Archive for June, 2011
Lincoln Hack report
Jun 24th
Last weekend, the iLinkoln group organised a hack event at the university. Several members of LiSC were able to attend over the event and take part in the hacking and shenanigans. LiSC also sponsored a prize to be awarded to the best mashup of open data and social media.
Overall the event was a great success. Around 30 people attended for various amounts of time, including a small but dedicated hardcore who kept working through the night. TomSka made a great video about the event:
Hacks varied greatly, including several wacky mashups as you would expect, but also some non-traditional efforts including TomSka (of the University of Lincoln adverts fame) and his 24 hour vlogging, and Chloe Dungate who wrote a short story every hour based on random words suggested by Twitter users.
Some highlights were the “Hometourist” site by a team from Leeds that suggests interesting places to visit based on tweets, and the Hackomater site that can be used to randomly suggest ideas for mashups (echoing our mashmygov project).
The winner of the LiSC prize was the interesting location based game “GAMETITLE”, which uses Facebook places and google maps to create a social strategy game where players compete for real places with virtual troops. The game isn’t quite ready for release yet but the proof of concept was very impressive, especially considering the tight deadlines of the hack. Well done!
LiSC member Andy worked on his live Twitter visualisations, and in the early hours of the morning also made a somewhat ill-advised stalking app based on Foursquare!
I was also there, and took the opportunity to experiment with the Processing language, which I’ve been meaning to use for years. I made an identity visualisation that acts as a “magic box” to guess at nearby people’s identities based on brainwave detection. It is meant to demonstrate the hidden digital traces that follows you around in the real world, and will be shown at the University display at the Waddington Air Show. You can download the Mac app here (At your own risk). It takes a few minutes to configure the brainwave sensing apparatus – you will also need to switch Bluetooth on.
Overall the hack was an excellent event and we’d like to thank iLinkoln for organizing it, and the UL computing society for their hard work over the weekend. These hacks are always draining for participants, but always invigorating, leaving us tired but energised with new ideas for future projects.
Hello from a new LiSC team member!
Jun 20th
My name is Sue Jamison-Powell and I started working in LiSC as a Research Assistant at the beginning of May. I am a psychologist working on the ENACT Project with Shaun Lawson, Conor Linehan and Andy Garbett. I specialise in online social relationships and social networks. My thesis examined the way that social networking websites and social communication technology influences our social relationships and impacts upon the processes involved in developing and maintaining online relationships. I am also very interested in the process of defriending. I recently presented at a Psychology in the Pub meeting at The Showroom in Sheffield where I talked about my research which examined how people decide to defriend others, and their reactions to both defriending and being defriended. It’s an interesting area, and one that is really only pertinent to online relationships; although my theory posits that breaking the connection online (you either are or are not present in someone’s friends’ list on Facebook for instance) is reminiscent of deciding to end a romantic relationship. There doesn’t seem to be any room for weak ties within online social networks, with one of the main reasons given for defriending another being lack of contact or lack of real connection. Where offline acquaintanceships gradually drift apart, on Facebook they have a definite end. A link to my presentation can be found here.
All the researchers working on the ENACT Project recently met up in London. It was a valuable meeting, especially for me, being a newcomer to the group. It was great to see the initial results of our first work package and see how well our individual work packages fit together. The ENACT Project is using a social media platform to deliver online therapy. Existing online delivery works very well, with similar results to offline methods of delivery, however we are planning to introduce social media elements which will encourage engagement with the package and allow for interactivity between users. I was delighted to accept the position with LiSC as it will allow me to draw upon my previous work which looks at how emotional closeness and trust is formed between individuals interacting in online spaces.
I have been here for just six weeks now and am impressed by the dynamism of this research group. In addition to our weekly meetings where we discuss ongoing research within the department I have attended a brilliant workshop on Sustainable Air Travel, Behaviour Change and Social Media. This multidisciplinary workshop, held in Lincoln, highlighted the ways in which social media can be used to raise awareness of sustainability in travel, and begin to alter the behaviour of users and providers of air travel. It was a good opportunity to look at some of the research which didn’t necessarily fall into my “area of interest” but was very relevant to some of the work I will be doing with the ENACT Project team in terms of behaviour change.
So yes, a new team member – I hope to be making some somewhat more exciting blog posts over the weeks to come!
