seoul’s transformation from the shattered capital city of South Korea to one of the most connected, populous, and fast-changing hubs of global economy. Seoul’s technosocial development has been celebrated nationally and internationally. To the outside, young Koreans’ swift and extensive adoption and adaptation to digital technologies has been a subject of exotification; to adults in Korea, it has been a subject of criticism (see Yoon in this volume). With the understanding that ‘the city is connections,’ it is crucial to study not only the macro-level design of the city as a network (through policy, for example), but also its micro-level construction at the intersection of people, place, and technology. Accordingly, this chapter explores this exact intersection to comprehensively portray the constant renewal of the city as imagined and experienced by young Koreans. The chapter is based on fieldwork conducted in Seoul, South Korea, from 2007 to 2008 as part of a research project on the mobile play culture of Seoul transyouth, the transitional demographic situated between youth and adulthood, and the pioneers of the Korean ‘broadband miracle’ (Hazlett, 2004). The study draws upon transdisciplinary research data including interviews, questionnaires, diaries, and Shared Visual Ethnography (SVE) to render the everyday urban social networking of young Seoulites with and through which they interact to constantly (re)create the city and the self.

Searching the self in Seoul : trans-youth and urban social networking in Korea

This paper presents a brief analysis of Seoul trans-youth’s search for identity through urban social networking, arguing that technological, socio-cultural and environmental (urban) contexts frame how mobility and ubiquity are (re)created in Seoul. The paper is empirically based on fieldwork conducted in Seoul, South Korea, from 2007 to 2008 as part of a research project on the mobile play culture of Seoul trans-youth(a term that will be explained in detail in the following section). Shared Visual Ethnography (SVE) was used as the research method which involved sharing of visual ethnographic data that were created by the participants. More specifically, the participants were asked to take photos, which were then shared and discussed with other participants and the researcher on the photo-sharing service Flickr. The research also involved a questionnaire and daily activity diaries, as well as interviews. A total of 44 Korean transyouths – including 23 females and 21 males – participated in interviews and photo-sharing. The paper draws specifically on the qualitative data from individual and/or group interviews, the total duration of which was 2–2.5 hours for each participant.

Playpolis : transyouth and urban networking in Seoul

The overarching aim of this study is to create new knowledge about how playful interactions (re)create the city via ubiquitous technologies, with an outlook to apply the knowledge for pragmatic innovations in relevant fields such as urban planning and technology development in the future. The study looks at the case of transyouth, the in-between demographic bridging youth and adulthood in Seoul, one of the most connected, densely populated, and quickly transforming metropolises in the world. To unravel the elusiveness of ‘play’ as a subject and the complexity of urban networks, this study takes a three-tier transdisciplinary approach comprised of an extensive literature review, Shared Visual Ethnography (SVE), and interviews with leading industry representatives who design and develop the playscape for Seoul transyouth. Through these methodological tools, the study responds to the following four research aims: 1. Examine the sociocultural, technological, and architectural context of Seoul 2. Investigate Seoul transyouth’s perception of the self and their technosocial environment 3. Identify the pattern of their playful interaction through which meanings of the self and the city are recreated 4. Develop an analytical framework for enactment of play This thesis argues that the city is a contested space that continuously changes through multiple interactions among its constituents on the seam of control and freedom. At the core of this interactive (re)creation process is play. Play is a phenomenon that is enacted at the centre of three inter-related elements of pressure, possibility, and pleasure, the analytical framework this thesis puts forward as a conceptual apparatus for studying play across disciplines. The thesis concludes by illustrating possible trajectories for pragmatic application of the framework for envisioning and building the creative, sustainable, and seductive city.

