The Carnivorous Syndrome in 3D explores the astounding lives of the carnivorous plants, in mind-bending 3D. Travel to the Venezuelan tepuis, African Savannahs, and the rainforests of Borneo, while learning about the mysterious plants which live there. Discover the beauty and complexity of these fascinating creatures.

Featuring unprecedented close up 3D time lapse video shot by jasper, a robot made of Lego (R) bricks. Additional habitat photography by Chiaki Shibata and Romuald Anifraix. Also featuring stunning 3D animation, and an incredible electronic soundtrack composed by John Teagle. Narrated by Marguerite C. Wilson. Written and directed by Mike Wilder.

Tags: ecology, education, hack, new technology, open source, plants

Here are some of the resources that people pointed me towards:

– http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net (project management tool with timeline feature)

– other gantt chart tools, like http://echo2gantt.sourceforge.net

– MS Project

– Other, more free-form project organization tools, such as “Basecamp” at: http://www.37signals.com

– http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/ (simile timeline – this is what I think I’ll end up using)

Green is definitely the photoblog that I prefer. The navigation is simply flawless and the pictures are astonishing. Enjoy!

P.S. Its about green stuff …

Tags: art, ecology

K. N. Purnell, R. T. Solman, and J. Sweller. The effects of technical illustrations on cognitive load. Instructional Science, (20):443–462, 1991. [pdf]

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The effects on cognitive resources of splitting attention between technical illustrations and their descriptors were examined in four experiments with high school students of good to very good reading ability. Experiment 1 looked at the effect of having descriptors incorporated within technical illustrations and found that there was an observable advantage for combined formats over split formats. In Experiments 2,3 and 4 the combined form of presenting a technical illustration was superior to having the descriptors for the technical illustration in an adjacent key. Attempts to obtain increases in the advantage for the combined format with reinforcement failed to demonstrate any reliable result. These data suggested that the format of technical illustrations which required students to integrate mentally disparate sources of information imposes a heavy cognitiveload. It was concluded that the format of technical illustrations was superior when descriptors were contained within the diagram as cognitive resources were not required to integrate the descriptors and the diagram.

The results of this work show that technical material consisting of mutually referring, disparate sources of information that cannot be understood in isolation should be integrated into a unitary entity. Using this solution, the authors found both memory of those elements and the ability to make inferences beyond those elements to be facilitated compared to the frequently used structures that incorporate distinct sources of information. In the picture below, the experimental material used with the split key, on the left, and with the combined key, on the right.

Tags: information visualization, learning technology, maps, pedagogy, cognitive science

I have been involved many times in experimentations which required human subjects. That’s recurrent for each HCI researcher. As I have been working both in the States and mainly in Europe I also noticed great differences in the practices around these experiments: while in the States there are lots of protocols in place, in Europe things are a bit more, … hum …, fuzzy!

EPFL, for instance does not have proper guidelines. Probably because our lab pioneered HCI research  into this technical school with no tradition around these themes. I like the American way, in this regard, and I would love to have some more “structure” around these experiments.

To start off the discussion I think is important to have a proper Consent Form whenever we host an experiment involving humans. Each participants should be made aware of the following:

1. The purpose of the experiment;

2. The aim and procedure of the experiment;

3. The risks related to the execution of the task;

4. The time required;

5. The conditions of participation and withdrawal;

6. The benefits obtained in participating;

7. The confidentiality of the results;

8. How and where the results will be published;

9. The person/lab responsible for the experiment.

I tried to google around to find some templates but with no satisfactory results. I found an example from Harvard, one from Grinnell university and one from myself 🙂 Here are some nice guidelines.

Tags: human computer interaction, research, research methodology

O. W. Bertelsen and S. Bodker. Cooperation in massively distributed information spaces. In Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work ECSCW’01, Bonn, Germany, 16-20 September 2001. Kluwer Academic Publishers. [pdf]

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Common information spaces are often, implicitly or explicitly, viewed as something that can be accessed in toto from one (of many) location. Our studies of wastewater treatment plants show how such massively distributed spaces challenge many of the ways that CSCW view common information spaces. The studies fundamentally challenge the idea that common information spaces are about access to everything, everywhere. Participation in optimisation is introduced as an important feature of work tied to the moving around in physical space. In the CSCW literature, peripheral awareness and at a glance overview are mostly connected with the coordination of activities within a control room or in similar co-located circumstances. It is concluded that this focus on shoulder to shoulder cooperation has to be supplemented with studies of cooperation through massively distributed information spaces.