Smart Energy and the Internet of Things
Jun 12th
It’s been a while since I last posted so have likely gone overboard with content, but here goes anyway! I recently attended the ‘Smart Energy: generation, supply and consumption’ workshop held by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) which was focused on the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) and what the implications and possibilities are for the energy sector. The workshop was well attended with almost 70 delegates split roughly 50/50 between people from industry and academia. For LiSC this was a great opportunity to see how both sides are collaborating towards innovating and commercialising in the domain of the IoT and energy. For connected devices such as smart meters it brings new experiences for consumers in how they can better understand and act on their energy consumption across a range of devices; from washing machines to mobile phones to vehicles. So first of all, what is this IoT all about?
The IoT is the idea of practically any object, including people, sharing information (via networked sensors) about their current state; for example location, energy usage or activity data sent to the cloud that can enhance our physical and digital experiences. It could be argued that the IoT is the latest evolution of ubiquitous/pervasive computing now being realised by inexpensive sensors and technology platforms that weren’t available as little as a few years ago. Adam Greenfield’s insightful book ‘Everyware’ published back in 2005 is a good read, albeit rather verbose, on the concept of IoT and the interaction of citizens with omnipresent networked devices. In a recent interview he admits the book didn’t see the iPhone coming and the rapid game-changing experience that came with it, but really, who could have foreseen that in its entirety? Last year I was lucky enough to participate in a ‘Walkshop’ (a quirky spin on the workshop) by Adam in the city of Oulu, Finland whilst attending the UBI Summer School. Each Walkshop involves a tour of a city with a view to finding the various networked devices in the city urbanscape and attempt to decipher (as a group) their purpose and impact on citizens. In Oulu we found wind powered storm covers, obscured cameras, large interactive situated displays, pedestrian crossing sensors embedded in pavements and the usual plethora of CCTV cameras. Interestingly, when we turned our own sensors (cameras) on a street facing CCTV camera we invited the attentions of an irate security guard intent on being aggressive towards our ‘sousvelliance’….
Ed Borden from Pachube recently posted a succinct overview of the IoT over on the Pachube blog titled ‘The Open Data Steamroller’ and includes the nice illustration below of what the IoT is by moving away from ‘closed’ machine to machine data silos over to open data for consumption. LiSC’s Electro-Magnates project utilises the Pachube platform to store near-real time energy data from the University of Lincoln, effectively opening up the data for public consumption using open standards. We hope to have a few more universities on board with us shortly to push their energy data to Pachube and are in talks with Lincolnshire County Council as they will have nearly 1000 smart meters coming online over the summer from the county’s schools. In addition to our own open data efforts at LiSC, Joss Winn, also from Lincoln University is co-ordinating a team working towards making various components of university-generated data open and ready for consuming via API’s.
The TSB Smart Energy workshop was worth attending and generated some useful data for our Electro-Magnates project. With the workshop having a strong industry presence there was discussion based around the potential creation of new business models that can benefit consumers more to optimise their energy usage. For example a smart meter connected to the IoT could allow a consumer to regularly change their tariff simply by selecting a new deal online and downloading the tariff to the smart meter instantly. Fine grain control of appliances by smart meters could be enabled to control/recommend which times energy-intensive devices can be used to limit peak demand and cost. Another task at the workshop was to envisage the types of objects we would like to see connected by the IoT. Aside from the obvious choices such as fridges, washing machines and heating there was some outside the box thinking with the top three non-energy object choices being people, animals and vehicles, something we at LiSC are actively aware of and will discuss a little shortly! Perhaps the most hotly debated topic at the workshop were the privacy and security issues surrounding energy data from smart meters, do the utilities own the data or the householder? More importantly, does the householder have complete access and control over their energy data? These are important questions for the consumers and will no doubt be parleyed with for some time.
At LiSC we are no strangers to the IoT revolution and have ran several studies that incorporate it with the inclusion of open datasets. Maurizio Pilu, a lead technologist at the TSB, said in his keynote at the workshop that when you mix the IoT with open datasets then “magic will happen”. We couldn’t agree more as this is exactly what lots of our own research does! Our domestic energy research has used various IoT devices such as the Wattson energy monitor and the Current Cost Bridge then mashed the energy data from these devices with datasets from social media networks and music services to enhance the end-users digital and lifestyle experiences. We also demonstrated the use of an embodied IoT agent (Nabaztag) providing aversive feedback on energy consumption. Other recent IoT innovations from our group include the Fearsquare and the forthcoming Tweeting Cats projects. Fearsquare mashes UK crime data with location data from mobile devices, thereby creating a unique experience and an opportunity to investigate citizens’ perceptions of crime in their daily localities. Through our links with animal behaviour experts we are looking at ways to enhance human-animal interaction through RFID tags worn by cats which expose eating/toileting behaviours and also through social media to increase connectedness between humans and companion animals.