Designing for engagement towards healthier lifestyles through food image sharing : the case of I8DAT

This paper introduces the underlying design concepts of I8DAT, a food image sharing application that has been developed as part of a three-year research project – Eat, Cook, Grow: Ubiquitous Technology for Sustainable Food Culture in the City (http://www.urbaninformatics .net/projects/food) – exploring urban food practices to engage people in healthier, more environmentally and socially sustainable eating, cooking, and growing food in their everyday lives. The key aim of the project is to produce actionable knowledge, which is then applied to create and test several accessible, user-centred interactive design solutions that motivate user-engagement through playful and social means rather than authoritative information distribution. Through the design and implementation processes we envisage to integrate these design interventions to create a sustainable food network that is both technical and socio-cultural in nature (technosocial). Our primary research locale is Brisbane, Australia, with additional work carried out in three reference cities with divergent geographic, socio-cultural, and technological backgrounds: Seoul, South Korea, for its global leadership in ubiquitous technology, broadband access, and high population density; Lincoln, UK, for the regional and peri-urban dimension it provides, and Portland, Oregon, US, for its international standing as a hub of the sustainable food movement.

Start playing with your food : fun food experiences with mobile social media

Healthy and sustainable food is gaining more attention from consumers, industry, and researchers. Yet many approaches to date are limited to information dissemination, advertisement or education. We have embarked on a three year collaborative research project (2011 – 2013) to explore urban food practices – eating, cooking, growing food – to support the well-being of people and the environment. Our overall goal is to employ a user-centred interaction design research approach to inform the development of entertaining, real-time, mobile and networked applications, engaging playful feedback to build motivation. Our aspiration for this study is to deliver usable and useful mobile and situated interaction prototypes that employ individual and group strategies to foster food cultures that provide new pathways to produce, share and enjoy food that is green, healthy, and fun.

Brain responses to auditory and visual stimulus offset: Shared representations of temporal edges

Edges are crucial for the formation of coherent objects from sequential sensory inputs within a single modality. Moreover, temporally coincident boundaries of perceptual objects across different sensory modalities facilitate crossmodal integration. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging in order to examine the neural basis of temporal edge detection across modalities. Onsets of sensory inputs are not only related to the detection of an edge but also to the processing of novel sensory inputs. Thus, we used transitions from input to rest (offsets) as convenient stimuli for studying the neural underpinnings of visual and acoustic edge detection per se. We found, besides modality-specific patterns, shared visual and auditory offset-related activity in the superior temporal sulcus and insula of the right hemisphere. Our data suggest that right hemispheric regions known to be involved in multisensory processing are crucial for detection of edges in the temporal domain across both visual and auditory modalities. This operation is likely to facilitate cross-modal object feature binding based on temporal coincidence. Hum Brain Mapp, 2008. (c) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Hacia una Antropología compartida. Reflexiones, experiencias y propuestas acerca de la fotografía participativa en investigación antropológica

Este artículo tiene dos objetivos principales. En primer lugar, trazar un recorrido por las experiencias colaborativas a través de la fotografía y el video en Antropología, y en segundo lugar, contextualizar y mostrar los resultados de una investigación realizada recientemente sobre proyectos de fotografía participativa impulsados desde colectivos de fotógrafos documentales. Para estos objetivos me he centrado en trabajos pioneros y en autores que han puesto a prueba este tipo de metodologías con niños y adolescentes, escenario de mi trabajo de campo. Esta investigación, que está en sus comienzos, pretende buscar sinergias con otros profesionales y poder así establecer teorías y colaboraciones de cara a próximos proyectos de investigación aplicada a través del uso de los medios audiovisuales.

Funciones de la fotografía en las relaciones interculturales entre familias inmigrantes

En este artículo presentamos los resultados y el análisis de uno de los objetivos del proyecto I+D+i aprobado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España titulado Mediaciones audiovisuales en las relaciones entre escuela y familias inmigrantes. Concretamente, el dirigido a conocer las funciones que tienen las imágenes fotográficas en las relaciones de un grupo de padres inmigrantes en el colegio al que asisten sus hijos e hijas. Los datos presentados corresponden a las narraciones biográfico-culturales y visuales iniciadas en las aulas por estas familias junto a la tutora del grupo, y continuadas en sus contextos personal y social. Concluimos que las fotografías en los relatos han tenido las funciones de: fuente de información, soporte de análisis, reflexión y debate y, finalmente, medio para comunicar el conocimiento experiencial generado. Dentro de esta última, se han utilizado tres procedimientos que hemos denominado: denotativo autorreferencial, connotativo texto-visual y secuencial.

