Archive for the 'Context' Category



Rumpus research

Published on April 24, 2020

Research question: ‘In what ways is the Covid-19 pandemic changing understandings of the relationships between learning and fun?’ A limited case study of a research group in a UK university. We expect our findings to have implications beyond that group. Data collection using epistolary interviews (via email – one question per email, enabling thoughtful responses […]


A PhD is more than a thesis

Published on June 29, 2015

Inspired by a Tweet I read recently about the distinction between a thesis and a PhD, I have been thinking about the difference between the two. The university really focuses on the thesis, which must : be of good presentation and style be a significant contribution to knowledge and/or to understanding demonstrate capacity to pursue […]


Scrum management framework

Published on December 11, 2014

With its scrums, sprints and stories, Scrum Management always sounds intriguing. I’ve been involved with several teams who have either used this system knowingly, or have employed elements from it. However, I’ve never seen the process formalised until I spotted it in the January 2015 edition of Wired magazine (where they had compressed a version […]


Personal environments for learning

Published on October 30, 2011

Philippe distinguishes between a personal information environment and a personal learning environment. [I know that in this case a personal learning environment isn’t just everything around me when I’m learning, but is a personalised form of a VLE. In that case, what is a personal information environment? Is it all the sources from which I […]


Augmented history

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The Civil War app changes in real time and plays out over four and a half years, producing a daily casualty count. This has been criticised as being too immersive – uncomfortable for many people. The Iraq War Memorial app superimposes a war memorial on a real scence http://gamesalfresco.com/2011/02/21/augmented-reality-u-s-iraq-war-memorial/ The war memorial app, brings a […]


Learning in context

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Learning occurs in contexts – it also creates contexts. Context is not fixed – it is an emergent property of interaction. The challenge is to go beyond modeling human activity in context, in order to augment it. (Take-away from Liz FitzGerald technology coffee morning, 19 October)


Now time is personal

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Mobile devices allow us to shift and personalise time. They allow us to visit places before we arrive and to remain in places after we have left. We renegotiate our time on the fly, and schedule soft meetings with flexible boundaries. They allow us to fill what would previously have been dead time. We dignify […]


Designing for Immersive Mixed Reality Learning Environments

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Different partners are likely to be part of different activity systems, with different objectives, different motivations and different tools. Shared situational objects can be a turning point in negotiations between such partners – reflecting their different perspectives on the same themes. These shared objects sit between the activity systems and offer the potential to bring […]


Resurrection

Published on September 29, 2011

I thought it made sense to end this blog about being a research student with my graduation ceremony. And I started other blogs. Lots of other blogs. (Partly because I was working on a blogging project that involved setting up lots of blogs for other people.) But the official blog is too official, and the […]