Around the world the power of the IoT is helping empower citizens, in New York for example public sensors are being used to inform residents when the sewage system is close to overflow and to make an informed decision on their water usage. In Japan citizens are empowered by aggregating crowd-sourced radiation sensor data and calling for more evacuations in some areas. Plants are even benefiting from the IoT by giving them the right amount of water and light. These examples just highlight the diversity and huge untapped potential in creating unique user experiences by mixing IoT sensor data with open datasets.
I don’t think any blog post of mine would be complete without a mention of beer! After the workshop I made an obligatory visit to the Euston Tap and sampled the Meantime IPA on tap, a great beer. They also had the friendly face of Brewdog on display with their Ripetide and Hardcore IPA, both excellent beers!
Derek
MashMyGov.Org Government Data Mashup Generator – the next big idea is here, somewhere…
Jun 3rd
MashMyGov is a brainstorming tool that randomly chooses two open data sources from Data.Gov.UK and automatically suggests provocative web applications that could be made using them.
The application allows members of the public to more easily understand, and engage with, the enormous amount of available data that is now made available through EU opendata government websites.
Due to the way that such data is archived, the average citizen would rarely be aware of what types of data are available.
MashMyGov provides links to suggested data sources and is deliberately provocative in its presentation of auto-generated ideas for applications.
The suggestions generated can alternately be very impactful, completely useless or even humorous reflecting some of the huge potential as well as inherent limits to the uses of open data. Developers can use the application to creatively brainstorm new concepts for applications.
Indeed, future iterations will use crowd sourcing to identify interesting or viable ideas for open data mashups.
This will streamline the process of identifying mashups that citizens will find useful – as the public will be involved integrally in that process.
Aiming for “Transfer” with Educational Games: the wrong question
Jun 2nd
As mentioned in previous posts, I recently presented a paper at CHI 2011 (available online for free here). At both the academic session itself, and through bumping into people afterwards, one question kept coming up. It is a question that I have often fielded whenever talking about educational games, but which I did not address in the CHI paper (there’s only so much you can fit in a conference paper!) The question is generally along the lines of how to ensure that what people learn while playing a game “transfers” to the real world. I suggest that being in a situation where you are thinking about how to make sure knowledge or skills “transfer” means that you have already made a key games design mistake. You have forgotten why games are interesting – and what they are good at.
In order to explain this position I will refer you first to some research. In my opinion the very best existing example of experimental research on educational game design was carried out by Jacob Habgood at Nottingham University (he’s now head of Serious Games at Sumo Digital). I would recommend interested people to have a look at his thesis or this short paper. Habgood was interested in the relation of the content to be learned and the game play mechanics in the design of educational games. In two studies, he demonstrated experimentally that a game in which the play and learning were not merely placed side by side, but were intrinsically linked, were motivationally and educationally more effective than an almost identical game in which learning was not intrinsic to game play.
In my discussion of how Applied Behavioural Analysis can help guide educational game design, I discuss some very similar points:
”behaviour analysts insist that the “behaviour chosen …. must be the behaviour in need of improvement, not a similar behaviour that serves as a proxy for the behaviour of interest, or the subjects verbal description of the behaviour” (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2006, p.16). So, whether or not participants have reached a learning outcome should not be judged by their answers to a questionnaire (unless the learning outcome is to improve the learners ability to answer questionnaires). Rather, whether they have reached that learning outcome or not should be observable from the action of the player as they are playing.
Essentially, instruction should not be designed as blocks of play and tests. The play, itself, should be the behaviour that is examined. This is especially important in a computer game, where a teacher is not present to interpret behaviour. So, if the game has been designed to teach industrial chemistry, and a learning outcome is an understanding of the chemical reactions necessary for the extraction of iron from iron ore, the game should take place at the molecular level. It is not appropriate to create a game where people can throw random chemicals into a furnace, then observe the outcomes and answer a multiple choice questionnaire.”
So, why is the question of how to ensure that skills and knowledge learned in a game transfer to the real world the wrong question? Because, if we ensure that educational games are designed so that the skill learned in the game IS the skill we want them to learn – not a proxy thereof – there is no question of transfer. If the game should teach multiplication, then it should involve multiplication as a core mechanic of the game – as demonstrated by Habgood. Multiplication is multiplication!
All of this comes with a caveat – games are not the ideal way to teach everything. Games are interesting, complex systems that allow interaction and trial and error learning. If the thing you want to teach is not an interesting, complex system that allows interaction and trial and error learning – you probably need to find a more appropriate teaching method.
Problems with “transfer” commonly come about due to either not ensuring that the learning is intrinsic to game play, or else because you are teaching something that is not the kind of thing that games are good at teaching.