This study reports an interesting field study where some of the classical CSCW concepts are reconsidered, as for instance the notion of peripheral awareness that usually is conceived as local and immediate (“at a glance”), while in the study the authors found evidences of this awareness embedded in how people move about in the plant. The observed users were able to identify the location of each other in the plant despite the fact that they could not see and hear each other.

This study fundamentally challenge the idea that common information spaces are about access to everything, everywhere. The overview created by the wastewater workers cannot be retrieved from any central position in the plant; neither it can be separated from being physically present in particular parts of the plant.

The authors conclude that the watewater plant, in contrast to many cases described in the CSCW literature, and in contrast to such ideal cooperation devises as common artifacts, reveals a continuum of places of which many are geographycally fluent: “spaces of understood reality”, spaces that are dealt with through movement, and movement as a precondition for learning, participation and experimentation.

Tags: Computer Supported Collaborative Work, ethnography, geography, human computer interaction, interaction design, location awareness

Fabien pointed me to this nice project of the University of Madrid and the MediaLab Madrid. The idea is similar to many other projects on collaborative annotations of maps like: YellowArrow, DigitalGrafffiti, etc. Their interface though is really sexy!

P. Dourish. Re-space-ing place: “place” and “space” ten years on. In Proceedings of the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW06), Banff, Alberta, Canada, November 4-8 2006. Association for Computing Machinery. [pdf]

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This paper elaborate further Harrison and Dourish’s paper on how place is the social product of space. The author stress out how, due to recent technological development, this idea needs to be reconsidered and adjusted.

First of all, the initial paper seems to suggest that space is perceived before place emerges. This is called the layer-cake model. His current view would see exacly the contrary, being space a social product just as much as place: the conceptual resources that we have at hand when we talk about space are the products of particular kinds of social practice.

The second point contained in the article follows from the first point: space and place are the products of emboided social practice. Therefore the question is not what feature of the space are conductive to the creation or emergence of place but what are the relationship between spatiality and practices and how multiple spatialities might intersect.

This second point is suggested by the power geometry: “… the production of space is conditioned by one’s access to and legitimacy within that space. Encounters with space occur within specific contexts, and the spatialities that result reflect those contexts.

Tags: geography, human communication, human computer interaction, power geometry, Computer Supported Collaborative Work, ubiquitous computing

I am recycling here this nice post of Temu on this subject. He made a nice table analyzing collaboration by looking for what are the objects (some people call them artifacts) worked out, how are the scripts (processes) handled and what is the density of communication in the systems.

I think this summary is neat and simple but yet useful to distinguish and see the ordering of the different levels. One thing missing though is a link back to the theoretical framework for each level.

Tags: connectivism, constructivism, education, learning technology

Philip Wagner sent me a couple movies that he edited to help people with reading difficulties to learn from movies. Basically he colorized the actor that speaks and put the caption as a comic balloon close to him/her. Then he uses a karaoke-style highlight to match the pronounced word with the text in the caption.

In his words:

I have more things which in total are about eight hours long.  I have two Robin Hood movies on Dvd discs that  are together about 50 minutes long They are partly slide show and partly movies.  When there is talking it is a slide show with the subtitles and when there is little talking and lots of action it is a movie without subtitles. I use “The Adventures of Robin Hood” Volumes 1 and 2 DVDs that can be purchased from Amazon.com economically. There are 4 episodes on the Volume 1 and 4 Episodes on Volume 2. The episodes are from the tv series begun in 1955 starring Richard Greene as Robin Hood produced in England.  Before I burn them onto DVDs I colorize the actor who is speaking and the faces and hands of the other actors in the scene.  My burn program enhances the scenes by brightening and focusing them better. I burn them into HDTV format which allows more space on the left and right of each frame so I am able to put more captioning on the pictures. I have made textreading programs with no pictures for

“Treasure Island”, “Moby Dick” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” of which I used my own voice for dubbing the sound which can be used immediately as I have not applied for a copyright for them.

Philip is willing to teach anybody the process that he used to produce these movies. You can reach him at the address philip5147 [@] yahoo.com.

[more on this …]

Tags: education, hack, human computer interaction, linguistics, new technology