Patrimonio e Identidad en la Investigación Educativa Basada en las Artes desde un Enfoque Multimodal

Este artículo describe dos experiencias de investigación de nuestro grupo interconectadas, la primera desarrollada durante el año 2007 a través del proyecto internacional CALVINO del Programa Cultura 2000 de la Unión Europea, y la segunda implementada durante el año 2014 en el marco del Proyecto Investigación e Innovación en Secundaria en Andalucía (PIIISA). Ambos proyectos tienen en común el eje temático de la identidad a partir de una idea de patrimonio y el hecho de haber puesto en práctica metodologías de investigación basadas en las artes visuales con un enfoque multimodal. Desde estos dos puntos de anclaje relativos a la temática (qué) y a la metodología (cómo) analizamos lo acontecido para obtener conclusiones relevantes que, por una parte, pongan en valor estas prácticas significativas y, por otra, aporten nuestra experiencia para futuras propuestas de investigación en el ámbito temático y/o metodológico.

Walls of Indifference: Arizona and the Ecology of Militarization

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2013

Rapport från projektet Multimodala uppgifter och bedömning i matematik : Video och kollaborativa samtal som metod vid lärares bedömning av elevers matematiska kunskaper

This research will discuss some experiences from a four year school research study. It was conducted in cooperation with teachers from four municipalities in Dalarna. The aim of the research was to examine teachers´ professional development when they participated in collaborative discussions based on video recordings and video edited material from specific lessons in their own practice. The study had two foci one was to investigate methods and tools that teachers can use to develop their ability to assess their students while working on multimodal tasks. The other was to examine how video can be used by teachers wanting to obtain knowledge about assessing students. The study is based on several theories about when teachers collaborate to create new knowledge. The first is the design theoretical approach – where visual ethnography and a semiotic approach contribute to problematize the use and mixture of different modes. A basic assumption of the framework here is that meanings are made and communicated in mathematics through a wide range of semiotic modes. By using video as an essential tool in the research the framework theories concerning visual ethnography, video documentation and individuals as reflective practitioners were also needed. The findings can be divided into the following themes: the use of tasks for assessment, collaborative discussion, equipment, ethical dilemmas. Collaborative discussions were evaluated as a meaningful way of sharing knowledge. The use of video recordings in association with these discussions raised important ethical issues. Working with the assessment framework was of great interest to the teachers but it took a lot of time from their ordinary work. In this way the project highlighted more general aspects of school development. The research also concerns teachers´ use of collaborative discussions in assessment work, multimodal tasks in mathematics and video as a research tool in general.

An Iranian migrant mother's production of selves through her family photograph collection

In researching migrant identities, visual methodology offers much promise and yet there is a marked lack of recent research that makes use of visual methods. Previous studies of migrant identities have privileged verbal representations of identities. Gillian Rose's (2010) work with mothers and their family photographs in the United Kingdom, in which she describes the role of family photographs in both producing social subject positions and in maintaining family togetherness across distances, is a useful model for research into the construction and negotiation of migrant identities.

The literature on family photography suggests that it is usually the woman/mother who takes on the role of making the family photograph album; of narrating the family's story (Rose, 2010; Holland, 2009; 1991; Chambers, 2003). The family photograph collection, together with the participant's interwoven verbal interpretation, is a particularly relevant data source for use in identity research as there is the potential for key themes of place, mobilities and space to be explored at new depth and from a feminist perspective.

This paper will report on an ethics approved study of one Iranian migrant mother and her family photograph collection, focusing on her representation of the identities and subjectivities of herself and her children through photographs taken following migration to Australia. The paper will consider the participant's family photographs as both visual objects and visual-verbal narratives produced within historically and culturally situated discourses. It will explore how photographs and oral interpretations cohere to enable migrant mothers to re/produce selves. The paper will examine the production of subject positions specifically in relation to place, mobilities and space.

The research is situated within critical visual ethnography and is informed by a reflexive feminist approach. The meaning making of the photographs under study will be explored at the sites of production, image, and audience. The combined visual-verbal methods used in this study aim to provide a new contribution to the literature on migrant identities and form the basis of a scaled up research design of a larger cohort of mothers.